When Beatlemania conquered Montreal for one day

On September 8, 1964, Montreal experienced the Beatlemania phenomenon, as John, Paul, George, and Ringo performed two shows at the Montreal Forum as part of their first North American tour, and one of its three Canadian stops; the other two were Vancouver and Toronto.

1964 was a landmark year for the Beatles: In February, they kicked off the "British Invasion" with two landmark appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, in which the February 9 telecast attracted over 73 million viewers; they did their first American concerts in Washington, DC and New York City; they released their first motion picture A Hard Day's Night, which became a major success at the box office; and in April, they achieved the unheard of feat of dominating the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart (in order of appearance from 1-5, they were Can't Buy Me Love, Twist and Shout, She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand and Please Please Me).

The time was ripe for a North American tour.

Anatomy of a typical Beatles show, circa 1964

The 26-city tour, which began on August 19 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, for the most part had a cookie cutter format. There were usually two shows, with a press conference in between shows. Before the Beatles would hit the stage, they were preceded by a number of opening acts. The line-up included Jackie De Shannon, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, The Exciters, the Righteous Brothers and the Bill Black Combo (Black was Elvis Presley's bassist a decade before) and during the Montreal stop, the 4 Francais were added for a little local flavour.

As well, the Beatles' 12-song set list remained unchanged throughout the tour. It started with Twist and Shout and ended with Long Tall Sally, with You Can't Do That, All My Loving, She Loves You, Things We Said Today, Roll Over Beethoven, Can't Buy Me Love, If I Fell, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Boys, and A Hard Day's Night in between. No matter if the set list remained the same or was changed, the group was faced with the same dilemma at every stop: they couldn't hear their own music being played over the incessant screaming and shouting of the fans.

As the Beatles and company – which also included manager Brian Epstein, press officer Derek Taylor, and roadies Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans – touched down at Dorval Airport on a rainy September 8, two non-concert related concerns were thrust upon them.

Target: Ringo

The most serious concern involved a death threat that was directed towards drummer Ringo Starr.

Los Angeles-based British journalist Ivor Davis, who was assigned to cover the 1964 tour for the London Daily Express, recounts in his book The Beatles and Me On Tour that when their plane arrived in Montreal,  a number of RCMP officers rushed to the jet to inform Brian Epstein that a death threat was received from a "Canadian Separatist group" (allegedly, it was attributed to the FLQ) that they were planning to "kill the Jew Ringo!"

Thirty years after the fact, Ringo recalled his anxiety as a result from this threat for The Beatles Anthology. "Some people decided to make an example of me as an English Jew. The one major fault is, I'm not Jewish."

Added security measures were initiated for the drummer at the Forum. It included having a plainclothes policeman stationed behind the drum riser during the show. 

As Ringo remembers, those measures still left him not so reassured. "I started to get hysterical. I thought -- if someone in the audience has a pop at me, what is this guy going to do? Is he going to catch the bullet?,” he said in The Beatles Anthology.

That was not enough for Ringo; he took it upon himself to put his drum cymbals a little higher than usual, and decided to crouch himself behind his drum set a little lower than usual.

Thankfully, Ringo emerged from his drum set alive—but was slightly shaken up.

French language relations à la Beatles

During their Beatlemania period, the Fab Four were rarely political; they just wanted to write songs, make records and perform their music to their devoted fan base.

Biographer Hunter Davies noted in his encyclopedia-like tome The Beatles Book that during their press conference at the Forum, they were inadvertently caught up with the growing language tensions in Quebec. Janette Bertrand, a prominent Quebecois actor, writer and journalist, posed a question to them if they realized the fact that 80 percent of their 8 p.m. concert audience would be French-speaking. The question was passed over without a response. Following the press conference, John approached Ms. Bertrand, and asked her where they were, to which she replied that they were in Quebec.

"John and the others had no idea whatsoever where exactly in Canada they were," quipped Davies.

Hurricane Dora caused some travel worries

Their next stop following Montreal was to be Jacksonville, Florida, where they were scheduled to perform at the Gator Bowl Stadium. However, Hurricane Dora was about to touch down upon the Jacksonville area, which would greatly affect their next set of travel plans.  Brian Epstein decided that the group would not stay overnight in Montreal -- they were booked to spend the night at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel -- but instead boarded their plane at Dorval immediately following the night show and flew down south to beat the hurricane. Their flight got diverted to Key West, where they had a day off while the hurricane struck northern Florida, and arrived in Jacksonville on September 11, the actual day of their show.

September 8, 1964 by the numbers

After a total of eight hours in Montreal, the Beatles departed for Florida. They performed in front of a combined 21,000 fans for those two shows – at 4:30 pm and 8 pm – who paid either $4.50 or $5.50 per ticket. They left behind 12 female fans who required medical treatment for hysteria, cuts and bruises, one policeman who was treated for a bitten thumb, and over 500 rain-soaked Montreal policemen.

A postscript

In the summer of 1985, I was working in the newsroom of CBC Montreal as a production assistant. One day, the late Frank Roach, who covered the police/crime beat, went to my desk and asked if I liked music.

I told him I did, and then he went to his desk, took out something from one of the drawers, and returned to me. He then laid the object on the top of my desk: it was an 8x10 publicity photo of the Beatles, which was autographed by the Fab Four.

With my eyes wide open and rendered practically speechless, I asked Frank how he managed to get this rarity. That's when he shared with me the following story:

Days before the September 8 shows at the Forum, the CBC Montreal newsroom received a press kit from Capitol Records, the group's North American label, which included the glossy photo of the lads from Liverpool. Frank's daughter Donna, like any teenager at the time, was a big Beatles fan and begged her dad to use his connections to get the foursome to autograph the photo for her. 

On the day of the concerts, Frank arrived at the Forum which was already surrounded by huge masses of screaming fans. He came prepared with a storyline that he was ready to tell any authority figure at the venue, that he hoped would open the necessary doors.

It was: "I'm Frank Roach from CBC News and I have been assigned by my boss to have the Beatles sign this photograph. If I don't, I am going to get fired. Can you help me?"

The first person he told this sob story to was an officer from the Montreal Police Department who was in charge of the security detail that day. The officer, who knew Frank well, was convinced and directed him to one of the chief Forum ushers. Once he got to the usher, he plied the sob story once again, but added a little more desperation to his delivery. The usher bought it and brought him to the door of the Beatles' dressing room.

Frank knocked on the door. It opened almost immediately and Brian Epstein poked out his head. Frank repeated the sob story, this time with desperation and the threat of imminent unemployment ratcheted up. Showing some compassion amidst all the headaches and pressures of running a historic tour from behind the scenes, Epstein took the photo and told Frank he would see what could be done.

About 20 minutes later, the door opened again, only this time by George Harrison, who handed Frank the photo covered with his signature, along with that of John, Paul and Ringo.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Harrison," said a very grateful (and relieved) Roach.

"You're welcome. Now please fuck off!", George replied before abruptly slamming the door in his face.

Mission accomplished.

But the last word about the Beatles' only Montreal concert should be left to Ringo Starr, who said their two shows at the Forum were "the worst gig of my life."

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