| The Beatles' 1966 USA Tour | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tour by The Beatles | ||
| Locations | North America | |
| Start date | August 12, 1966 | |
| End date | August 29, 1966 | |
| Legs | 1 | |
| Shows | 14 | |
| The Beatles tour chronology | ||
| The Beatles' 1966 World Tour |
1966 US Tour |
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The Beatles staged their third concert tour of America in August 1966, and it was the last commercial tour they ever underwent. Lasting a total of fourteen shows, with thirteen shows in American venues and one in Toronto, it was plagued with backlash regarding the controversy of John Lennon's remarks about Christianity, death threats, and the band's own dissatisfaction with the noise levels and their ability to perform live. Although it was a commercial success, ticket sales had noticeably declined in number. After the tour, they became a studio band and focused exclusively on record production.
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In March 1966, Maureen Cleave interviewed John Lennon and the rest of the Beatles as part of a London Evening Standard cover story on the subject of "How Does A Beatle Live?" During the Lennon interview at Kenwood, Cleave noted Lennon's interest in Christianity and religions, to which he replied:
Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first—rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."ref [1]</ref>[2]
Although the article went largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom, the American magazine Datebook printed the quote containing Lennon's words on the front cover of its August issue.[3][4][5]
Fearful of the possibility that protesters or radicals would try to kill them for their supposed "anti-Christ" stance, the group's manager Brian Epstein contemplated canceling the tour altogether.[6] However, during the tour's stop in Chicago, he arraigned for a press conference to address the controversy and for Lennon to explain himself. Lennon stated that he was only commenting on the decline among churchgoers, that he made a mistake in using the Beatles' following in comparison with that of organized religion, and that he "never meant it as a lousy anti-religious thing."
Despite numerous explanations by Beatles' press agents and Lennon's televised apology, the Memphis city council voted to cancel the August 19 afternoon and evening concerts rather than have "municipal facilities be used as a forum to ridicule anyone's religion." The Ku Klux Klan nailed a Beatles album to a wooden cross, vowing "vengeance", and conservative groups staged further public burnings of Beatles records.[7][8] Despite the fact that it had originally been canceled, Epstein agreed to proceed with the concert in Memphis. Although no problems took place during the afternoon show, an audience member threw a lit firecracker onstage that did not hit any of the members, but the band believed that somebody had tried to shoot them [6].
When the firecracker went off, the Beatles' press agent Tony Barrow recalled that "everybody, all of us at the side of the stage, including the three Beatles on stage, all looked immediately at John Lennon. We would not at that moment have been surprised to see that guy go down. John had half-heartedly joked about the Memphis concert in an earlier press conference, and when we got there everything seemed to be controlled and calm, but underneath somehow, there was this nasty atmosphere. It was a very tense and pressured kind of day."[9]
Lasting between 30 to 40 minutes per show, the typical set list was as follows (with lead singers appropriately noted):
| Date | City | Country | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 August 1966 | Chicago | United States | International Amphitheatre |
| 13 August 1966 | Detroit | Olympia Stadium | |
| 14 August 1966 | Cleveland | Municipal Stadium | |
| 15 August 1966 | Washington DC | D.C. Stadium | |
| 16 August 1966 | Philadelphia | Philadelphia Stadium | |
| 17 August 1966 | Toronto | Canada | Maple Leaf Gardens |
| 18 August 1966 | Boston | United States | Suffolk Downs Racetrack |
| 19 August 1966 | Memphis | Mid-South Coliseum (evening performance originally canceled, but went ahead) | |
| 21 August 1966 | Cincinnati | Crosley Field | |
| 22 August 1966 | St Louis | Busch Stadium | |
| 23 August 1966 | New York | Shea Stadium | |
| 25 August 1966 | Seattle | Seattle Coliseum | |
| 28 August 1966 | Los Angeles | Dodger Stadium | |
| 29 August 1966 | San Francisco | Candlestick Park |
Concert footage of the Candlestick Park concert is included in The Beatles Anthology.
The controversy prior to and during the Memphis concert/firecracker incident is depicted in the 1985 television film John and Yoko: A Love Story. In an anachronism of the time period, the Beatles are depicted as wearing the custom grey "Beatle suits" that they stopped wearing in 1965 and playing "Help!", which they never played on the tour.
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