{"id":319623,"date":"2026-08-12T16:59:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319623\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T16:59:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:59:43","slug":"the-beatles-second-play-at-shea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319623\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beatles\u2019 Second Play At Shea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Dennis<\/a><\/p>\n

Dennis Livesey holds his vintage \u201cMeet The Beat\u00adles!\u201d album cover at the former location of Shea Stadium, currently the parking lot of Citi Field. Photo: David Paone<\/p>\n

Ask any Baby Boomer who was a teenager in 1965 \u2013 especially one from New York City \u2013 and he\u2019ll be sure to remember The Beatles\u2019 landmark concert at Shea Stadium in Flushing. It was a historical, musical and cultural event, as well as the very first stadium concert. Not only did The Beatles sell out the place, but they also broke all existing box office and attendance records in show business his\u00adtory.<\/p>\n

But what many people don\u2019t know is The Beatles re\u00adturned to Shea the following year for a second show. Next Sunday marks its 60th anniversary.<\/p>\n

When The Beatles first gained popularity in their home country of England, an inexplicable social phenomenon started. Young girls literally screamed. They literally cried. They literally fainted when in the presence of The Beatles. Mass hysteria erupted wherever they went. A British newspaper named this baffling behavior, \u201cBeatle\u00admania.\u201d It wasn\u2019t strictly for the girls; boys got swept up in Beatlemania, too.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Shea Stadium sec\u00adond base marker in the Citi Field parking lot. The stages for both concerts were on second base. Photo: David Paone<\/p>\n

At the time, Dennis Livesey was a 13-year-old sixth grader living in Rye, New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe catchy tunes, the beat, the energy and the look of these guys with the mop-top[s] and the peg-leg pants and so forth, was just so completely different from the \u2018moon- June,\u2019 do-woppy stuff that we were used to,\u201d Livesey said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t get enough of these Beatles,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were all just nuts about these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Livesey started buying their records, with the first being the single, \u201cTwist and Shout,\u201d followed by \u201cMeet the Beatles!\u201d, which was their first US album.<\/p>\n

Since a major stadium concert had never been done before, the technology needed for the music to reach the far corners of the venue hadn\u2019t been invented yet. The Beatles depended on the stadium\u2019s primitive public ad\u00address system. That, coupled with tens of thousands of screaming girls, made it impossible for anyone to hear anything The Beatles performed. This went for both con\u00adcerts.<\/p>\n

\"Dennis<\/a><\/p>\n

Dennis Livesey\u2019s snap\u00adshot of The Beatles\u2019 sec\u00adond concert at Shea. Photo: Dennis Livesey<\/p>\n

While the second concert on August 23rd has lived in the shadow of its predecessor all this time, it still holds a special place in the memory of those who were there.<\/p>\n

So what was it like to attend the show?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys come out and of course the girls started screaming and didn\u2019t stop,\u201d said Livesey. \u201cAnd they started with \u201cRock and Roll Music,\u201d which was terribly disappointing to me because it wasn\u2019t a Beatles\u2019 song.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so gosh-darn primitive, if you compare it to a concert like you\u2019d see today,\u201d said Livesey, who\u2019s been a Manhattan resident for several decades. \u201cI had the fore\u00adsight not only to bring my camera, but I borrowed my fa\u00adther\u2019s binoculars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Patty Minerva was 14 and living in East Harlem in 1966. Her best friend, Linda, had an aunt who worked for The Merv Griffin Show. The company had season tickets for Shea Stadium, and this included both Beatles concerts.<\/p>\n

While Minerva missed out on the first show because her father wouldn\u2019t let her go, he relented and let her at\u00adtend the second with her two sisters and Linda. They had field-level, box seats, with an excellent view of The Bea\u00adtles. So did she scream? \u201cI wasn\u2019t a screamer. I just re\u00admember literally sitting there in awe,\u201d she said, and described the experience as \u201csurreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Patty<\/a><\/p>\n

Patty Min\u00aderva\u2019s ticket stubs. Photo: David Paone<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt almost detached, like I was on a different di\u00admensional plane, because I couldn\u2019t believe I was looking at them,\u201d said Minerva, who\u2019s been a Queens resident for over 50 years. Not only could she see them, but she could hear them. \u201c[I was] actually getting annoyed at the girls who were near me who were screaming because I wanted to hear them,\u201d she said. Minerva still has her ticket stub and those of her two sisters.<\/p>\n

Queens resident Liz Schmidt has two remarkable Shea-related stories.<\/p>\n

The first is that she had a third-row seat at the 1965 show and had an interaction with all four Beatles. She was 19 at the time and went with her cousin, Terry. She pur\u00adchased a pair of third-row seats and took Terry for her 16th birthday.<\/p>\n

As The Beatles made their exit from the infield, the cousins looked down into an alleyway and saw the Fab Four. Terry screamed, \u201cGEORGE!\u201d (her favorite). \u201cAnd they all looked up\u2026 and waved,\u201d Schmidt said. Schmidt and her cousin got a look and a wave from all four Beat\u00adles.<\/p>\n

But it was a year later when she had an even more memorable encounter.<\/p>\n

When Schmidt learned of The Beatles\u2019 return to New York for the second Shea concert, she did a little investi\u00adgating and found out what hotel they were staying at. Nat\u00adurally, she booked a room for herself and her gal pal, Alice. \u201cWe go in the elevator and we\u2019re in there first,\u201d Schmidt said.<\/p>\n

Then Paul McCartney and John Lennon walked in, and Alice started to cry. \u201cI said, \u2018You\u2019ll have to forgive her. Her mother just died,\u2019\u201d said Schmidt. \u201cAnd Paul says, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m so sorry,\u2019 he goes, \u2018My mum died, too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Schmidt had a conversation (albeit a short one) with Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n

Shea Stadium has since been demolished and replaced with Citi Field, built in what was Shea\u2019s parking lot. The sight of Shea is now Citi Field\u2019s parking lot.<\/p>\n

In 1966, The Beatles were experiencing political back\u00adlash, Beatlemania was winding down, and The Beatles themselves had grown weary of touring. Plus, they had embraced studio recording techniques that couldn\u2019t be replicated in a concert.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the second show still holds its place in the memories of those who were there for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember thinking, \u2018Did that really happen?\u2019\u201d said Minerva. \u201cIt was almost like an out-of-body experience that I was there, because I couldn\u2019t believe I was really there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dennis Livesey holds his vintage \u201cMeet The Beat\u00adles!\u201d album cover at the former location of Shea Stadium, currently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-319623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}