It turns out that August 23rd is a big day in Beatles history.
50 years ago today...
August 23, 1962…Paul McCartney and George Harrison were witnesses as John Lennon married Cynthia Powell at the Mount Pleasant Registry Office in Liverpool, England. At the time, Cynthia was two months pregnant with their son Julian. Manager Brian Epstein, who served as John's best man, bought lunch for the wedding party at a local cafeteria and gave the newlyweds use of his apartment. That night, John and the Beatles performed at Liverpool's Riverpark Ballroom. The Lennons divorced in November 1968.
48 years ago today...
August 23, 1964…In Los Angeles, the Beatles played the Hollywood Bowl in a concert recorded for a planned upcoming live album. The sound quality, however, was so bad due to screaming teenagers that the tape sat mostly unused until 1977, when "The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl" album was released, combining songs from this show and a similar Hollywood Bowl concert that took place a year later. In 1967, some applause from the original tapes was used at the start of "With A Little Help From My Friends" on the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album and also added to the end of the title track's reprise to simulate the end of the "concert."
46 years ago today...
August 23, 1966…On their final tour of America, the Beatles played Shea Stadium in New York City, but unlike the previous year's performance which had sold out, there were 11,000 empty seats in the 55,600 seat stadium. The promoters blamed the turnout on competition from the many other concerts in the area around that time.
44 years ago today...
August 23, 1968…Thoroughly disgusted by the difficult, acrimonious sessions for the "White Album," Ringo Starr became the first band member to (temporarily) depart the Beatles, telling John "I'm leaving the group because I'm not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it and you three are really close."
Believing that his time with the band was over, Ringo and his family went on vacation to Sardinia, and while there he got the idea for "Octopus's Garden" from a boat captain who told him how those creatures use shiny objects to create "gardens" for themselves.
While Ringo was gone, Paul recorded the drum tracks for "Dear Prudence" and "Back In The USSR." Ringo returned a few days later to find flowers surrounding his drum kit as an apology from his bandmates. He decided to stay.
38 years ago today...
August 23, 1974…Local newspapers reported that John Lennon spotted a UFO while staying in his mistress May Pang's apartment in New York during his infamous "lost weekend." "Walls and Bridges," Lennon's next album, contained a notation in the inner booklet that reads: "On 23 August 1974, I saw a UFO J.L."
