Results tagged “thebeatles”

Today would have marked John Lennon's 69th birthday, and surely the Strawberry Fields section of Central Park is seeing a lot of action for the occasion. However, one reader says that while the mosaic "is typically covered in flowers, adorned with trinkets and messages, and surrounded by people gathering to sing songs and pay tribute to the late Beatle. Early this morning, I found a lone salutation and a small army of the NYPD preparing for the onslaught of fans and tourists alike."

      

Last night may have been the first time since it opened this spring that Citi Field was home to fans cheering loudly for over two consecutive hours. That's because fresh off his return to (the top of) The Ed Sullivan Theater, Paul McCartney once again played on the home field of the Mets where the Beatles had their legendary Shea Stadium shows. And by all accounts, Macca brought it.

Another day, another Beatles anniversary! Today marks 45 years since the Fab Four's first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show (they appeared three consecutive Sundays in February of 1964, to the tune of $10,000). According to Beatles News, this first performance was "considered a milestone in American pop culture and the beginning of the British Invasion in music. The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers, at the time a record for an American television program."

In 1965 The Beatles performed at Shea Stadium (video), beginning a tradition of rock on the ball field. Sadly, they won't be around to bookend the life of the stadium, which opened its doors on April 17th, 1964 and gets torn down after the 2008 season.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a serious trauma at East 16th St. and Moore Pl. in Brooklyn, a water search at Kosciusko Bridge in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery on Lexington Ave. in Manhattan,
• Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who popularized transcendentalism in the West with the support of The Beatles, died yesterday at an undetermined age.
• Postmodern reality at its best: Silvercup Studios, where "Gossip Girl," is filmed could actually become an educational institution.
• A Whole Foods location is opening in Gowanus, Brooklyn, after groundbreaking last spring and much consternation.
• Going against the grain of many city mayors who are declaring their municipalities a safe haven for illegal immigrants, Mayor Mark Boughton of Danbury, CT wants to align his police force with federal law enforcement to crack down on undocumented workers.
• Brooklyn's 4th Ave. has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last five years. The new-and-improved version seems equally unimpressive to some.
• Customers at the Grand Central Oyster Bar who want to order New England clam chowder will have to ask for "Giants Clam Chowder" this week.
• Big Brother is a salesman. He wants to follow you to sell you stuff.

In the final year of baseball in Yankee Stadium, the legendary park will host the 2008 All-Star Game. In its 45th and final year, what does Shea Stadium get? A commemorative logo from the New York Mets. Fitting for the multi-purpose stadium that is a relic of the 1960s. Today, the Mets, the stadium's primary occupant since it opened in 1964, unveiled a logo that players will wear on their sleeves during the 2008 season....

Making fun of hipsters isn't even ironically cool anymore, but this video of The Hipster Olympics somehow still manages to be funny. The hipsters go through a series of challenges including picking out ironic thrift store t-shirts (obvs), photographing themselves for their MySpace profiles, and tossing out albums by artists who have sold out by becoming popular (Of Montreal, Caribou, The Beatles and the sarcastic selection of Bruce Willis). Find out who wins the silver (which is the new gold):

In June of 1972 (just months after his divorce) Elvis Presley performed a 3-day run at Madison Square Garden. These shows were the first full concerts he put on in NYC, and the first since he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. Excitement was in the air, and Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Art Garfunkel, all of Led Zepplin and half of The Beatles (John Lennon and George Harrison) were in the audience. Another notable name: some report Liberace was there and after seeing him in concert suggested adding flashy costumes into his act.

Recently Rolling Stone took a 60-second tour of The Beatles' New York, with a little help from Google’s Street Maps feature.

published by Random House, dubbed, "Hilarious" by Jon Stewart. He'll be reading at the KGB Bar on June 24th. Seeing him read now will be like seeing Jerry Seinfeld at an open mic or seeing The Beatles when Pete Best was the drummer. Audience members will be later be able to say, "I saw Rich in a tiny bar in NYC!" And mouths will drop in awe and eyebrows will furrow with jealousy because Rich will be, in the future, on the forefront of hilarity.

Dad, Broadway and 44th, by Mexican Pictures.

Today many will gather at Strawberry Fields in Central Park to hold vigil on the anniversary of the death of John Lennon, which took place 26 years ago today. The NYCLU has asked the city to lift the ban on music at Strawberry Fields for every day of the year, not just twice a year for Lennon vigils.

We cued it up and were stunned -- the first song was not "Sunday Morning" as on the "Velvet Underground & Nico" Verve LP, but rather it was "European Son"- the song that is last on that LP, and it was a version neither of us had ever heard before!

Wolfmother

Albert Maysles, Documentary Filmmaker

While The Beatles' performance on The Ed Sullivan Show was an iconic TV moment, their 32-minute performance at Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965 truly demonstrated how popular they had become. With a capacity of over 55,000, screaming fans filled the stands, with screaming that perhaps has only been heard in 1969 and 1986 since (and we're not sure the screaming during those World Series years approached the Beatles fans). People say the fact that they filled Shea Stadium paved the way for acts to perform in bigger venues - and for music labels to think different about their popular acts. So Gothamist recommends you go home, play a Beatles tune and let out a primal scream - it's much easier in this cooler weather!

You can download the Grey Album at Illegal Art. And our investigative unit in San Francisco found out that the domain name is registered to an Antoine Tinguely in NYC, who works at design company Trollback and won an Emmy for designing the titles of HBO's Hysterical Blindness.

is the Fringe’s star pupil, starting at the festival, and then heading to Broadway. There are over two hundred shows playing the Fringe, at various venues around town. The website is great, but overwhelming in its riches. There are just so many shows to browse through, but Gothamist has been carefully reviewing it and will be offering a series of suggested Fringe show pix. Ticket info can be found for all of these here, not to mention the multitudes of other shows. Here’s a starting point:

Matsui and the Yankees are already drawing large crowds during their practices at the Tokyo Dome, with more than 30,000 people turning out. The Japanese fans just love Matsui, with some people comparing his status to The Beatles or to Elvis.