The Beatles were the biggest band on the planet when they returned for a second and final visit to Dundee 60 years ago.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr could barely hear themselves play and dodged jelly babies thrown at them on stage.
The Beatles performed two concerts at the Caird Hall in front of 6,000 fans.
They were paid £850.
The term Beatlemania was coined when the band first played the hall a year earlier.
The Fab Four arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel on the banks of Loch Earn in Perthshire during a night of heavy rain on October 19 1964.
Fresh from another wild show in Edinburgh’s ABC Cinema, the Liverpudlians were ushered into the dining room for juicy steaks.
The band went off to bed and enjoyed a long lie in the morning.
Harrison and Starr had breakfast in bed.
Lennon and McCartney, who shared a chalet, were the first to be up and about.
Could The Beatles make afternoon tea at Glamis Castle?
On the morning of the concert, a call came into The Courier newsroom in Dundee and was taken by young reporter Sandy McGregor.
It was from the private secretary of the Countess of Strathmore who explained that the Countess was keen to meet The Beatles and would like to invite them for afternoon tea at her Glamis Castle home.
Would it be possible for The Courier to organise such a get-together?
The call launched a few hours of frantic phone calls by Sandy who finally fixed a meeting, but didn’t quite deliver the news scoop he’d hoped for.
“Looking back now, the whole episode seems pretty surreal,” said Sandy.
“I got hold of the band’s road manager who said The Beatles would be happy to meet the Countess but there wouldn’t be enough time to make the trip out to Glamis.
“He suggested finding somewhere nearer the Caird Hall that would be private and free from fans.
“I hit on a bizarre plan to stage it in the home of my then-girlfriend, who lived with her parents fairly near the city centre.
“I was visualising the headline ‘Countess Has Tea With Beatles in Dundee Council House.’
“My girlfriend’s mother took a bit of convincing I wasn’t having her on, but then threw herself wholeheartedly into looking out her best China and making a pile of sandwiches.”
McCartney was almost run down by a car
Meanwhile, The Beatles went boating on the picturesque shores of Loch Earn with Harrison at the wheel before Lennon took command.
McCartney almost cashed in his chips before the concert.
He crossed the road from behind a bus after his sail on the loch.
A car almost hit him.
“It was a near thing,” he said.
“I got a fright.”
Children in Comrie refused to return to school after lunch.
They heard the band were staying nearby but were persuaded to go back to class and told the band would not pass through Comrie until after school hours.
Time was running away, sadly scuppering the plans for the council house tea party.
“Alas, after it all seemed poised to happen, another call came from the road manager saying they were running late and the plan would have to be abandoned,” said Sandy.
“Could we all just meet at the Caird Hall before the start of the concert and have tea of sorts there?
“So that was what happened.
“The Countess was happy enough but my girlfriend’s mother wasn’t too thrilled about spending half her housekeeping on the boiled ham for the not-needed sandwiches!”
The Beatles were happy to chat before 1964 Dundee gig
A limousine took the band to the Caird Hall.
Sandy said he was impressed by just how friendly the Fab Four were and how happy they were to chat to their aristocratic fan and to sign autographs.
“It would have been nice to have visited a castle, but we just could not, because of our tight schedule,” said Lennon.
“How big is your castle?” asked McCartney.
“Is it bigger than Buckingham Palace?”
The Countess did her best to answer the barrage of questions.
She decided to stay and watch the show.
Sandy had to phone Glamis Castle to say her ladyship wouldn’t be home for dinner.
The Dundee show was the eighth date of The Beatles’ 1964 UK tour.
Support acts were The Rustiks, Sounds Incorporated, Michael Haslam, The Remo Four, Tommy Quickly and Mary Wells, who was best known for My Guy.
The Beatles performed at 6.30pm and 8.45pm.
During the concert itself, the Countess — in fur coat and pearl necklace — sat in the wings of the Caird Hall stage.
“It was a great view, but like everyone else in the hall, she couldn’t hear a word of the performance,” said Sandy, who later in his career wrote books.
“The screams of the audience were deafening and non-stop.
“The Beatles could just have being miming for all anyone could hear.”
How loud was the noise at the Caird Hall?
The Beatles performed 10 songs including Twist And Shout, Money (That’s What I Want), Can’t Buy Me Love, A Hard Day’s Night and Long Tall Sally.
What did the Countess make of it all?
“I couldn’t hear one word of any of their songs,” she said.
“Most of the time, I had my fingers pressed over my ears to keep out the awful noise.”
But she was still utterly enthralled at having met the Liverpudlians.
“I love The Beatles,” she said.
“I think they are fab.
“That’s the word, isn’t it?
“I must buy one of their records.”
Venue was like a casualty ward
Courier photographer Alex Coupar captured The Beatles on stage in 1964 including his brilliant image of Harrison and McCartney sharing a microphone.
“It was an uproarious night,” he said.
“I could see but barely hear them playing a note.”
The Courier described the ear-splitting bedlam and said scores of ambulance men and Red Cross workers swung into action when the band appeared.
“Girls from all parts of the hall, the majority of them sobbing ecstatically or in a state of collapse, were led out to recover,” it read.
“The final tally of casualties was 50.
“Paul was the No.1 Beatle on stage as the chorus of ‘We Love You Beatles’ broke off suddenly into a spine-tingling scream.
“The Beatles accepted the welcome with a grin, a little wave, and got down to the near-impossible task of being heard.
“They made it – but only the merest whisper managed to reach the front rows.
“It was battered back by wave upon wave of sound.
“Jelly babies, jelly babies and more jelly babies rained down from points all over the auditorium.”
What happened after The Beatles’ 1964 Dundee concert?
The band found themselves trying to dodge the oncoming gummies.
Sales of jelly babies had increased considerably in Dundee before the concert after Harrison revealed they were his favourite sweet in a TV interview in 1963.
The Evening Telegraph said cleaning staff sweeping up afterwards could have filled countless boxes with the sweets found on stage.
A car waited, engine running, at a pend off Castle Street to take the band back to the Four Seasons Hotel when the house lights went up.
Some fans were ahead of the game.
A thousand people gathered outside and mobbed them all the way to the car.
Police and dogs were brought in to control the mass of bodies.
Some flung themselves on the car.
Many of the screaming girls fell on the road as the car vanished down Castle Street.
The hotel welcomed the Fab Four back with a party thrown by management.
That was it.
The Beatles never returned to Dundee.
Beatles songs were heard again in 1975
The group’s demise happened just as quickly as their rise to fame.
The band broke up in 1970.
McCartney returned to the Caird Hall in 1975 with his band Wings.
He performed Beatles songs for the first time since the band broke up.
The last word goes to paperback writer Sandy McGregor.
Apart from narrowly missing out on a headline-grabbing story of the would-be council house tea party, Sandy has another big regret from his unforgettable encounter with the quartet who would go on to become the biggest band of all time.
“I got two sets of their autographs but in an act of monumental folly I gave one set to an American tourist I randomly met and lost the other set!” he said.
“If I’d known they’d become as valuable as they have, I’d have locked them away.”
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