The Los Angeles Dodgers will hold Beatles Night at tonight’s game against the Chicago Cubs, marking the 50th anniversary of the Beatles concert at Dodger Stadium.
A performance of the Beatles’ greatest hits by The Beatles tribute band The Fab Four-The Ultimate Tribute will begin at approximately 6 p.m. It will include songs performed by the Beatles at their Dodger Stadium concert on Aug. 28, 1966.
A fireworks show featuring a Beatles mix by “Breakfast with the Beatles” host Chris Carter is scheduled to follow the game. Fans will be invited onto the field to watch the show, which will take place before 11 p.m. and is subject to cancellation if the game lasts too long.
The national anthem will be performed by Rusty Anderson, touring guitarist with Sir Paul McCartney.
A ticket package including a co-branded Beatles/Dodgers 50th anniversary beach towel can be purchased at dodgers.com/beatles.
A crowd estimated at 45,000, paying $4.50 for tickets on the top deck and $6 for the loge and field level tickets, came to Dodger Stadium on Aug. 28, 1966, for what would prove to be The Beatles next-to-last public concert, the 13th stop on their 14-city North American tour.
The group arrived on the field in a helicopter. According to a Los Angeles Times account, The Beatles played 10 songs in approximately a half- hour, including “She’s a Woman,” “If I Needed Someone” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music.”
In a 2006 interview with the website honoring the late Dodger owner Walter O’Malley, walteromalley.com, Bob Smith, who, as manager of Dodger Stadium, was in charge of operational issues and security for the concert, recalled “the crowd was probably in the 14-18 (-year-old) range, most of it girls” and that he had ringing in his ears from the noise for several days after the concert.
The concert was the first at Dodger Stadium, which opened in 1962.
The tour would end the following night in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park before a crowd estimated at 25,000.
