Can You Hear Us? How The Beatles And Shea Stadium Created A New Arena

On this day, forty years ago, The Beatles drew a record breaking 55,000 at New York's Shea Stadium for what was the largest gathering of people to witness a single performing group. It marked a new beginning for The Beatles but also an end.



In the music business world, The Beatles at Shea Stadium marked a whole new avenue to be explored in terms of concerts. The Beatles gave birth to what would become stadium rock. The highest price for a ticket that day was $5.65. No service charge? Well, how about a Federal Tax of $0.40 tagged onto a City Tax of $0.25? Go on, gather your wits and take a deep breath as you read over those numbers again. By today's concert grossing numbers, the $304,000 earned at Shea Stadium ($160,000 of that to The Beatles) is mere pocket change to the likes of The Rolling Stones or even to Sir Paul McCartney. It's easy to imagine the field day that promoters and Ticketmaster would have had if The Beatles were still present in 2005. The Beatles raised the artistic and commercial bar for others to try and equal. To this day, The Beatles hold the record for the highest album sales in the U.S. with Garth Brooks holding second place.

The performance at Shea Stadium is often remembered as an event rather than a performance simply because of the fact that the incredible volume of the audience drowned out the 30 minute set by The Beatles. Backed by the upgraded Vox AC-100 amplifiers (specially made by Vox for the 1965 tour to replace the band's 30 watt amplifiers) and the stadium's PA system, The Beatles tried everything they could to combat the deafening screams. The little club band from Liverpool, in a way, lost their innocence that day. The kind of shows they were used to giving, where people came to hear the music, were suddenly wiped away. The Beatles probably could have gone on touring without ever plugging their instruments in again. By August 30, 1966, The Beatles would perform their last ever concert in front of a paying audience at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. Although The Beatles would return to Shea Stadium one more time on August 23, 1966, it is the 1965 performance that is remembered the most.

The Beatles Setlist At Shea Stadium - August 15, 1965:
Twist And Shout
She's A Woman
I Feel Fine
Dizzy Miss Lizzy
Ticket To Ride
Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby
Can't Buy Me Love
Baby's In Black
I Wanna Be Your Man
A Hard Day's Night
Help!
I'm Down

In the years following the break up of The Beatles, other acts in rock music would rise and go beyond the accomplishments of the band in the realm of concerts. The band's Shea Stadium record would be broken in less than ten years by another U.K. act known as Led Zeppelin. From baseball fields to football fields, Led Zeppelin thought bigger and their popularity had such clout that on May 5, 1973, the band attracted 56,800 to Tampa Stadium in Florida. At the height of The Who's career, the band scored a milestone by being the first band to perform inside Detroit's Pontiac Stadium on December 6, 1975, in front of a crowd of 75,962 that paid $8.00 a ticket.

Led Zeppelin would later visit that same venue almost two years later and surpass The Who's record with an attendance of 76,229. Ticket cost? $10.50. But in the end, it is a Beatle who holds the record for the largest paying audience ever. Before he was a knight of the British Empire, Paul McCartney was twisting and shouting on April 21, 1990, in front of an estimated crowd of 180,000-184,000 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Since The Beatles at Shea Stadium the ticket prices have risen and the venues have gotten bigger. Shea Stadium and The Beatles opened new doors for concerts, for better and for worse--a face value of $450.00 and some Ticketmaster service charges allows you the opportunity to see The Rolling Stones at Chicago's Soldier Field. The sacrifice of The Beatles live show led to new creative heights in the recording studio. While it is easy to wonder "What if?" with The Beatles, it is nice to know that in the end the world of music got a body of work still unparralled today.