18 September 12 - 18, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents 60 years on, fans recall the Beatles’ only Dallas concert. BY CARLY MAY GRAVLEY I n the wee hours of the morning of Sept. 18, 1964, the Brit- ish invaded Dallas and were welcomed by locals in a manner that would have made Paul Revere turn in his grave. The cherished insurgents were The Beatles, and they came to play their first and only Dallas concert at Memorial Auditorium. Dallas was the last stop of their whirlwind North American tour, and the recently dubbed City of Hate’s reputation preceded their visit. Journalist Larry Kane was covering the North American tour on the road with The Beatles and was on the jet with them to Dallas. At one point, John Lennon nervously asked him if he had been to Dallas before. When Kane nodded, Lennon asked, “A lot of guns, huh?” Keep in mind, their visit was less than a year after the as- sassination of President John F. Kennedy. This, combined with the prevalence of shoot-em-up Westerns and the hay- wire reception they’d received at every stop of the tour so far, didn’t exactly lull them into a sense of security. The anxiety came to a zenith hours later as the band’s limo traveled through Dealey Plaza on the way to their hotel. A spooked Lennon asked again if they were safe. This fear would set the tone for the 22 hours they would spend in Dallas. The Dallas Police Department spared no expense in keeping The Beatles safe. Twenty-nine officers were as- signed to guard their suite at the Cabana Hotel and more than 200 officers were present the night of the concert. On the fans’ end, it would be an uphill battle to change The Beatles’ mind about Dallas being a violent, chaotic city. While some Dallas Beatlemaniacs went out of their way to extend a warm and orderly welcome, others would be the reason the band stayed holed up in their hotel room for most of their trip. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reportedly remarked that the crowd was “wonderful” after the concert. But George Harrison painted a less flattering picture of the ex- perience in his memoir, I Me Mine: “Dallas was another madness.” ALL MY LOVING B y the fall of 1964, Beatlemania was crashing over Amer- ica like a tsunami. The band had made its historic ap- pearance on The Ed Sullivan Show the previous February. In August, the film A Hard Day’s Night had opened to critical and commercial acclaim. Amid the band’s exhaus- tive victory lap, their first North American tour captivated both fans and the media at every stop. “When people find out that I’m as old as I am, and that I saw the Beatles live in Dallas, they ask me what music was like at the time,” says Danielle Wilson, who was 15 when she attended the Dallas show. “It was pretty stuffy. I was a little bit too young for Elvis, and I certainly didn’t like Frank Sina- tra or any of those old crooners, because that was just not with it. But when The Beatles came along, it’s like they blew music wide open.” Dallas fans had been following the tour every stop of the way, and some used the time to mobilize the troops. Elaine McAfee Bender was 14 and living in Fort Worth in 1964. She had known about The Beatles from the radio and magazines, but like millions of people, she was awestruck by their Ed Sullivan appearance. “I was just completely blown away,” she says. “I loved the songs. I loved the look. I liked the long hair. Of course, my grandmother and my mother were very critical of long hair.” After finding manager Brian Epstein’s information in a magazine, Bender wrote to him asking for permission to start an official fan club. Epstein obliged, and the North Texas Beatles Fan Club was born. “We were ahead of the whole American fan club opera- tion,” Bender says with pride. “That was after us. And they al- lowed us to stay with the English administration, and I got to be friends with a lot of people there. At some point, they asked me to register with the American fan club, which I did, and I would get instructions from England and from America.” Meanwhile, two focused and dedicated 15-year-olds were making moves of their own in Dallas. “Stephanie Pinter and I were good friends, and we were both very much enamored with their music,” Yolanda Her- nandez says. “We kind of went Beatle crazy when they came on the scene.” Pinter, who could not be reached for this story, recounted her version of events in a letter to writer and collector Mark Naboshek in 1991. “The Beatles were in our lives to stay,” she wrote. “We would discuss which Beatle we liked the most, which Beatle had the cutest personality and all the other cliches I’m sure you have read numerous times.” Pinter’s mother was the one who suggested they start a fan club, having just read about the formation of the Ameri- can club in the news. Hernandez wrote to the club’s head- quarters in New York requesting chapter membership; weeks later, it was granted. The girls were now co-presi- dents of The Beatles Fan Club USA, Chapter 24. They would ▼ Music AP Photo WE SAW THEM STANDING THERE The Beatles perform at the Memorial Coliseum in Dallas, Texas, Sept. 18, 1964, on their second U.S. tour.
