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Beatlemania
Contributed by: Debra Goldberg on 8/15/2007

In 1964, the Beatles ruled the world. They created a magnetic frenzy that transformed generations. Their music changed our lives.

Even in small town Aurora, Colorado, we felt it. My friends and I, 12-year-old sixth graders at Crawford Elementary, fell in love with the Beatles when we saw them on Ed Sullivan. We would gather on the playground to debate which one was our favorite. We bought every 45 RPM record they produced and on weekends met in my basement where we cranked up the hi-fi record player and acted out their songs.

I always played John since it was easy to imitate his wide stance and slow strum even though Paul was my favorite. Posters of the Fab Four covered the walls of my room, and every night I fell asleep under Paul's dark, dreamy eyes gazing from a giant photo above my bed. I spent my adolescence captivated by them.

That summer of '64, KIMN radio announced that the Beatles were coming to Red Rocks! RIGHT IN MY HOME TOWN!! I pleaded with my mother to let me go. Ticket price was $6.60 and I begged her to take it out of my college savings fund. Incredibly, she decided I could go with a neighbor friend because her mom would drive us there and pick us up afterward. We had never even attended a concert before and now we were going to the Beatles!

The night of the concert, hundreds of teenaged girls filled the amphitheatre. Unbelievably, the Righteous Brothers and Jackie de Shannon performed opening acts, but we barely heard them since the crowd kept yelling, "WE WANT THE BEATLES!!" over and over.

I told my friend that when they came on, not to scream like the audiences we had seen on television since that looked ridiculous. However, when the mopped-topped boys appeared, mob mania set in and we were shrieking and crying with the best of them. They only played about 25 minutes and I couldn't even hear them above my own wailing. It was a manic, magical evening.

Miraculously, my friend's mother found us in that frenzied crowd immediately after the show. We rode home exhausted from the exhilaration, not knowing how that one night would change our lives.

That performance set the stage for my love of rock and roll and made me the music junkie I am today. Decades later and countless concerts behind me, I still feel the thrill whenever I hear a Beatles' tune.


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Showing 1 of 1 comments
Submitted By: Hal Goldberg
posted on 8/16/2007 @ 12:22:41 AM
Rated Story
Your story moved me deeply. I was also a young teen when The Beatles played Red Rocks. My buddy and me took his motor scooter to Stapleton, watched their plane land, and waited at the fence as they toured the perimeter of the airport. We then followed their mororcade downtown to the Brown Palace, where they were staying. We believed we could circumvent security and make it up to meet them (I think we assumed they would be thrilled to meet us). We never got close. I did not go to that concert, but seeing the mopheads was pretty good in itself. Although I did not make it to Red Rocks that night, I have heard about it for the last 43 years from my sister who did go. I thought H.U.B. was a grocery store chain in Texas, not a newspaper blog.
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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Debra Goldberg

Englewood , CO

Debra Goldberg has posted 1 story and 0 comments since joining on 8/6/2007. Debra Goldberg 's average story rating is 4.5.
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