I recently re-watched the Beatles at Shea Stadium documentary. From the helicopter that they flew into Shea on, the band was being interviewed about their thoughts on NYC. John mentioned what a clean and modern city NYC was (and I guess compared to London or Liverpool, NYC was indeed modern).
But the level of smog was frigging unbelievable and you could barely see the ground - mostly just the upper floors of the skyscrapers. For anyone who lived there in 1965, was it realty like that? And how did anybody even breathe there?
It’s a good doc and enjoyable to watch. I was very fortunate as a young kid to see the Beatles in Jacksonville in ‘64 and in Atlanta in ‘65.
The Jacksonville show - you couldn’t hear them over the screams. I remember John yelling into the mic that if everyone would just shut up that they might actually hear the songs - the screams got even louder.
Atlanta was better sound-wise and the first time the Beatles ever had monitor speakers so they could hear themselves. Back then, the venues hired audio techs, the band carried no PA equipment, and the Beatles made a job offer to the sound tech on the spot to do the rest of the tour. He was like yeah, I can make a year’s salary for a few concerts with the Beatles but not have a job next year so he turned them down. Nowadays, they’d have in-ears AND monitor speakers and they’d have taken their own PA equipment with them and have their people set it up for each concert.
One thing that was sort of crappy - the opening acts were meh. The Beatles performed for 30 minutes - 12 songs and off they went. McCartney now does a 2 to 2.5 hour show. So the tickets were cheap back then, and in exchange, you got a cheap concert.