And now...here they are!

The boys appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 is iconic. It’s right up there with the images of the Beatles getting off planes, the suits and the haircut. The impact is hard to understand today when we live an almost science fiction world with instant communications across phone lines and the internet. A world where it’s easy to post moving images up in the next five minutes and for the rest of that world to get access to them. What is more important than the appearance itself is the crater impact of it. I believe it was that single show that made The Beatles untouchable. By the time they finished playing All My Loving, the game was up! From that moment they couldn’t escape from success. All of the development in the preceding years of playing for hours on grimy stages all over Liverpool and Hamburg and then in the wider communities of Britain and Europe would culminate in this polished and irresistible performance. It’s not just the show of course. One has to look at their appearance at the airport. It is a slightly bemused Beatles who realise that they are “on” when they are at that famous press conference. They grabbed the opportunity and took it for all it was worth, but not in an obvious way. Like I say, they appear to be taken slightly by surprise by what meets them. Life would never be the same again for them. From here on in they would be carving out the route that few would follow. They would go on to define what pop would become from this platform. However, you don’t get the impression from any of the source films of the time, that they expected this. The Maysles film is I think the best Beatle film of all. It just captures that first US visit so perfectly. It’s the film of the dream ticket for musicians who want to make it big. It’s the measurement of that success. How many UK bands have tried to do it since? Perhaps more than the seventy three million who tuned into the Ed Sullivan Show!! The point about the Beatles at that point is that although it’s obvious that they are working the press rooms, the radio stations, the photographers and so on, they are not forcing it. That is one of the qualities I think endeared them the American public. They are genuine and real. There isn’t a hint of the pretentious about them. By the time they hit the States, it was game over. I think you also have to look at the often mentioned ‘post-JFK’ state that the US was in. After all of the optimism of that Presidency’s beginning, the impact of his assassination is still difficult to comprehend – even for a 21st century boy here in Blighty. So, when this breezy, striking, long haired, talented, self contained, black suited outfit from Liverpool drops by the Nation, as if by accident almost, it would seem that the US was “taken by enlarge” in a kind of Rutle way, if you know what I mean?
I believe that the Ed Sullivan Show appearance by The Beatles is one of the most important moments not only in rock’n’roll history but as part of the development of the modern world. When you look at the globalisation of the entertainment industry following these events, you have to say that it was The Beatles who lit that torch. The whole British Invasion was sparked by that single appearance. Swinging London, James Bond and the whole Sixties was lit up by that appearance. The chances are that all of the above would have happened somehow anyway, but without that show maybe not quite in the same way. And you know it bears thinking about that following these ground shaking events, Paul McCartney went back to his tiny bedroom in Forthlin Road and somehow tried to comprehend what had just happened, and perhaps more interestingly ponder upon what might happen next. What a trip!