The Beatles in Denver 60 years ago: 'Stampede,' grenade threat, grilled cheese and air guitars

DENVER • From the main entrance bustle of the Brown Palace Hotel, Debra Faulkner escapes to an empty sidewalk leading to an inconspicuous door.

It opens with the swipe of her employee ID, opening to a kitchen and staircase. Faulkner steps down to the dark, dingy underbelly of the historic, luxury hotel that suddenly feels anything but luxurious.

“Not so glamorous, huh?” she remarks.

A not-so-glamorous route for the most glamorous visitors who walked this way 60 years ago.

Their names were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

It was the afternoon of Aug. 26, 1964, an early stop along a tour that would forever change music in America.

Beatlemania had descended upon Denver.

It descended upon the main entrance of the Brown Palace, the mass of manic, adolescent humanity flooding into the grand atrium. The papers reported about 5,000 girls converging to meet the four lads from Liverpool, who had arrived earlier to a crowd of thousands more at Stapleton Airport.

They were bound for Red Rocks Amphitheatre, bound for the next scene of pandemonium that played out at five previous venues in the western U.S. and Vancouver.

It was the Beatles’ first North American tour, and North America seemed ill-prepared.

The Rocky Mountain News editorial implored: “Attention, teenagers of Denver. You have the opportunity of attracting worldwide attention today! Don’t be rowdies. Don’t throw things. ... Don’t kick and elbow. Gird on the self-discipline that is the mark of a true American citizen.”

So much for that.

“7 Hospitalized in Beatles Stampede,” read the headline from the Brown Palace.

A poor girl reportedly broke her foot. Two teens were treated for “possible rib and stomach injuries suffered when they were knocked down and trampled in the rush,” the paper read, adding: “Dozens of other young people who fainted and swooned at the appearance of the singers were revived and treated at the scene, police said.”

The police endured casualties of their own. One was reportedly “bitten on the wrist by an overenthusiastic young girl,” another lost a tooth to an elbow, and another took a hard blow to the gut, losing his nightstick in the process.

The Beatles, of course, were only briefly spotted.

They were whisked away to this side door and led down these steps that Faulkner takes now. For the Brown Palace historian, this is one of her favorite tours.

The “B” labeled on the elevator is for basement, not Beatles — just another thought of the imagination. One can only imagine the Fab Four packing this very elevator, perhaps relieved and then panicked again during a supposed 5-minute stall, then relieved again to reach the eighth floor.

Unlike the other open-air floors, this one is lined by glass bricks — privacy in the old days when these rooms were apartments. “Which is why I think they put them up here,” Faulkner says. “Because it was easy to secure, it was private and quiet.”

She stops at a hallway and points to holes in the floor. This was where a gate was installed, blocking the way to what is now room 840.

Now one walks in to framed photos commemorating that raucous show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. One walks ahead to the window overlooking 18th and Broadway, viewing the historic, soaring Trinity United Methodist Church that the Beatles would’ve viewed.

This was a two-room suite with four twin beds back in 1964, adapted to meet probably the biggest stars who ever stayed at the Brown Palace in a star-studded history dating to 1892.

Among John, Paul, George and Ringo, it’s a mystery as to who slept in what is now the single room.

“If they were even able to sleep,” Faulkner says.

Unprecedented phenomenon

It’s easy to imagine the Beatles’ first romp through America as sleepless — a whirlwind tour spanning 32 shows in 33 days.

Sixty years later, some historians call it America’s first major rock ‘n’ roll tour.

“It was record-setting, precedent-setting, groundbreaking, earth-shaking, and moneymaking,” reads the opening line of “Some Fun Tonight!,” by Chuck Gunderson.

The book is considered the definitive account of the Beatles’ North American tours between 1964 and 1966.

The ’64 tour “basically began the large-scale concert touring in the industry that we know today,” Gunderson says from his San Diego home.

No doubt, Elvis captivated audiences in a new way, the author notes. “But you gotta remember, in the ‘50s, Elvis was still playing in high school gymnasiums,” he says. “What we know today, these multiarena tours, these stadium shows, all this stuff was completely nonexistent.”

Entirely different, too, were these outspoken, mop-haired Brits.

They performed on “The Ed Sullivan Show” months before hitting the road in America. Said to have been viewed in 1 of every 4 American households, the show instantly shot “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to the top of the charts and sparked equal adoration and anger across generations, those skinny ties like a line in a cultural sand.

“It was four guys with a very weird look, very distinct personalities and mannerisms and playing off each other in such a way,” Gunderson says. “It had to be like space aliens coming to America.”

Certainly, Denver had never seen such a phenomenon.

Denver was among the smallest populations the Beatles visited on that first tour — a city that seemed unlikely but fitting. The tour would see some of the Beatles’ biggest audiences to date, yes, but Gunderson credits the band’s manager, Brian Epstein, for carefully choosing venues.

“He was careful not to overexpose his ‘boys’ and rejected offers for a show at the 50,000-seat Tiger Stadium in Detroit and a 80,000-seat show at the L.A. Coliseum in conjunction with Disneyland,” Gunderson writes.

The manager thought smaller. “Places like Red Rocks,” Gunderson says.

Reads a Visit Denver remembrance: “It was the first full-blown rock concert at Red Rocks, although Ricky Nelson and Peter, Paul and Mary had played there previously.”

Threats and reckoning

The Red Rocks show came with rebellion, not so unlike shows before and after across the country.

In San Francisco, the first stop of the tour, protesters held signs telling fans to turn to God and away from envy — to favor reason over radical thoughts of the mopheads. Protesters were outnumbered by young, screeching crowds wearing dresses and sometimes shoes, which were often lost in the rush. Pictures showed shoes piled up in the wake of affairs described as “riots” by the papers.

The show was briefly stopped in Vancouver as the host took the stage, pleading for calm. “There’s been two people crushed already!”

Earlier, in Seattle, a child counselor described “unholy bedlam” and “frantic, hostile, uncontrolled, screaming, unrecognizable beings.” He concluded: “It caused me to feel that such should not be allowed again, if only for the good of the youngsters.”

The youngsters raged on. As did the haters, to grave extents.

In Denver, the FBI launched an investigation into a letter received by the Red Rocks promoter.

“If you know what’s good for you, cancel Denver engagement,” the letter read. “I’ll be in the audience and I’m going to throw a hand grenade instead of jelly babies.”

To the relief of a reported 200 officers posted at Red Rocks that night, it was only jelly beans tossed on the stage.

In the book, “The Beatles Anthology,” the band’s producer, George Martin, later reflected on his nerves alongside the managing Brian Epstein: “The amphitheater is such that you could have a sniper on the hill who could pick off any of the fellows at any time — no problem. I was very aware of this, and so was Brian, and so were the boys.”

The moment might have underscored psychological costs of fame that echoes to today. Just as the tour seemingly underscored other familiar themes: political and generational divides and social expectations.

There was “a bigger backdrop” at that time, Gunderson says. “The whole racial thing going on in America.”

This was the summer of 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Whatever discrimination the law sought to banish, the Beatles management took another step to ensure venues were integrated. (Famously, after word of a segregated show in Jacksonville, Fla., the band issued a statement threatening to back out. The local paper the next day dismissed them as “perfectly timed and fitted to the mores, morals and ideals of a fast-paced, troubled time.”)

Racism reared its ugly head at Red Rocks, Gunderson writes in his book.

One of the Beatles’ openers were the Exciters, a group of Black women. One of the singers was Lillian Walker Moss, who “was devastated by the behavior of the fans at Red Rocks,” Gunderson writes, recalling her memories of boos and racial slurs. “Moss ran off in tears.”

She returned at the encouragement of a bandmate, according to Gunderson’s account: “They completed their set to a standing ovation and two encores.”

Air guitar plays on

There are unsubstantiated stories about the Beatles’ swing through Denver.

There’s the one about them needing oxygen at Red Rocks (though, “It was an interesting experience, physically,” McCartney later said of the altitude.) And the one about empty seats (though, the $6.60 ticket was a tough sell, double the typical rate). And the one about them trashing their room that night at the Brown Palace.

The hotel does maintain the one about the room service order of grilled cheese and “chips” that arrived to the room as chips, not the fries the Englishmen expected, apparently causing a momentary stir — “Bloody Americans!” — followed by an apology and admission of high stress from the tour.

But “no, they did not trash their room,” says Faulkner, the hotel historian. “I’m sure they were just tired. They wanted to eat and rest and get the hell out is my impression, with as little fuss as possible. But the little fuss just wasn’t possible.”

Faulkner can understand the pandemonium; she was one of those entranced little girls watching the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” She grew up to specialize in women’s history, and she has considered the 1964 tour through that lens.

“I think it was really kind of a pivotal thing for young women in America at that time,” Faulkner says. “They never had this sort of different culture to latch on to and celebrate, and to feel things they hadn’t felt before.”

At Red Rocks, they came from all over the country, Bill Carle remembers.

“And by that I mean they ran away from home to see the Beatles,” he says.

He was there as a 9-year-old boy, helping out at the trading post his family ran at the time. Three girls from the family went to the show, including Tari O’Connor.

She describes the night as freeing. There she was alongside Julie and Barb, her sister and cousin, the three of them screaming and crying.

“Us girls, we knew all the words and we acted it out, played our little air guitars,” says O’Connor, 77.

She soon learned how to play the real guitar. She became known as the family black sheep, going on to a life on the road, at one point following the Grateful Dead. “If my health was better, I’d go on the road again,” she says.

Oh yes, she’d go see the Beatles again. “BEATLES 4 EVER,” read the sign that stretched across her Red Rocks crowd that night.

It wasn’t meant to be.

The 1964 tour was but a moment in the Beatles’ brief touring life. They’d never perform in Denver again.

Never again would there be a moment quite like it for O’Connor and her sister and cousin. “Now they’re both gone,” O’Connor says.

She’ll always have the memory. She still has that little air guitar and that song she starts to sing now.

“She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah ...”