London • 9pm show

LONDON turns on the BEATLEMANIA

I AM writing this only minutes after leaving the Beatles’ package show at London’s Finsbury Park Astoria on Saturday. And I do not really know where to begin. All I know is that this was the wildest, rip-it-up Beatles’ performance I have watched in over two years. Girls have been running amok on the stage chased by hefty attendants. Some were hysterical and I have just seen one girl carried out of the theatre screaming and kicking and with tears streaming down her contorted face.

Finsbury Park Astoria holds 3,000 people and I swear that almost every one of them has been standing on a seat. Now, after the show, some of the seats in the front stalls lie battered out of existence. They tell me the hysteria and the fan scenes were even worse at Hammersmith last night. I did not think I would say this again but, without question, BEATLEMANIA IS BACK.

Don’t get me wrong. In saying that, I have not been swayed simply by the screams. In the N.M.E. last week I told of the tremendous reception given to the Beatles in Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester.

But these London concerts are different. I have not seen hysteria like this at a Beatles’ show since the word Beatlemania erupted into headlines.

The total of fainting cases for London (Hammersmith and Finsbury Park) now stands at more than 200 for the two nights, a fantastic number compared to the quieter reaction from fans who saw their shows in other parts of the country.

I said last week that Beatles’ fans had become less wild and more sophisticated. I was wrong. They are more sophisticated but not in London.

George Harrison staggered off the stage soaking in perspiration as he told me: “This is one of the most incredible shows we’ve done. Not just because of the audience, but because they’re Londoners!”

This is the funny thing. It’s always been the other way round — fantastic in the North, but a little bit cool in London. “It’s . . . well . . . incredible. It’s happening all over again.”

Not that it ever stopped happening — but I know what George meant. The lads were giving that little extra something and they had all the stops out. Moments later John Lennon burst into the wings and with that dry Lennon wit he said: “What happened? Did we win a prize or something?”

Between the shows the police erected barriers and steered traffic away through the slum-clearance area. The Beatles relaxed quietly in their dressing room and watched TV with their guests for the evening — the Walker Brothers and Helen Shapiro.

Helen didn’t seem to say much. She just sat there watching the characters on the screen muttering to themselves. No one had turned off the sound.

Slumped on a settee were the three Walker Brothers, John Maus’ attractive wife, and John Lennon. Ringo sat crouched on the floor, hidden by the settee. George went in and out of the room. Paul sat on his own.

Mostly, it was technical talk about guitars. Walker John smilingly wondered when one of the Yardbirds would pay him for a guitar he’d sold him, until the comedy series “Get Smart” began on BBC-1. Then the room filled up and silence reigned apart from roars of laughter from time to time. Ringo seemed to enjoy it most.

Press officer Tony Barrow sat in a corner of the room nursing a cold — the result of a hectic week’s travelling with the tour that would have undermined the stamina of a superman. Only the Beatles seemed able to take it.

At this point it seems opportune to offer a small word of praise to all the “back room” people who have been on this fantastically successful Beatles tour: people you could never hear of like Tony Barrow, and Alf, the Beatles’ driver; and Mal and Neil, their road managers.

Without them I doubt whether the group would have made many of the venues, because it so happened that the dates coincided with some of the worst weather of the winter.

One example was at Birmingham: the Beatles arrived at the theatre TEN MINUTES after they had been due to go on-stage. Everyone backstage was frantic. Bad fog had held the group up and all kinds of ruses were being tried to keep the audience happy and unknowing; the Moody Blues extended their set and there were two intervals, instead of the normal one!

Eventually the Beatles arrived and found all their stage gear — black suits, boots and polo-necked sweaters— all laid out and ready to be jumped into!

With split-second timing they changed, paused to get their breath back, and then rushed on to the stage as if nothing had happened.

Their welcome was fantastic. A high-pitched barrage of screams that might even have driven a bat deaf!

But as John Lennon told me: “Even that couldn’t compare with all that’s been happening here in London tonight. We used to think Londoners had that cool we’ve seen-it-all-before outlook. But we take it all back.”

And so do I!

From New Musical Express – December 17, 1965