Musing

Live From New York

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Jim’s Thursday Inspiration #272 –
‘People Get Ready’.
Our inspiration is ‘ticket’. Here’s my spin on things.

This week in Thursday Inspiration, Jim Adams has asked us to respond to his challenge by either using the prompt word ticket, or going with the above picture, or by means of the song ‘People Get Ready’. For those unfamiliar with the song, it uses a train as a symbol of coming divine judgment and salvation. That metaphor, however, is itself a metaphor for political freedom. Although it outwardly invokes preparing for a journey to heaven, it emerged in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Jim says we can also go with anything else that we think fits. 

It was August 15, 1965. My parents, sister and I had recently returned from visiting family in Sicily. It was a fantastic way to spend part of our summer and my sister and I figured it was all downhill from there as school would be beginning very soon. It was a bitter pill to swallow but that was the reality ….. until my mother shocked the living daylights out of us with a surprise we never expected. Unknown to us, Mom had ordered three tickets to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium! One ticket was for me, another for my sister and the third for Mom. To say we were surprised is a huge understatement. We didn’t even have time for the reality to sink in as the concert was just hours away!

Mom didn’t like surprises so for her to pull off a bombshell like that was as shocking as her winning the Nobel Peace Prize! Being old school, she would not allow us to wear jeans or …. God forbid …. shorts to the concert. I remember my mother yelling after us as we ran up the stairs “Wear dresses and stockings; we are not barbarians!” It was the middle of August and 90º+ and we had to wear stockings …. but we were too excited to care!

Finally it was time to go and we headed off in Mom’s Ford Fairlane 500. Between airport traffic and cars filled with excited teens, it seemed like everyone was on the road that evening.  We were really chomping at the bit as we got closer to Shea Stadium; Mom, ever the practical one, insisted on parking near the exit so we wouldn’t get stuck in the mass of cars leaving the lot. After what seemed an eternity, we went through the gate, were handed our programs and found our seats; they weren’t the greatest but what can you expect for $5.10! Still, we were able to see the stage just fine and we had our binoculars for close-ups of George!

I really don’t know how we survived all the acts before the Beatles; in hindsight, I can remember only one or two of them! Those performers included Motown singer Brenda Holloway, King Curtis, Sounds Incorporated, Killer Joe Piro and The Discothèque Dancers, the Young Rascals and Cannibal & the Headhunters. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Marvin Gaye were present; they were introduced but did not perform. The announcer was famed radio host Cousin Brucie. Legendary television host Ed Sullivan introduced the Beatles when they took the stage saying “Now, ladies and gentlemen, honored by their country, decorated by their Queen, and loved here in America, here are The Beatles!” And the crowd went wild like I’ve never heard before! It was like the roar of a 747 and didn’t stop for the entire performance.

We ran down to the fence, trusty binoculars in hand, for a better look. It was pandemonium! I had never been to an opening performance of a concert tour before and was stunned by the record-breaking number of people in attendance.  At one point I glanced back at my mother to see her dancing in the aisle with some other women! It was complete insanity with girls screaming, crying and even fainting. Years later I asked my mother if she’d ever seen anything like that before; she said just once on a much smaller scale …. for Frank Sinatra.

This was the Beatles setlist: “Twist and Shout”, “She’s a Woman”, “I Feel Fine”, “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”, “Ticket to Ride”, “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby”, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, “Baby’s In Black”, “Act Naturally”, “A Hard Day’s Night”, “Help!” and “I’m Down”.

The Beatles played for 30 minutes. The car ride to Shea alone took over an hour. When you add up the time the other performers were on stage and the time between acts, it was a very long evening and the Beatles were there for a relatively short period of time. Can you imagine going to see your favorite performers in concert today and being treated to only 30 minutes of them and their music? We didn’t care; we were orgasmic just being there in the same place as our beloved Beatles …. and 56,000 other fans.

The screaming was relentless and we barely heard anything but that didn’t diminish the thrill. This was and always will be an unforgettable and extraordinary happening …. the single-most electrifying and exhilarating experience of my life. Well done, Mom!

This is “Ticket To Ride” by the Beatles

Thursday Inspiration #272 People Get Ready

Thank you to Jim Adams for today’s inspiration. Thanks to you all for stopping by for a look and a listen. See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2025

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶, The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, The Rhythm Section, et al., and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

39 thoughts on “Live From New York”

  1. I have a tendency to over comment…and I have to hold myself back on this one. Wow…what an awesome thing your mom did. Most of the ones I talked to couldn’t go because of their parents. She gave you a night that you will remember for the rest of your life. Well, no post I read today will come close to this one. It being a surprise made it all the better.

    Thank you so much for this story! Yea I’m an obsessive Beatles fan!

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    1. Fantastic, Max! I’m so pleased this was news to you and I got to share the experience all over again. I visited my sister recently and the concert came up in conversation, as it usually does. All these years later, we still cannot believe our mother went so far out of her comfort zone to surprise us. It was incredible and this story will always be among my favorite to tell. From one Beatlemaniac to another.

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      1. Yes, and when you look at it in the time it was…that was so cool by your mom to do that. Not many would have done that. The surprise just makes it all the better. It’s just as cool of a story about your mom as the actual event….but yea that was out of the world.
        Thank you Nancy!

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  6. Holy moly, Nancy, as a longtime Beatles fan who was still about a year away from being born when that legendary concert at Shea Stadium happened, you can probably imagine I envy you. 🙂

    Even though it sounds like you heard more hysterical screaming around you than any music, obviously, you witnessed rock history firsthand! And all of that for a whopping $5.10, which is equivalent to about $51.00 today. For that kind of money you can’t even see a decent Beatles tribute band!

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    1. You’re spot on about the price of tickets, Christian. Price gouging is obscene; I wish more artists such as Neil Young would speak out against the price of tickets and take action not to deal with those vendors who charge unrealistic prices. It’s pure greed and any performer who claims not to know about it is either a liar or incredibly stupid..

      Back in 1965, my thoughts were not on being at a history-making, audience record-breaking concert. That’s something I didn’t even realize until a couple of years later. We were there to see our idols and the fact that we were even in the same arena as them meant everything to us.

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    1. You got that right, Dawg! Somewhere in the attic I have a couple of big KLM airline bags from our trip that summer to Sicily. They are chock full of programs and tickets and scrapbooks of the Beatles throughout their time together. One day I’ll have to get up there. Thanks so much for leaving a great comment!

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  12. You were part of history and didn’t know it at the time. The first rock act to perform at a stadium venue, and after that, everyone tried it. Your mom knew it was special. What a lucky girl. They came to Dallas, but the tickets went fast and I missed out. It was like that when I took my little sister to see the Monkee’s at Memorial Auditorium, the screaming never stopped and no one cared that Nesmith’s twelve string was out of tune, but I did, it was the musician in me that cared. Another great recount.

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    1. What a lucky girl.

      That sums it up perfectly, Phil. There are so many things my parents did for us that I look back on now and wish I had been more appreciative. That’s the way it is with kids. There have been some major withdrawals from my memory bank lately; I sure hope I always hold fast to this one. Thanks very much, Phil.

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      1. We’ve all been there when we were young. As I aged into adulthood, almost middle age, I realized that my parents were geniuses, they got smarter as I grew older. It’s easy now, to look back and remember the sacrifice they made for my sister and me, and now, I can’t thank them, except in solemn prayer. When I was a kid, and did something bad, or said something smart-assed to my mother, she would say, ” You’re going to miss me when I’m gone.” She was so right.

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  14. What a fantastic memory to have! But I’ve never understood why girls used to scream all the time while The Beatles were playing – I’d have preferred to hear the music!

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