The Washington Coliseum was once a popular spot for sporting events, concerts and political rallies. Now, it serves as an indoor parking lot after some years as a trash transfer station. The site of the Beatles’ first North American concert, besides their “Ed Sullivan Show” performance, featured was a home for go-go musicians and once housed midget auto racing. The Coliseum, which seated 9,000, was built in 1941 and run by Miguel L. “Uncle Mike” Uline of the Washington Lions, a hockey team. The D.C. Preservation League added the building to its list of Most Endangered Properties in 2003.
— Information from the D.C. Preservation League
Even if you’re way too young to recall when the Beatles played D.C.’s Washington Coliseum Feb. 11, 1964, you surely remember the tape of the concert shown often on television and a fan favorite on YouTube.
That tape — which has gained legendary status in the music world — shows the four young men playing their first United States show while about 8,000 fans — mainly young women — shrieked and screamed.
“I’ve seen every scrap of Beatles performances that I could find available and this is my favorite performance by far,” said author Richie Unterberger, widely regarded as a Beatles expert. “You could just see how very happy they were. They had been stars in Britain but when they came over here they thought people in the U.S. would take a while to become fans. Kids [in Washington] were screaming twice as loudly as they ever screamed in Britain.”
That show proved to Paul McCartney and his band mates — who had appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” just two days before the D.C. concert — their fame would last.
What’s interesting to many musicians is when you put the fan hysteria aside, the young performers played exceptionally well in trying circumstances that would be considered exceedingly primitive today.
“They were essentially playing in a boxing ring,” said Unterberger. “Every few songs they had to rotate their instruments to face different part of the crowd head on. And they were singing beautiful three-part harmonies [such as on the song “This Boy”] which are not easily [executed].”
Aaron Kayce, editor in chief of JamBase.com said even today, the video of the show is startling.
“Like anybody else who saw that tape, all I remember through the entire thing was the screaming,” he said. “I was talking to someone whose mother-in-law was at the show and all she remembers is the screaming, É I’ve never seen anything like that, such an overwhelming response. É It was a critical moment in musical history.”
Bass player Matthew Nelson, twin brother of Gunnar Nelson and son of the late musician Rick Nelson, identifies strongly with McCartney and his music.
The chord structures in early Beatles music — which Nelson said are “remarkably slick jazz structured” — are a rare find in music and somewhat unappreciated.
“I’ve played guitar for 30 years and I can’t do that,” said Nelson. “Sometimes you listen to the Beatles and think “Why do we even try?” Music is as close to magic as we have on this planet and Paul McCartney has shared so much of that magic with his fans.”
