\n<\/p>\n
\n\tSixty years ago today, on August 15, 1965, the Beatles<\/a> played Shea Stadium in New York, and the world has never recovered. It was the biggest pop explosion the world had ever seen, with 56,000 kids screaming for John, Paul, George, and Ringo. It\u2019s the most famous show they ever played \u2014 the most famous pop concert ever \u2014 even though nobody could hear a note of it. Other gigs have drawn far bigger crowds, made far more money. But Shea is still the ultimate image of fan hysteria \u2014 a massive swarm of Beatlemaniacs gathered together for a night of communal rapture, bonded in music, shrieking their lungs and brains out. The toppermost of the poppermost. The \u201cyeah yeah yeah\u201d of the gods. The biggest twist, with the loudest shout.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt was the first time that anyone had played any of those stadiums,\u201d Paul McCartney recalled in 2003. \u201cIt became kind of normal for people like the Floyd. We were playing through the baseball speakers and you couldn\u2019t hear a thing with the crowds screaming\u2014those 56,000 \u2018seagulls\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut that doesn\u2019t mean Paul didn\u2019t love every second of it. \u201cI think we just went a bit hysterical that night,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t believe where we were and what was going on, we couldn\u2019t hear a bloody thing and we thought \u2018This isn\u2019t very good, but it\u2019s going down great.\u2019 The hysteria started to kick in. That was a great one.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tBut Shea was more than just the first high-profile stadium concert. It showed everyone how huge, untamable, crazed pop music could be. It destroyed the hopes of everyone who still thought the Beatles \u2014 and their young female audience \u2014 were just a passing fad, which was still the conventional adult wisdom in 1965. The Fabs couldn\u2019t be dismissed anymore, and neither could the girls. It shattered all the cliches about how show-biz was supposed to work. Never before had that many humans joined together in one place to celebrate music \u2014 and on a deeper level, to celebrate each other. That\u2019s why \u201cShea Stadium\u201d is still the two-word code for the culmination of pop dreams at their loudest, lustiest, scariest, and most deranged.\u00a0<\/p>\n