This week’s BROW is a follow up to another that I posted a little over a month ago that you may read here if you like. In the comments of the original Mog.com posting of that entry, fellow Mogger SkyLantern requested the August 19, 1966 Memphis, TN performance of George Harrison’s If I Needed Someone. Due to John Lennon’s recent “Beatles are bigger than Jesus” remark taken out of context by a US teen magazine, The Beatles were already a bit apprehensive about their safety while performing in the Bible-belt southern US, where ritualistic burnings of Beatles records were being organized by churches, radio stations, etc. along with actual life-threats from the Ku Klux Klan. It was during this evening performance of If I Needed Someone when a cherry bomb exploded on or near the stage and each of the Beatles looked at the others to determine which one had been shot. This moment in history was one of the main deciding factors in the decision to quit touring after 1966. The explosion occurs in this recording at about one minute and 12 seconds in. My apologies for the horrendous sound quality of this recording but the source is from a portable reel-to-reel tape machine running somewhere in the chaotic bed of a frenzied audience. My hat is off again to SkyLantern for this historically significant request.

The Beatles: Memphis, TN on August 19, 1966

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