The Beatles In Seattle, 1964: Nevada Bob's First Taste of the British Invasion

If you're a Baby Boomer, you very likely remember exactly where you were when two specific Sixties events took place. The first, which made an indelible mark on all of us, much like a concussion, was the assassination of JFK. The second was wholly other, the first appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.

In olden times, tribes and people groups discussed their histories by noting "markers" in time. The old-timers had value because they remembered these histories. The year of the flood or the year of the locusts.

For me, these two events mark a major change in my life. I was in sixth grade, living in Ohio when JFK was killed in Dallas. In January our family moved to New Jersey, and three weeks later the Beatles shook the world with their appearance on Ed Sullivan. 

At the time, I knew very little about the rest of their American Tour, so it was fun to read Nevada Bob's account of his experience in Seattle as a policeman hired to protect the Fab Four on their first stop on their U.S. adventure. This is one of the stories from Nevada Bob's 50 Years with the Wrong Woman.

Nevada Bob's Beatles Encounter

I ended up getting hired for some off-duty security work for a Beatles concert around this time. After arriving and performing for New York audiences, The Beatles came to Seattle, their second city of that tour. 

The crowd coming to see the Beatles had some young males with hair hanging down to their shoulders, which I distinctly remember because it just wasn’t done in the early 60s. During their short performance, I noticed the Beatles were dodging jelly beans thrown from the audience, the crowd becoming more and more vibrant and enthusiastic. I learned later that the Beatles enjoyed jellybeans, which explains the strange ammunition choice. 

The problem for crowd control came after the show ended. The kids would simply not let two vehicles with darkened windshields leave the show. They thought The Beatles were in those cars, so they stopped both. Upon finding them empty, the crowd overturned the cars. We were short-handed, and there was no chance of us overwhelming these rambunctious teens. 

We ended up having to bring a greyhound bus to the back of the stadium where the performance had occurred. As they left, they seemed to be almost sashaying along without a care in the world, enjoying their prominence in the world of music. We got them on the bus, and they left the area without further incident. 

I had young girls with tears in their eyes asking if I had anything with autographs. These girls were willing to pay up to 20 dollars for anything signed by The Beatles. 20 dollars was quite a lot of money back in the 60s. I did end up forging quite a few signatures and selling them for 20 bucks a pop.

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This was Nevada Bob in his "crooked cop" days. His experience on the Seattle police force taught him important lessons about truth and integrity that became core values of his for the rest of his life. I'm fairly certain this kind of thing (faked signatures) was not isolated to Seattle, which means that if you have a Beatles autograph... well, buyer beware. 

Nevada Bob Gordon's memoirs,  titled 50 Years with the Wrong Woman, can be found here on Amazon.com