The Beatles' 1965 US tour

The Beatles staged their second concert tour of the United States (with one date in Canada) in the late summer of 1965. At the peak of American Beatlemania, they played a mixture of outdoor stadiums and indoor arenas, with two historic stops on this venture.

After this tour's conclusion, the Beatles, who had been touring, recording and promoting non-stop for three years, took a six-week break before reconvening in mid-October to record the album Rubber Soul.

The Shea Stadium show

The Shea Stadium concert on August 15 was record breaking and one of the most famous concert events of its era. It set records for attendance and revenue generation. Promoter Sid Bernstein said, "Over 55,000 people saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium. We took $304,000, the greatest gross ever in the history of show business."Roy Carr & Tony Tyler, The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, 1976, p. 46 This demonstrated that outdoor concerts on a large scale could be successful and profitable.

The Beatles were transported to the rooftop Port Authority Heliport at the World's Fair by a New York Airways Boeing Vertol 107-II helicopter, then took a Wells Fargo armoured truck to the stadium. Two thousand security personnel were at the stadium to handle crowd control. The crowd was confined to the spectator areas of the stadium with nobody other than the band members, their entourage, and security personnel allowed on...
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