Beatlemania at the Marjorie Luke

On the evening of February 9th — at the alarmingly intimate Marjorie Luke Theater [721 E Cota St. in Santa Barbara] — you will be driven to fits of delirium. You’d like that, wouldn’t you??

“Um….”? ?

February 9, you see, is the 60th anniversary of the Beatles making landfall in what has since become known as The British Invasion —? a cultural blitzkrieg that quickly turned American pop stars Connie Francis and Bobby Rydell (for instance)? into uniquely difficult trivia questions. The British are coming! The British are coming! Where the hell was Paul Revere when we needed him? Not to worry. We had dear Ed Sullivan to call out the warning. Such as it was.?

Relive the madness on February 9th at the Marjorie Luke, where an evening-long program will celebrate 60 years (to the day) of the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan. It was just a band on a TV show — but that particular televised gig in February of 1964 blew the doors off America’s nascent youth culture and got the sixties revolution rolling. It was an ‘event sociologique’ (to paraphrase Truffaut in Close Encounters) that merits commemoration, and the two guys who’ll kick off the evening at the Marjorie are the toastmasters you want for something like this.?

The immersive confab that evening starts with longtime local radio g*ds (and the evening’s co-presenters) Peter Bie and Dennis Mitchell holding forth on little-known Beatles facts, personal stories from awed Beatles fans who’ve had face-to-face encounters with the Lovable Liverpudlians, and rarely seen clips of the lads.?

“The phenomenon and the raw excitement of the band’s arrival was just what America needed after months of mourning the tragic loss of our 35th president,” says Mitchell, referring to president Kennedy’s assassination the previous year; and the grisly Zapruder film that documented it, trebling the public mourning and adding a visceral layer of horror to the tragedy.

Mitchell is host of the long-running internationally syndicated radio show Breakfast with The Beatles. Bie and Mitchell will prep the audience for the time warp — holding forth on little-known Beatles facts, personal stories from awed Beatles fans who’ve had face-to-face encounters with the Lovable Liverpudlians, and rarely seen clips of the band — before bringing on?Bob Eubanks, of all people.

Folks of a certain vintage will remember Eubanks as the laconic host of 60s curiosity The Newlywed Game, in which just-marrieds are seen bitterly sparring at the behest of Eubanks’ innocent-sounding, button-pushing interrogations.?What few people know is that Eubanks was also, as Dennis Mitchell explains, solely responsible for bringing the Beatles to Southern California. “Bob is the only living person to have produced a Beatles concert in all three years that they toured America,” said Mitchell. “His role as promoter for the Hollywood Bowl shows in ’64 and ‘65 and the ‘66 Dodger Stadium concert comes with some revealing and seldom-heard stories that make 60 Years of Beatlemania! all the more special.”?

Following Eubanks’ jaw-dropping revelations, the historic Feb. 9th Sullivan show will be aired in its entirety at the Marjorie, a treasured and gorgeous local theater whose ”house” will handily stand in for Sullivan's Studio 50 where the band made history. The Sullivan show from that evening in ’64 will air in its entirety — dated oddball commercials and all. The evening will then turn to a live performance by Bobby, Fin & Dave (aka BFD), Santa Barbara rock royalty who will play 60 minutes of Beatles songs with a sparkling fidelity only these three mop-top maestros can boast.?

Many are familiar with the iconic black and white videotape of the Beatles’ first appearance on American TV. The historic honors fell to the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 – and the famous recording of the event is notable. The surreal hysteria that infected the studio audience had to have been worrying for parents and sociologists alike, young women in the audience madly batting their beehive hairdos in screaming, inarticulate desperation as the besuited Fab Four went politely through their paces, the lads’ curt bow after each number a telling counterpoint to the bedlam in the house.?

Opening with All My Loving (a McCartney composition that Lennon much later confessed to adoring), the Beatles can be seen smiling in wonder at the studio audience of Teens? at full banshee boil — a hormonal, culture-warping demographic that would be thoroughly unleashed through the coming rock n’ roll tsunami the Beatles’ appearance arguably launched. A stunning 73 million Americans watched the Beatles’ debut on American TV. An estimated 50,000 people had written in requesting tickets to that airing. Sullivan’s theater had a capacity of 728.?

It was as if somehow the country sensed the approach of a change in the weather and wished to be present when the storm broke. A few years before, the countercultural Beats had done their part to tenderize the pale underside of the glazed Eisenhower behemoth, SF columnist Herb Caen famously dismissing Kerouac and company as “the Beatniks” – a smirking and derisive nod to Communist Russia's satellite Sputnik.?

The Beats’ transcendental message – that life is suffused with spiritual and experiential gravity beyond the purview of consumerism and traditionally-defined “success” – did not endear them to the Establishment. Their lived message, combined with the Zapruder films’ grisly record of President Kennedy’s public execution – was a harbinger of The Sixties; a wild decade-in-waiting which?would improbably combine LSD, napalm, and a spaceship landing on the moon.

While the Beatles’ appearance on the Sullivan show is considered the explosive beginning of what came to be called The British Invasion, it was more importantly the opening salvo of a music-fueled, steamrolling youth revolution whose momentum would alter the country’s landscape forever. 16 years and 303 days later, John Lennon would be shot to death in the presence of his wife in front of their NYC home – a tragic murder many consider the death knell of the ‘60s idealism.

But the launch of that paisely-soaked idealism will be grandly celebrated on February 9th at the Marjorie Luke Theater.

This will be the first in a series of events under the banner of “In Case You Missed It” (ICYMI), as Peter Bie explains.? “The series will highlight the music, the individuals, and the motion picture and TV milestones over the past 75 years,” Bie says. “We only get one chance at this particular milestone – a Beatles 60th anniversary event, so this day and date perfectly align with our vision.”

Tickets for 60 Years of Beatlemania! are $30 available online at:

bieandbieproductions.com/upcoming-events

(Tickets are $40 at the door)

SHOW DATE: February 9, 2024

Doors open at 6:30pm. Show at 7p.

The Marjorie Luke Theatre is at 721 E. Cota St., Santa Barbara. Plenty of FREE off-street parking is available adjacent to the venue.

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