Aug. 31, 1964 - The Beatles hid in their hotel rooms today, safe from the hordes of screaming young females who jammed Convention Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., and the streets around it last night.
After a one-shot appearance, the four British mopheads — Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and John Lennon — remain in Atlantic City until Wednesday night when they travel 60 miles to perform in Philadelphia.
They won’t budge from the hotel for the intervening three days, according to their manager, Derek Taylor.
“They’ll stay in the hotel the whole time, even if it’s for three months,” Taylor said, eyeing the crowd of nearly a thousand young girls who yowled into the early morning hours outside the Lafayette Motor Inn where the Beatles are staying.
The British rock ’n’ rollers with the dishmop haircuts sang in Convention Hall last night on the same platform where President Johnson accepted the Democratic nomination three nights earlier.
Instead of the lusty cheers of delegates, the hall shook last night to the shrieks of 19,000 Beatle fans, mostly teenage girls. Occasionally, a twang from the guitars of the group broke through the screams. Once or twice, the words of the song could be heard.
A policeman near the stage struck his fingers into his ears.
When the Beatle concert was done, the foursome ducked behind stage to an elevator, then to a police car that went the wrong way on a one-way street to evade thronging Beatle fans.
Atlantic City Hospital was also more crowded after the concert. Eight young girls were treated there for hysteria. “They just walk around in a daze,” a nurse remarked when asked to describe them.
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