Ahead of The Beatles’ concerts in Las Vegas on Aug. 20, 1964, during what was just the second stop on the band’s first North American tour, the Review-Journal warned of “swarms of frenzied teenage girls armed with ballpoint pens and sharp fingernails” as well as “thousands of adolescent females ready to tear down brick walls with their bare hands to get a look at the furry foursome.”
Two days before the shows, sheriff’s deputies went through riot training where they were split into two groups: “one the good guys,” “and the other the Beatlemaniacs” as “an hourlong slugfest” during which “the good guys brandished their clubs and waded right in.”
Juvenile authorities refused to waive the local curfew and vowed to send all their officers to the 9 p.m. show to enforce it. Anyone younger than 18 caught after 10 p.m. without a parent or guardian risked being booked.
“They are four fellows who shake their heads like spastics and interject an incomprehensible ‘Yeah! Yeah!’ between the words in the songs they sing,” the RJ opined in an editorial. “They all need, we might add, haircuts. It is difficult to imagine, some 50 or 60 years from now, an elderly couple recalling their courtship days and playing a Beatle record to bring back the memories.”
When The Beatles’ chartered Lockheed Electra touched down at 1:35 a.m. Aug. 20, some sheriff’s deputies must have wondered what all the fuss had been about. There wasn’t a single teenager in sight.
The band had been scheduled to arrive at noon, just hours before the first show. But they flew in directly after their concert in San Francisco the night before — news that wasn’t made public.
Even with that switch up, so many Beatlemaniacs gathered at the airport — in the splashy facility, now known as Terminal 1, that had opened the year before — duty officers had to call for backup.
Deputies, though, had directed the plane to land near the old terminal at least a mile away, where it was greeted by a small group of dignitaries and reporters. While coming and going, official vehicles kept their headlights turned off.
No one in the local traveling party was prepared for what was waiting for them at the Sahara.
Doors to the convention center’s saucer-shaped rotunda opened at 3 p.m. for the 4 o’clock show.
First came the opening acts: The Exciters, who had a hit with “Tell Him” and recorded “Do-Wah-Diddy” before Manfred Mann made it a success; the Righteous Brothers, a month before they’d record “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ”; and Jackie DeShannon, who would release “What the World Needs Now Is Love” the following spring.
By 5:30, when the Sahara’s Irwin appeared on stage to introduce The Beatles, fans were just about ready to burst.
It was all over in 29 minutes.
The setlist: “Twist And Shout,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “All My Loving,” “She Loves You,” “Till There Was You,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “You Can’t Do That,” “If I Fell,” “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” “Boys,” “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Long Tall Sally.”
Most of the time, the music was lost in the screams of wild-eyed teenage girls that jumped up and down, slapped their hands, swooned, cried, laughed and pulled their hair.
Review-Journal night editor Don Digilio, who had spent the summer infuriating teenagers with his anti-Beatles columns, wrote that he was “right next to the stage” and “in the shadow of Ringo’s nose,” yet couldn’t hear a note. “I saw the Beatles twist, I saw their hair flip-flop, and I saw their lips moving,” he reported, “but the hysterical screaming made it impossible to hear the music.” The noise, he added, “was almost unearthly.”
The Beatles departed the Sahara at 11 a.m. the next day to the screams of hundreds of fans. Some cried in place, others ran after the rented Cadillac as it headed to the airport. Hours later, a small group milled about in silence outside the hotel where they’d last seen their heroes.
At 11:24, the band’s silvery Lockheed Super Constellation departed for Seattle and the 21 other cities they’d cover over the next month.
At 11:25, Capt. Gubser, who led their escort, radioed headquarters: “The Beatles have departed our fair city.” A Sahara spokesman said the hotel suffered less than $300 worth of damage from the siege.
Frenzied crowds, though, kept The Beatles from their goal of seeing Las Vegas. What they saw, was the airport, the inside of a car, the hotel elevator, the inside of their suite. The band got a taste of the city when the Sahara staff brought a slot machine up to one of those suites. The Beatles also left town with $33,000 for the two shows that totaled less than an hour.
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