An undated handout photo shows members of the band The Beatles walk and sing as they are filmed during a promotional video for their song Rain. An undated handout photo shows members of the band The Beatles walk and sing as they are filmed during a promotional video for their song Rain.
Washington - It may be more than 40 years since they ceased to exist as a functioning band, but the enduring power of the Beatles will be underlined again over the coming weeks as the US gears up to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Fab Four’s first footsteps on American soil.
This month’s most significant date will be tomorow (February 9), which marks an exact half century since John, Paul, George and Ringo appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.
This was the seismic event that beamed the group into the homes of an astonishing 73 million prime-time viewers, and grabbed the attention of a nation that had been introduced to rock ‘n’ roll by the hip-shaking antics of Elvis Presley on the same Sunday night programme eight years earlier.
The performance will be marked with a concert in Los Angeles on January 27, with appearances from acts including Eurythmics and Alicia Keys, and broadcast as The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute To The Beatles on the evening of the anniversary on CBS, which was home to The Ed Sullivan Show for 23 years.
But fans seeking a closer glimpse of Beatles heritage can still visit the place that framed that iconic footage. The band was filmed at what was then CBS-TV Studio 50, a grand New York venue renamed The Ed Sullivan Theatre in 1968.
Still in operation at 1697 Broadway, this 1 200-seat dame is now most famously the setting for one of Sullivan’s television successors, The Late Show with David Letterman.
The Beatles actually played three consecutive editions of The Ed Sullivan Show, a clever piece of marketing arranged by manager Brian Epstein, who waived the prospect of a big fee for a single appearance in favour of the increased exposure of a trio of shows.
Not to be outdone by the Big Apple, Washington DC will mark its own key Fab Four moment in February. The American capital was the setting for the first “proper” Beatles concert in the US when the band reeled off a 40-minute set at the Washington Coliseum on February 11, 1964.
Pitched at 1 146 Third Street, the building will stage a tribute concert precisely 50 years on, with performances by Beatles impersonators and an exhibition of images from the original show, shot by photographer Mike Mitchell, who was an 18-year-old freelancer at the time (details at beatlesyesterdayandtoday.com).
This will be a return to the spotlight for the Washington Coliseum, which has endured a mixed history since those heady days of the mid-1960s.
Concerts were banned at the venue following a riot in 1967, and it fell into disuse after bigger, more modern spaces were opened in and around the city in the 70s.
Over the last 40 years, it has found new purpose as a makeshift jail and a rubbish collection depot, and now serves as a car park. But for one night, it will revisit the time when it was filled with screaming fans.
Beatles aficionados seeking to celebrate their breakthrough year on the far side of the Atlantic can find a further site of remembrance a little further west in mountainous Denver.
The capital of Colorado witnessed another early Fab Four extravaganza on August 26, 1964, when the band played to some 7 000 people at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
This natural bowl, west of the city, is still one of America’s most recognisable concert venues – and puts on regular re-enactments of that famous show.
– The Daily Mail