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Beatles concert in Bloomington, 1965

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The Beatles performing at Metropolitan Stadium

The Beatles performing at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota, August 21, 1965. Photograph by the St. Paul Dispatch–Pioneer Press.

On August 21, 1965, the Beatles played their one and only concert in Minnesota. Beatlemania was in full throat that night at Metropolitan Stadium, where the screaming fans drowned out the group’s half-hour set. But the hijinks had only just begun. In an episode straight from the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night, the band's sleepover at the Minneapolis Leamington Motor Inn involved hotel security chasing fans, a limo driver roped in for off-duty crowd control, a reporter disguised as a waitress, and the police.

On August 21, 1965, the Beatles arrived in Minnesota—finally. It had been a year and a half since the Liverpool group’s first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, marking their American debut. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had toured the country in 1964 but had got no closer than Milwaukee.

When the Beatles’ airplane touched down at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport at 4:15 p.m., fans screamed, clawed the chain-link barrier separating them from their idols, and held up handmade signs declaring love for their favorite Fab. And this was only the beginning of the pandemonium that pursued the Beatles in Bloomington and Minneapolis, from airport to concert venue to hotel to their departure at the airport the next day.

The Beatles held a press conference in the Minnesota Room of Metropolitan Stadium before the evening concert. Reporters peppered the musicians with predictable and occasionally silly questions like, “How do you sleep at night with that long hair?” The Beatles, who had to go through this at every stop on the tour, took the banter in stride. But they perked up when Ron Butwin and Randy Resnick, employees of B-Sharp Music, a Minneapolis music instrument store, presented lead guitarist George Harrison with a brand-new twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar.

“It’s great...You got one for me?” quipped John Lennon, the group’s leader and rhythm guitarist, who had to do without his own free guitar.

Days before, on August 15, the Beatles had kicked off their US tour at New York’s Shea Stadium, where they played before a record-setting 55,600 fans. They had become so popular that they had outgrown normal concert venues. With this tour, they became the first music group to play sports stadiums.

Raymond “Big Reggie” Colihan, a local concert promoter, took on the daunting task of bringing the biggest act in music to Minnesota’s Metropolitan Stadium, home of the Minnesota Twins and the Vikings. Yet concerns over the chaos, which seemed to go hand-in-hand with the Beatles, led the promoter to undersell the concert. So the group ran through their thirty-minute set to a less-than-full stadium, using a PA system that hadn’t been designed for concerts.

Out front, fans crowded round the limousines. They waited to pounce on the lads when they emerged. But the limos were merely decoys used to deflect attention away from the laundry trucks, which secretly conveyed the Beatles to their night’s lodging.

That night, the Beatles took over the fifth floor of Minneapolis’s Leamington Motor Inn. Word had leaked, because girls were already crowding entrances and contriving schemes to bypass security. Four teenagers squeezed into garbage cans near the hotel’s kitchen door with hopes of being carried inside.

One of the limo drivers found himself enlisted for crowd control duty. He was given a shortened broomstick. Before the more successful intruders could step off the elevators onto the fifth floor, he barred them with the broomstick.

Susan Stocking, a young reporter for the Minneapolis Star, had no designs on the Beatles other than getting a story. Her guise as a hotel waitress, complete with uniform and food cart, got her past the guards and into a room with John Lennon, Ringo Star, and George Harrison.

Lennon, rather than being annoyed, seemed to welcome this diversion from the boredom of his hotel room. He answered her questions and posed for a photograph with Stocking as waitress pouring him a cup of coffee. After the interview, he saw her out with the words, “Cheerio now, and let me shake your hand like an Englishmun.”

Paul McCartney was having a less tranquil evening. Minneapolis police, alerted that the bass player and vocalist might be holed up with a fan, pounded on his door, threatened to arrest him, and made the girl leave, saying they were enforcing the midnight curfew. The Beatles management responded with the threat that the group would never play Minneapolis again.

And they never did. The next year, the Beatles, tired of the frenzy, gave up touring to focus on studio recording.

The Rickenbacker presented to George Harrison in Minneapolis turned up on the Beatles’ 1965 album Rubber Soul. Harrison played it on his composition “If I Needed Someone.” The guitar was stolen in 1966, and its whereabouts remain unknown.

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Carlson, Bill. The Beatles: A One-Night Stand. East Bridgewater, MA: World Publications Group, 2010.

FaceTime interview with Randi Resnick, August 5, 2022
Britt Aamodt interview collection, Elk River
Description: Randy Resnick talks about working for B-Sharp Music, a musical instrument company in Northeast Minneapolis, in the 1960s. As an employee for B-Sharp, he presented a brand-new twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar to George Harrison, lead guitarist for the Beatles, at the group’s press conference at Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington.

Interview with Joe Colihan at his home in Shoreview, August 17, 2022
Britt Aamodt interview collection, Elk River
Description: Joe Colihan recollects his father Raymond “Big Reggie” Colihan’s work as a Twin Cities concert promoter. Big Reggie brought the Beatles to Minnesota’s Metropolitan Stadium in 1965.

Interview with Lori Lundstrom at her home in Northeast Minneapolis, July 31, 2022
Britt Aamodt interview collection, Elk River
Description: Lori Lundstrom talks about her father David Lundstrom, whose Minneapolis ambulance company provided limos to the Beatles during their stay in Minneapolis.

Interview with Ron Butwin at his home in St. Louis Park, August 19, 2022
Britt Aamodt interview collection, Elk River
Description: Ron Butwin shares his recollection of presenting the Rickenbacker guitar to George Harrison along with Randy Resnick, as part of a promotion engineered by B-Sharp Music of Northeast Minneapolis.

Kirshenbaum, Jerry. “I Like It Here by George Grim.” Minneapolis Tribune, August 23, 1965.

Stocking, Susan. “I Was a Waitress for Three Beatles.” Minneapolis Tribune, August 23, 1965.

Related Audio

MN90: A Hard Day's Night: The Beatles In Minnesota | Details
MN90: The Beatles' Minnesota Guitar | Details

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The Beatles performing at Metropolitan Stadium
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Susan Stocking serving coffee to John Lennon
Susan Stocking serving coffee to John Lennon

Turning Point

In August of 1965, the Beatles undertake their second US tour. Demand is so high that the Beatles are booked into stadiums, like Minnesota’s Metropolitan Stadium, usually reserved for sporting events, ushering in the era of stadium rock.

Chronology

1963

Capital Records releases the Beatles single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on December 26. It is the first Beatles single released by a major label in the United States.

1964

On February 9, the Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

1965

The Beatles kick off their second US tour on August 15, with one stop in Canada, at New York’s Shea Stadium. In the process, they invent stadium rock.

1965

The Beatles play their one and only Minnesota concert at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington on August 21.

1965

On December 3, the Beatles release the album Rubber Soul, which includes George Harrison playing his Minneapolis Rickenbacker guitar on “If I Needed Someone.”

1966

The Beatles give their last paid concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on August 26. Shortly thereafter, George Harrison’s Minneapolis Rickenbacker guitar is stolen.