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Sunday, February 9, 1964 8:00PM ET
To give you a perspective on just how big this show was, 73 Million people tuned on that Sunday evening at 8PM ET to watch this rock and roll band that we never even heard of until about 45 days beforehand. About 40% of the population tuned in - totally and completely unheard of. (Compare it with the biggest TV show of every year now - The Superbowl gets about 30% watching!) Ed Sullivan himself makes the announcement about the largest viewing audience, Live from Miami Beach on the following Sunday, Feb 16th ahead of The Beatles 2nd appearance. 59 years later and people are still talking about that communal night where we all watched them in glorious black and white on pretty small TV screens. From the first notes of All My Loving to the last ones of I Want To Hold Your Hand, pure magic came out of that tube that evening. Those of us who watched it will never, ever forget what we saw and felt.
If you take a look at the biggest and most impactful (positive) events of the 1960s, there are only two others I can think of that even come close. And one may never have happened if it wasn't for The Beatles. And both happened in 1969. The Moon landing on July 20, 1969 and Woodstock less than a month later, August 15-17. Could this festival have happened without the Rock and Roll explosion of 1964? Feel free to add to this list or voice your opinions. I just thought of a 4th one - 6/25/67. The first live worldwide TV broadcast and over 400 Million watched. Can anyone remember any other act that day? I doubt it. What made this show so special was Britain was represented by, of course, The Beatles. Now they could have picked a song from their current #1 album on earth. NOOOOO. That was never their style. They wanted a message song fitting the occasion. So John wrote a 'simple' song that people the world over could get their message - All You Need Is Love - and what a powerful message it was (and still is)!
We couldn't get enough of The Beatles. As a generation, we bought up every guitar in every music store and started to play guitar (drums, too!) so we could sing their songs with friends. Many went on to become some of the biggest rock stars of the era. Almost every rock star credits The Beatles as their direct reason they started playing music and many even learning to write their own songs, too!
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