The fifth date of The Beatles’ final tour took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they performed one concert before around 20,000 people at the John F Kennedy Stadium.
The concert began at 8pm. The stadium had 60,000 seats available, but by this point in their career The Beatles were only able to sell around a third of tickets. They had previously played at Philadelphia’s Convention Hall on 2 September 1964.
Support acts for the entire tour were The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle, and The Ronettes. The show took place during the beginning of an electrical storm with near-constant lightning, but the rain held off until shortly after The Beatles left the stage.
The Beatles’ standard set throughout the tour consisted of 11 songs: ‘Rock And Roll Music’, ‘She’s A Woman’, ‘If I Needed Someone’, ‘Day Tripper’, ‘Baby’s In Black’, ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘Nowhere Man’, ‘Paperback Writer’, and ‘I’m Down’. During the tour they occasionally substituted the final song with ‘Long Tall Sally’.
After the show The Beatles and their entourage immediately boarded their Greyhound tour bus and were taken to Philadelphia International Airport, from where they flew to Toronto, Canada.
#OTD 16AUG1966 George #tuning up his @Epiphone Casino with a #harmonica, backstage at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium. #EightDaysAWeek pic.twitter.com/jIISk5Sklk
— George Harrison (@GeorgeHarrison) August 16, 2017
I was at the JFK concert. It was my first concert Nothing like starting at the top.
Me too. I was there with two girlfriends. Still friends after all these years,
Me too! I was also at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, when Moses received the 10 Commandments and the burning of the Hindenburg!
It was also my 1st concert, I was 8 years old.
I was there. Couldn’t hear much for all the screaming! It stormed wicked on the way home.
We went as a group of corner boys from 3rd and Federal from 2 street South Phila …..Staged was rushed after Beatles last song ……. my cousin got a hold of one of the Beatles shoes …Tickets were given out for concert for free…..By the Philadelphia Police Hero Scholarship Fund
11 songs made up a complete show, that’s pathetic, hell the Stones are not even warmed up after 11 songs.
I saw the Stones’ show in Atlantic City New Jersey in July 1966. According to the set list that can be found on the web, they played 14 songs.
My 1st concert, 12yo. I was in the first few rows. Stage was a plain, undecorated raised platform in the infield. Beatles were dressed in their black suits. On this hot, humid August night they must have sweat to death. The non-stop screaming of the crowd behind me was deafening& drowned out the music!! At one point a jet flew over on it’s landing approach to PHL. Paul raised his guitar like a machine gun, pretending to shoot it down. There was lightening& thunder, but no rain until after it was over.I got a program & taped our 3 tix stubs inside the front cover.
I was there. It was John who raised his guitar to shoot down the plane.