Memories didn’t lose meaning
Jeanne Brown and her cousin Sue could see Candlestick Park in the distance when the car Brown’s uncle was driving broke down on Highway 101. Panic ensued as the 13-year-old Beatlemaniacs imagined missing the biggest concert of their young lives.
“A carload of teenagers pulled over and offered to give us a ride,” Brown recalls. “My uncle and dad seemed happy to let us go with these strangers, so off we went. I don’t think that would have happened if our moms had been there.”
The Aug. 29, 1966, concert was already a huge event for the then-San Bruno resident and thousands of others who paid $4 to $6.50 to see the band. The San Francisco concert turned into a much bigger deal months, years and decades later, as it became clearer that the 30-minute set on the infield of the Giants’ chilly ballpark had been the band’s last commercial show. The Beatles stopped touring that year and broke up in 1970, and hopes of a reunion ended with John Lennon’s death in 1980.
Paul McCartney returns Thursday to play what will likely be the last concert at Candlestick Park. To reconstruct the Beatles’ 1966 show, we asked readers who attended to send in their memories. More than three dozen concertgoers responded with surprisingly detailed stories, offering memories of everything from the direction of the wind (blowing toward the first base side of the ballpark) to the route of the Muni buses, which carried the tag “Beatles Special.”
Perhaps the greatest misconception: The Beatles’ final concert was technically a great show. Witnesses say a combination of the shrill fan screaming, poor concert sound — especially on the third base side — and poor stage placement probably doomed the quality from the beginning. Fans had to endure a roster of mostly uninspiring opening acts. And the band played on a platform behind second base, ensuring that pretty much everyone in the park had a poor seat.
Ernie Vasquez was a 14-year-old screaming teenage girl at the show, with
one of the better views from behind home plate.
“The concert was short, the sound system was awful and the boys were not very personable,” she said. “Even at that time, I knew the concert was not very good, but I also knew I had attended something very special. Believe me when I say, if you put on a concert like that today, you would be laughed right out of the park.”
Joe Nesbitt was also 14 and took a Greyhound bus from Monterey to San Francisco to see the band.
“The only bit of showmanship was when McCartney intro’ed ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ and swung a boom (microphone) around that locked into position in front of Ringo’s face just as he began singing,” Nesbitt remembers. “The 11-song set was over in half an hour, finishing with ‘Long Tall Sally,’ and Lennon promising, ‘We’ll see you next year!’ ”
Only a few readers spoke fondly of the actual performance. But for those who attended, especially as preteens or young teens, the day is still remembered in magical terms.
While the stadium itself appeared to be half-empty, the clubhouse where the band gathered before the show was a madhouse. Joan Baez was there, as were the children of many connected politicians.
Gus Tham, a batboy for the Giants that season, arrived early with the promise that he would meet the band if he prepared the clubhouse. He cherishes a photo from the night posing with his siblings and Ringo Starr, taken by famed rock photographer Jim Marshall.
“We had some good laughs with the Beatles, with Ringo being the most outgoing with us … and my sister getting a baseball signed by all four,” Tham says. “There is actually quite an urban legend around how many baseballs the Beatles signed during that final stadium tour, and autographed Beatle baseballs from that tour are like the holy grail for collectors.”
The buzz before the show was huge. San Francisco radio station KYA gave away hundreds of tickets, with young fans staying up all hours to be the 10th, 11th or 12th caller and win a pair of tickets to see the band.
Susan Koop had a pact with her brother Jerry, taking turns making calls to KYA late into the night — with the promise that whoever won the tickets would bring the other sibling. Susan fell asleep in the middle of an early-morning “shift,” and woke up to the sound of her brother celebrating.
“I was beyond ecstatic,” Koop remembers. “Then Jerry broke it to me that our partnership had dissolved the minute I went to sleep, and that the tickets were now his and that he planned on taking his new girlfriend. And that’s exactly what he did.”
The stories of not making it to the concert are some of the most memorable. Terry Dilbeck was featured in The Chronicle two weeks ago; the Rohnert Park resident had a ticket, but missed the show at the last minute when his sister’s boyfriend (and ride to the concert) got grounded.
Norman Maslov received tickets from his friend’s dad, but only if one of Maslov’s parents could drive.
“I still remember asking my mother if I could go, and her reply still reverberates to this day,” Maslov says. “‘Sorry, but you have a drum lesson tonight. If we cancel it in less than 24 hours, we have to pay for it. You can go next year.’ ”
Maslov adds: “That show at Candlestick Park was their last-ever concert. The Beatles never toured again. I no longer play the drums.”
Fans who made it to the show remember tiny details, such as the fact that George Harrison’s shoes didn’t match the rest of the band’s, and Lennon and McCartney apologizing for the
cold. Nancy Sitton took notes right after the show.
“George was rather hoarse and sang ‘If I Needed Someone’ too slowly. Rumored that in L.A. someone stepped on his foot with a spiked heel,” Sitton wrote after the show.
“John was very pale and weak in voice. He waved to the boys who climbed the center field fence and ran toward the stage.”
One of those 30 or so boys who stormed the fence — it was still years before a stadium remodel would make this impossible — also wrote to The Chronicle with his memory. Ira Bray said the act wasn’t premeditated; a few members of the group hanging out outside the stadium rushed to climb the fence, and Bray reflexively followed. He turned back before reaching Paul, John, George and Ringo, but was still caught by the SFPD and heard a police officer say the words, “Take him down to the station.”
“Terrible words to my ears. The thought of my father getting a call to come bail his son out of jail was simply more than I could handle,” Bray says. “Luckily, fathers themselves to teenagers, I imagine, they saw the intended effect of their words and instead gave me a gentle push out the gate with a gruff, ‘Don’t try to come back in!’ ”
The Beatles left the field in an armored car, and later took a Pan Am flight away from San Francisco — and from touring life forever. Teens who stuck around said the post-show silence was eerie. Cleanup crews let the kids hang out to collect a few mementos from the show, most of which would later be misplaced.
Denise Leonetti says that among other things, she collected cigarette butts from the stage and McCartney’s amplifier cord; her brother threw it all out when he cleaned the garage five years later. Dan Orth says he wanted to pick up some of the hundreds of ticket stubs lying around — now going for more than $500 on eBay — but didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of his high-class date.
Candlestick traffic was typically heavy before and after the show. And decades before the cell phone would become commonplace, reunions between teenagers and their parents were often chaotic.
“I don’t remember how we found our dads after the show,” says Jeanne Brown, the girl whose uncle’s car broke down. “But I do remember climbing an 8-foot Cyclone fence in the rush.”
Brown made two T-shirts using the image of her 1966 ticket stub — one for her husband, Keith — and they wore them to McCartney’s AT&T Park show in 2010.
Many of the readers who wrote in are attending McCartney’s Farewell to Candlestick show this week.
Maslov, who missed the concert for his drum lesson, recently moved from San Francisco to Seattle. But he’ll be back for McCartney. Dilbeck and his son Kris, a musician in the North Bay band Frobeck, will attend the show together. Terry Dilbeck is bringing his unused ticket, with the long-shot hope that McCartney might sign it and bring closure to his missed Beatles show tale.
The 1966 Beatles concert was loud, short, chaotic, cold … and still cherished. Former batboy Tham has a pretty good theory about why so many people think of it so fondly after so many years.
“The fact that it turned out to be the Beatles’ last concert truly made it something even more special, but in a sense, it also represented a real beginning to many years of being close to music here in San Francisco,” Tham says. “It was right after this that the whole scene exploded upon us, and it was just a great ride for decades after that.”
Koop, who lost out on Beatles memories to her brother’s girlfriend, has another coda. Her brother died just a few years after the show, and just recently her mother pulled his wallet out of his closet.
“Lo and behold, one of the Beatles tickets was in it, preserved perfectly over the decades,” Koop says. “I now have that framed ticket in my office, and it reminds me fondly of my brother, and serves as a souvenir of that much younger version of myself.”