Longtime Las Vegans recall the 1964 concerts and the surrounding hysteria

HA DAY IN THE LIFE OF FANS

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

istoric?

Sure, some of the fans who attended The Beatles’ first and only visit to Las Vegas 50 years ago this week may have had an inkling that it would be historic.

For many — and maybe for most — it was at the very least a great excuse to catch the latest supergroup and a cool way to cap off summer before school resumed, in a town where popular music still was more about the Rat Pack than four English guys with scandalous haircuts.

But historic it was. The Beatles’ 1964 U.S. tour, which came on the heels of the group’s now-iconic performances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” furthered along a revolution in music, politics and pop culture that had already begun, and there would be no turning back.

When The Beatles came to Las Vegas on Aug. 20, 1964, and took to a patio-sized stage in the (appropriately) flying saucer-shaped rotunda at the Las Vegas Convention Center, it was an epic event, both for those lucky enough to be there and those who just happened to be close enough by to experience a bit of, that’s right, history.

••• Glenn Shaw didn’t see the concert. But he and his niece, Linda Shaw Stiles, believe they caught what would have been an early sighting of the group.

Shaw was 20 then and working at a car rental agency at McCarran Airport.