Sixty years ago, on February 7th, 1964, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison arrived for the first time in New York City. The group was greeted by a crowd of screaming fans, the majority of them teenagers who cut class that day and were excited to see the group in person for the first time. It was not only the first time the group visited New York, but also the first time the Beatles had ever been in the United States!
For months, American audiences prepared for the arrival of the group. Their single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was the top song since its early release in the US in December of 1963. George, the band’s lead guitarist, would later comment “We heard that our records were selling well in America but it wasn’t until we stepped off the plane … that we understood what was going on. Seeing thousands of kids there to meet us made us realize just how popular we were there.” The group had won over listeners in Great Britain and now were going to try in the United States. They came at a time where the nation needed them, eleven weeks after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. The Beatles seemed like the perfect way to come from that sadness.
Their press conference at the Pan Am lounge was filled with reporters who wanted to get a taste of what the band was like. They asked them questions like, “Why does your music excite them [listeners] so much?” To which Paul replied, “We don’t know, really” and John added, “If we knew we’d form another group and be managers.” The reporters, taking lead of their humorous responses, the questions took a new lead, such as “Are you going to get a haircut at all?” George replied, “I had one yesterday.”
The Beatles would spend the next two days in the Plaza Hotel until they performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. The live show was sold out, 50,000 requests for tickets came for this show, when CBS-Studio 50 only had 700 seats for viewers! Weeks before the show, artists and celebrities tried to find seats for the show. The politician Richard Nixon was able to find a seat for his daughter, Cyntia, while the American composer Leonard Bernstein was not as lucky.
On the show, they captivated American audiences, about 60% of the population tuned in to watch them perform songs like “All My Loving”, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. The other acts who performed that day could not capture the audience’s attention as the group did. One of the acts, Charles Brill, member of a husband and wife comedy team, later commented “We were doing a sketch. We couldn’t hear each other. Because of the screaming.” Despite this, the group’s performance was a success, they had ingrained themselves in American society.
After this event, the Beatles toured around the east coast of the United States. They would play in places like Washington DC’s Washington Coliseum, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Miami, where they would star in another episode of the Ed Sullivan show. In each location, they performed to large crowds of people excited to listen to their music, making each show a success. A few days after their last Ed Sullivan performance in Miami, on February 22, 1964, the Beatles returned to JFK airport where they would board a plane and return to London. They would return home as the conquering heroes who won over American audiences!
