Beatle fans recall legendary LA debut 45 years ago

Forty-five years ago this weekend, the Beatles made their Southern California debut at the Hollywood Bowl. Years later, some of the music from that performance turned up on the band’s only live album.

For many fans lucky enough to score a ticket, the Beatles at the Bowl was about more than music. KPCC’s Steven Cuevas has their story.

Steven Cuevas: For a 15-year-old high school kid, it started out like any other summer job. He’d sweep floors, maybe park cars... whatever.

Jeff Kurtz: My friend told me to go down there during spring break of '64 to get a job if I really wanted to work the Hollywood Bowl. So I did!

[The Beatles' “A Hard Day’s Night”]

Jeff Kurtz: Hi, I’m Jeff Kurtz. I live in Westlake Village, California. I worked at the Hollywood Bowl and got to go the Beatle concert in August of 1964.

They didn’t post the knowledge that this concert was happening until maybe three or four weeks before it was gonna happen. In late July, they put up a sign saying, “We need you to work The Beatles. It’s a concert put on by KRLA radio.”

[Radio jingle: “This is the heart and soul of rock 'n' roll on KRLA.”]

Jeff Kurtz: Oh! It was like, “What?! We get to work this?” I knew that I could never have afforded to go this concert if I could even get a ticket. For a good seat, $8.50 – and that was outrageous money in 1964. So I was waiting for this for an entire month. It was really some anticipation!

[KHJ radio jingle]

Laurence Cohen: I was an avid listener of “Boss Radio” KHJ and KRLA. So they were talking it up and they had me at “hello.” I was so excited about the idea of the Beatles coming!

Boy: That’s one scene I gotta make!
Girl: Me too, Chuck!
Boy: I’ll borrow wheels and we’ll go girl, go!
Girl: Crazy!
Boy: For the first time, you’ll hear and see the Beatles! Don’t miss it!

Cohen: Hi! My name is Laurence Cohen and I was not only at the Hollywood Bowl Beatles concert but also at Dodger Stadium as well.

Cuevas: Laurence Cohen was just 12 years old when the Beatles invaded Hollywood. About a year earlier, he’d swapped a rare Batman comic for a mint copy of the Meet the Beatles album. The comic book was worth a lot more in cash, but Laurence had to have that record.

[Needle hitting record – “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”]

Cohen: I went home that night with the album and I put it on the spindle and it dropped down and the needle hit the record, and it was life changing for me. All of the sudden, I went from being boy to adolescence. The music just spoke to me.

Cuevas: It spoke to tens of thousands of other kids, too. The Hollywood Bowl concert sold out fast. A few days before the show, the Beatles arrived in L.A. The band’s every move was shadowed, from LAX to this fundraiser in Brentwood. The kids where there, too – and so were the TV cameras.

Reporter: What is it about them? Why do ya wanna see them so badly? What attracts you so?
Girl: Oh, I don’t know. They’re cute (giggles) and have good voices and I don’t know! (laughs)

Debbie Kurtz: I loved them and I had friends, we were all in Beatle groups. That was the first concert I had ever been to. I’m Debbie Kurtz and I saw the Beatles in 1964 at the Hollywood Bowl!

Cuevas: Debbie Kurtz got a ticket for the show from her cousin’s boyfriend.

Debbie Kurtz: But I didn’t understand the screaming. That was strange to me.

Cuevas: There was screaming – and fainting, too. It started well before the band took the stage.

Cohen: I mean, the energy was absolutely electric.

Cuevas: Laurence Cohen was there with a friend. His parents dropped them off, letting them loose into the river of teenagers rushing into the Hollywood Bowl.

Cohen: When we got dropped off and we start walking up the hill to the Bowl, there's such a sense of anticipation and excitement. And when you got inside the Hollywood Bowl, it was such profound experience for a kid to see this magnificent structure and to know that it wasn’t going to be long before the Beatles were going to perform and... I get choked up, still.

[Sound of Audience shrieking, screaming]

Cuevas: The Beatles, live in concert, would end up being much less, and much, much more than expected. That’s tomorrow.