Before Beyoncé and Taylor Swift were John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Fab Four. The spearhead of the British Invasion. Then, and probably still now, the most popular rock ’n’ roll band in the world.
Wednesday is the 60th anniversary of the Beatles’ performance at Comiskey Park. You read that right — the Lads from Liverpool played at the Baseball Palace of the World in Bridgeport, not at the future national historical landmark at Clark and Addison streets. With the band’s popularity at global proportions, the event at the time was one of the most anticipated musical performances in Chicago history.
The actual performance was the rock ’n’ roll equivalent of a day-night doubleheader. The band appeared in the afternoon before a crowd of 25,000 people and again in the evening before 37,000. Note that the White Sox were then averaging only about 14,000 fans per game.
The Beatles had arrived in Chicago red-hot, in the middle of a wildly popular national tour that began with the famous concert in New York’s Shea Stadium. They were riding the crest of popularity from multiple No. 1 hits, and the release, only a few days earlier, of their second movie, “Help!” Their journey to the Comiskey concert was typical of the bedlam that accompanied their performances.
Band members were flying into Chicago from Houston, the site of their most recent concert. According to news reports, they were not allowed to land at O’Hare airport due to the authorities’ concern that their presence, and the associated fan attention, might play havoc on airport operations. They were diverted to Midway and had to make an arduous cross-town drive to their accommodations at the Sahara Inn North at 3939 Mannheim Road, next to O’Hare, where they had stayed during an initial 1964 visit to Chicago.
According to news reports, band management had avoided prime downtown hotels for security purposes. Yet their plan was reportedly betrayed by leaks from the hotel staff, which quickly led to pandemonium. Throngs of young fans swarmed the hotel, forcing the band to leave through a back corridor, an ongoing occupational hazard for the Beatles.
According to the Beatles’ recorded history, the Comiskey Park set list was a familiar one to fans of the band’s early years: a short version of “Twist and Shout,” followed by “She’s a Woman,” “I Feel Fine.” “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” “Ticket To Ride,” “Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Baby’s in Black,” “Act Naturally,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Help!” and “I’m Down.” It’s a fair bet that a large percentage of Chicago baby boomers could sing the lyrics to each of those songs on a moment’s notice.
In many ways, the summer of 1965 represented the height of Beatlemania and the hair-pulling, foot-stomping, stage-crashing euphoria that it typified. The band would, of course, go on to greater commercial and artistic success and acclaim. But it was changing, the times were changing and the music was changing, too. “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” arrived in late 1965 and early 1966, respectively. “Sgt. Pepper” and “Magical Mystery Tour” followed in 1967.
The Beatles stopped touring at the end of 1966 and disbanded in 1970, which makes the Comiskey Park concert a unique moment in time.
Every generation is entitled to its own form of musical rapture. For the baby boomers, it was — and remains — Beatlemania. And it lives on though films such as Martin Scorsese’s “Beatles ’64” and Disney’s “Let it Be”; through documentaries such as “McCartney 3,2,1”; through two new books about Ringo Starr; and through Ringo and Paul McCartney’s constant touring. And the indefatigable McCartney is expected to pack the United Center for his Nov. 24 and 25 concerts.
Old Comiskey Park is of course gone now; they paved that paradise and put up a parking lot. But the location of home plate has been preserved in a faithfully created marble marker, inlaid in the surface of the lot just north of the new Rate Field, by Gate 5 in Lot B at the northeast corner of 35th Street and Shields Avenue.
So the next time you’re at a Sox game, go over and stand in at the home plate marker. Look to the northeast toward an imaginary second base, where the Beatles’ stage was once set up and where the band stood in its classic formation. Then close your eyes for a second and believe in yesterday. When you were just 17. You know what I mean.
Michael Peregrine is a Chicago attorney. His favorite Beatle has always been Paul.
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