Sept. 4, 1964 - Britain’s Beatles popped out of their security blanket for 30 minutes tonight in Milwaukee and strummed and drummed another adolescent throng through a shriekfest.
Exhausted, pleased, and lung-worn were the 11,500 teenagers who jammed the Milwaukee Arena for the Beatles’ concert.
Disappointed were the 700 fans left waiting at the airport terminal gate when the Beatles flew in and were whisked out the back way without so much as a chance to wave at the waiting worshipers.
Stung by a Beatle criticism was the Milwaukee police department.
Paul McCartney told a news conference it was “a lousy trick” by the police to start the Beatles on the way to their hotel without a chance to “drive past the kids.” He added, “It was a dirty, lying policeman who said it was our idea.”
John Lennon missed the conference because of a sore throat. But he donned the Beatles’ traditional suit and pulled on his high-heeled boots for the quartet’s march onto the stage to sing and play and wiggle and hop in the way that bedlam is born.
Their much-amplified sounds never did rise above the frenzied screams that surged through the hall. Their followers broke their constant wail only to shout “No, No, No,” when the Beatles said their next selection would be the last.
But the crowd had been witness to what it wanted to see and hear.
Lennon sparked the performance with funny gestures, George Harrison cast a wry smile as he played, Ringo Starr got a chance to sing, and McCartney exuded infectious energy.
Some girls were left in a stupor, others in tears, a few near hysteria — and 17 lay flat on their backs. Ten of those treated at a Red Cross first aid station had fainted, and seven had nosebleeds and bruises.
There were no incidents and no arrests as 150 police officers kept watch in the Arena.
The Beatles, one of the biggest British noises in this country since General Cornwallis’s roadshow folded at Yorktown in 1781, are headed tomorrow for Chicago and another concert in their U.S. tour.
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