Friday, August 12, 2016
The Beatles' Last Tour
On this date in 1966, the Beatles began the last leg of what proved to be their last-ever concert tour. It was dogged by controversy in every town over John's "we're bigger than Jesus" remarks. He had to apologize at a press conference prior to the first stop at the old International Amphitheatre on the South Side of Chicago, which truly is the baddest part of town. Even though "Revolver" had just been released, they played nothing from that album since their music was now so complex. A number of ballpark gigs were booked, but there were quite a few empty seats. Most of those venues are now demolished. From Chicago they went to the Detroit Olympia (former home of the Red Wings), Cleveland Stadium (the old Mistake by the Lake), DC (now RFK) Stadium in Washington, JFK Stadium in Philadelphia (now the site of the Wells Fargo Center), Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, Suffolk Downs horse racing track near Boston, and a disastrous show at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. At that Bible Belt gig, death threats were made beforehand, numerous protesters were outside and someone threw a firecracker on stage. The boys looked at each other to see which of them had been shot. Paul was the lone holdout for still playing live, but that incident sealed the deal for them to stop touring. To be continued...
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2 comments:
When John Lennon made that "bigger than Jesus" statement he was not bashing religion and Christianity so much as he was expressing disdain and amusement at the nature of idolatry---the way the modern-day public idolizes mortal celebrities as if they possess something supernatural or metaphysical.
And it was a good thing and practical decision on their part to stop touring. Concerts are never about the music anyway. They're also about idolizing, and the audiences expect "their" performers to ham it up for them. Frankly, the time and efforts wasted on them actually stifles creativity. They figured it out then while also coming up with brilliant concepts and just knew it had to be one or the other: "The studio or the stage?".
They just about had to remove themselves from the public eye. The fans were getting so out of control by that point. Yeah, once you become a public figure you give up a certain degree of privacy, but the craziness they had to deal with was ridiculous. Elvis had to retreat farther and farther inside Graceland.
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