The Beatles Live in ‘65

It was August 20th, 1965. I’m sitting in White Sox Park in Chicago with my sister, Teresa, my brother, Steve and 40,000 insane, screaming fans waiting for the Beatles to come out of the 3rd base dugout. The only problem was, we had at least 2 hours to wait.

We had driven 3 ½ hours from our small town of Elmwood, a small typical Illinois town situated among the tall cornfields about 42 miles northwest of Peoria. Our dad drove us to Chicago and the drive was excruciatingly long but Teresa and Steve were definitely into it while I was non-committal, at best. I had a friend, Tom Merrill who was a huge fan and had bought all their albums, but I thought they were mostly hype and I wasn’t quite buying into it. I was all of 13 years old at the time and the Beatles just didn’t seem my type. Teresa was 15, and Steve 16 and they would have traveled 500 miles to see them, but to me I was merely going because I couldn’t let them get a leg up on me and do something that might be fun and I might miss out, so I reluctantly went, causing my buddy Tom to turn completely green with envy. He couldn’t believe that I didn’t really care to go. But there I was sitting in the midst of what was Beatle-mania, a term coined by the press that ushered in the British invasion of rock n’ roll bands into America.

I had seen A Hard Day’s Nite in “64 and was mildly impressed with all the craziness but I for the life of me couldn”t fathom what all this was about. I guess the girls dug these guys and all but the music never really moved me the way that it did others. My mother had bought us the Meet the Beatles album and Steve and Teresa played it until the vinyl wore out. Maybe I was just at that time in my life when nothing excited me too much. I was too young to drive. I was always still at home for the most part, hanging out in that little town of about 1200 people. I mean, you could hardly get into any trouble in that little town. My dream was to someday go to Peoria, where the bigger schools were and there was plenty of action for the taking. But not being able to drive made me feel like I was somewhat a prisoner in my dad’s house. Not that dad or mom were bad parents or anything, dad, Elvin and Bernice Davis ware a proud mid-westerners that worked at the Caterpiller plant down in Peoria and worked hard their entire lives to give us a nice home in our quaint little town. We had a nice 2 story 3 bedroom standard Illinois home with a nice porch on a quiet street, the address was 1205 3rd Avenue. It really was a Mayberry type of town where there is a Main St., ice cream parlor, general store and even a sheriff’s office.