Moderately Interesting Morning Fact Aug. 15, 2012: Beatlemania Edition

On this day in 1965, The Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York, New York, an event later regarded as the birth of stadium rock. From Wikipedia: The deafening level of crowd noise coupled with the distance between the band and the audience meant that nobody in the stadium could hear much of anything. Vox had specially designed 100-watt amplifiers for this tour and it was still not anywhere near loud enough, and so the Beatles used the house amplification system. Lennon described the noise as “wild” and also twice as deafening when the Beatles performed. Not being able to hear each other or even themselves, The Beatles just played through a list of songs nervously, not knowing what kind of sound was being produced. At the end of the show (during “I’m Down“), Lennon saw the whole show as being so ridiculous that he just began playing the keyboard with his elbows while the whole group laughed hysterically.

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