50th anniversary week celebrates city's British Invasion by Beatles

Janice “Jana” Frazier and her “best ever” friend, Judi Connell, could barely sit still on the long trolley ride to the Civic Arena from Castle Shannon.

They stood up; they sat down; they hugged each other, pinched each other, danced in the aisle, slumped in the seats, even laid down.

“We could hardly breathe holding the tickets in our hands. I slept with them every night terrified they would get lost if they were out of my possession even for a moment,” Frazier recalls. “We were laughing and crying on the most momentous ride of our lives.”

It was Sept. 14, 1964, and the Beatles — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, on their inaugural tour of America — were about to make their one and only appearance as a band in Pittsburgh.

Never mind that they played only nine songs, lasting, depending on who you ask, 24 to 27 minutes, and that the music was mostly drowned out by the feverish screaming of the crowd of 12,603. This, to hear those who were there tell it 50 years later, was a defining moment.

“Staring at that stage until my eyes burned and the tears came, trying to somehow permanently etch the image of those four young men on my brain and in my heart, even at 13, I knew that this moment in time was just that, a photograph for the ages,” says Frazier, a former keeper at the Pittsburgh Zoo and now a Colorado resident.

“As the years went by, these beautiful boys would change and evolve, and I would, too,” she says. “I knew that even then, and so I savored every second of those few precious hours. It was my very first exposure to the delicious realization that dreams can come true, that there really is magic in this world.”

A defining moment

“The excitement was more than I had ever experienced on stage,” remembers former Pittsburgh disc jockey Chuck Brinkman, who emceed the concert for host station KQV Radio.

He is looking forward to returning as master of ceremonies of the “Beatlemania Now” tribute concert Sept. 13 at the Benedum Center, Downtown, part of 50th-anniversary activities organized by promoter Pat DiCesare, who brought the real group to Pittsburgh.

There also will be a Beatles Rock Art Show from Sept. 5 to 7 at the Renaissance Hotel, Downtown.

“Getting the Beatles to come to Pittsburgh was an amazing feat,” DiCesare says. “It's hard to believe that people still feel this way about them 50 years later.”

Donna Sylvester of York, then 13 and living in Crafton Heights, recalls “being aware I was breathing the same air as the Beatles.

“It was a defining moment. They changed my life,” she says. “They changed everything in music and in the culture, and we were present in that moment as witnesses.”

Glenda Vecenie Cole, formerly of Millvale, now of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., can't wait to come back for the 50th-anniversary celebration.

Attending the Civic Arena show at 12 “is still a great story to tell,” Cole says. “Although I have seen many, many concerts over the years, nothing was ever quite as exciting as that Beatles concert.”

Linda Jonczak of Brackenridge, then of Natrona Heights, agrees. “After the show, we made our way down so we could touch the stage,” she says. “Someone said they had Ringo's sock, and we grabbed at it and pulled it apart until we each had a shred of the sock.”

Jonczak's memorabilia, including an excuse for school the next day saying she was ill, was on display at the Senator John Heinz History Center in a 2001 Beatles exhibit.

Greensburg chiropractor Dr. Charlotte Ciotti, then 13, of Jeannette, recalls discussing with her cousin that they would not scream at the concert like those “other girls.”

“Laura did keep her end of the bargain. For me, when I realized I was not going to hear the music, it did not take me long to be caught up in the excitement and energy,” she says.

“When I see the clips of the Beatles concerts, I smile inside knowing that I was one of ‘those screaming girls.' ”

Still gaining fans

New generations of Beatles' fans display their enthusiasm for the band that transformed music and culture.

“The positive, relatable and genuine message about love, respect and equality in their music is truly inspiring,” says Johnathan Pushkar, 18, of North Huntingdon. He is starting his freshman year as a music-business major at Belmont University, Nashville.

He plays drums for Yesterday and Today, a Beatles' tribute trio based in New Jersey. He met Ringo Starr in New York City a few months ago at a gallery opening featuring Starr's art work.

“He was very genuine and unbelievably kind and respectful, and it was a life-changing moment to discuss drums and music with my inspiration as a musician,” Pushkar says.

The lifelong interests in the Beatles of Jennifer and Kristy Bronder of Tarentum, who are now in their 30s, was inspired by their mother, Patty Bronder of Natrona Heights, who was at the 1964 concert.

“She played their music for us almost daily from the time we could crawl,” Kristy Bronder says.

“It is an influence that finds its way into my teaching, my theater directing and my life,” adds Jennifer, a teacher at Knoch High School, Saxonburg.

The sisters took a private Beatles tour in Liverpool in 2008.

Jennifer Bronder's favorite memory of seeing Paul McCartney live in 2010 when he opened the Consol Energy Center, Uptown, came when McCartney, enroute to the arena, hung out the window and waved at the fans lined up outside the venue.

“He couldn't have been more than 20 feet from us, and my mom screamed and jumped, much like she must have in 1964. It was a thrill for me to catch a glimpse of the Beatlemaniac teenager in her,” she says.

Sweet memories

It is evident that the music holds up today, says Patty Bronder, after “seeing ages 6 to 96” enjoying the songs at McCartney's concert this year.

Her most vivid recollection of the '64 show: “All the flashbulbs going off and the nonstop screaming ... and John getting down on one knee and singing ‘If I Fell.' ”

Pat Clarke of Pleasant Hills, then 13, of Brookline, sat in “peanut heaven” for the '64 show.

“But my cousin swears John looked up at her from the stage,” she says. “We made life-size images of the Fab Four and carried them with us for a radio contest.”

Even though she had “terrible seats,” Pat Palermo, who was 15 and from Bethel Park, now of Richland, says the show remains “one of the highlights of my life.”

“When I'm in New York, I make sure to visit Central Park to see John Lennon's ‘Imagine' memorial,” she says.

She took her two visiting teenage cousins from Slovakia to McCartney's Pittsburgh concert this year. “When I asked if they enjoyed it, they replied, ‘Yes, it was good. He has very much energy for an old man,'” Palermo says.

Mary Moro of Hermitage, a high-school sophomore who lived in Brookline, remembers being “kind of upset” that the screaming was so loud when the Beatles took the stage, and she was separated from her friends.

“I had no one to share one of the most important memories of my life with,” she says. “It was a historic moment in time and rather a rite of passage.”

Rex Rutkoski is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-226-4664 or rrutkoski@tribweb.com.

The Beatles touch down

The excitement started early when the Fab Four touched down Sept. 14 at Greater Pittsburgh Airport.

A thunderous reception from an estimated 5,000 excited fans greeted the Beatles when they stepped off the plane.

At a news conference later at the Civic Arena, the musicians said they found Pittsburgh “rather homelike.” “Yes, it's a bit like Manchester,” Paul McCartney said of the British industrial city.

When a reporter inquired if the group was considering haircuts, John Lennon joked, “I wouldn't trust an American barber.”

Then, casting a wary eye at the sliding roof of the domed auditorium, he quipped, “I hope they don't lift that roof while we're playing.”

The openers

Four acts had the daunting task of warming up a Pittsburgh audience that didn't need warming for the Beatles on Sept. 14, 1964:

The Bill Black Combo: Black, later inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, was in Elvis Presley's band until 1958, and participated in recording Presley's first single, “That's All Right,” for Sun Records on July 5, 1954. The bassist, who died at 39 a year after the Pittsburgh concert, had 19 Top 100 instrumental hits with his Bill Black Combo.

Jackie DeShannon: One of the leading pop composers of the 1960s, her signature tune was “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.” She also wrote songs with Randy Newman and Jimmy Page and sang with Van Morrison.

The Exciters: They were credited in some circles for ushering in the heyday of the girl-group sound via their 1962 classic, “Tell Him.”

Clarence “Frogman” Henry: New Orleans musician best known for his hits “Ain't Got No Home,” “(I Don't Know Why) But I Do” and “You Always Hurt the One You Love.”