maybe a couple thousand bucks…
Is it true that 3 of the Beatles actually agreed to Lorne Michaels’ offer just for the hell of it, but one of them (I think John) either couldn’t be contacted or said no?
I saw The Beatles play the Queens Theatre in Blackpool in 1963. I don’t remember the date of the performance but it was either 21 July or 4 August. Either way, I was 14 years old.
The theatre was not large. There were maybe 1,000 to 1,500 in the audience. A further 4,000 to 5,000 fans without tickets remained outside in the street.
I can’t recall the playlist but the concert took place before the release of She Loves You, so by this time the band had enjoyed only 3 chart entries: Love Me Do, Please Please Me and From Me To You. The rest of the songs would have come from the first album, released in the spring of the same year.
The overriding memory is the noise. Noise was all there was. I went with my best friend but the vast majority of the audience were young teenage girls. They screamed from start to finish. It was a madhouse.
We were in the circle. Occasionally we could pick out the strains of a guitar or a drumbeat, but by and large we heard nothing but the voices of the girls around us. Those we could see had tears streaming down their faces and some were stuffing handkerchiefs in their mouths. They were hysterical.
The Beatles played Blackpool seven times in two months in 1963, four times at the ABC, where subsequently the Rolling Stones would cause a riot, and three times at the Queens.
We paid nothing. My mother was working at the theatre and one of her perks was a couple of free tickets from time to time.
I saw the Beatles in July or August 1963 but I didn’t hear them. Nobody did. It just wasn’t possible.
When Michaels made his offer Paul was visiting John and they were watching and they seriously thought about going down to the NBC studios. A few weeks later George Harrison was the musical guest and there wasa very funny scene of him talking with Lorne about the whole money issue and Lorne said something like, “Well, it was supposed to be $3000 for all 4 of you, not $3000 each.” To which George replies, “Well, $750 is pretty chintzy.”
I’d have to see them, so I’d pay a couple hundred if it was necessary, but I’d want to hear the music too.
I’ve got this kidney I’m not using…
Kidneys? Amateur. I can think of some more important organs I’d gladly give up to see the Beatles live! Do the words “Rocky Mountain oyster” mean anything to you? I don’t see why it’s really necessary to have two of those…
Mobo beat me to it.
$3,000 (and they can split it anyway they want, if they want to give a smaller cut to Ringo, that’s OK with me).
What he said. I’d give up free Beatles tickets for the rest of my life for one Nirvana show.
Zero. The Beatles have never been a favorite.
Now, if you could get The Police back together again…
Feh. The only reason I’d even take Nirvana tickets would be to scalp them to some poor deluded soul. 
Correction: Some deluded soul with money. Then I’d have more for the Beatles tickets. 
Just curious, is “feh” a Yiddishism?
Yeah, fuck them Beatles. What’re the Bay City Rollers doing these days?
Also, for those who don’t think the Beatles show would be good because they’d be old—I saw Paul in May, and let me say that it was the most amazing, terrific, astounding, wonderful things I have ever seen in my entire life. The show was absolutely flawless and he rocked…and verily, he rocked hard.
I think I saw God that night…it was like a religious experience.