A  H A L F   C E N T U R Y  after they disbanded, it is still difficult to fully recognize how much of a force The Beatles were in shaping — and being shaped by — the 1960s and our sense of the modern world.  Not just changing music, but in transforming the idea and ideals of popular entertainment.  Not just with the songs they wrote, but in how they shifted and dominated the way in which popular music operated as an industry.  Of how music made a new world.  They arrived at just the right moment.  A time of questions, of change, being filled and carried forward with new technologies, and a yearning for something new. 

       Oddly, in retrospect, some of their songs can sound downright quaint, rather than revolutionary.  But after the fact, revolutions often seem more inevitable and not quite so earth-shattering than living through the reality.  Yet The Beatles’ sudden rise to worldwide stardom, their cutting-edge trajectory into popular culture (and protest), everything about them put these four young men 
at the forefront of a decade of change, amidst the birth of our modern, mad, media-driven era.

       All of which is to say:  The Beatles were something else.  Together, and in their individual careers after the breakup.  And they still are.

       Although I was but a youngster singing children’s songs, my older sisters were hooked by these Fab Four, as they arrived in American for the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 — and burst forth with their own movies, mega-live concerts, new LP releases, and waves of new ideas, from acoustic to studio-produced. 

       My sisters even promised to make Beatles haircuts of black yarn for my brother and me.  But that didn’t happen — something wrong with the pattern, I was told (but in reality a useful life lesson in when to believe promises, and not).  The “hair” never materialized for John and me, though later of course we wore our own hair long, in tune with the times.  But there is a photo (below), famous within our family, of my dad, a young college teacher, with his already thinning hair brushed forward, holding up two Beatles' albums as though he might become a fifth member of the group. 
        

       And doesn’t everyone have a Beatles story, past generations and new?  Of discovering or being overwhelmed, impressed (or not) with these daringly original yet classical rock sounds, at the time or years later.  Ballads, love songs, sonic stories.  Backed by orchestral sounds, by electronic trailblazing, by creations of imagination.

       The Beatles came to Northeast Ohio twice, during the first and the last of only four North American Tours this fabulous group performed.  In Cleveland, as in many other towns, something like a riot broke out each time they came. 

       They appeared here first on September 15, 1964, at Cleveland’s Public Auditorium — when police stopped them in mid-performance and ordered the group to leave the stage due to the audience’s unruly actions and screaming. 

       They returned on August 8, 1966, to play Cleveland Municipal Stadium, with fans overrunning police barricades and nearly stopping the show (again). 

       Their concert tours to the United States numbered just four.  With the growing, unchanneled, difficult-to-control energy of their fans helping convince the group to curtail future touring — too dangerous for everyone involved, too costly in security.  The 1960s were a violent decade in many regards, but with a very good musical soundtrack.

       Tonight is about recreation, of one kind or the other.  The re-creation of the original Fab Four.  And/or taking the time for a recreationally fun and relaxed trip to the past, to a timeless moment in world history focused on good music, long hair, and new flights of creativity.  Can you imagine . . . a different world?  or the world of difference . . . without!

—Eric Sellen