The Beatles 1966 Cleveland, Ohio Final-Tour Concert Poster. ...

Description

JUST BEFORE SHEA STADIUM AND CANDLESTICK PARK, THERE WAS...

The Beatles 1966 Cleveland, Ohio Final-Tour Concert Poster. An original cardboard window card advertising the Beatles on their last-ever concert tour playing at Cleveland Stadium on Sunday, August 14, 1966. This was the Fab Four's third stop of their final trek; Shea Stadium would be the 11th stop; and Candlestick Park would end it all two weeks after that on August 29th. Then the Beatles' live career would be gone forever.

An exquisite concert poster that's even a little bit rarer than the Shea Stadium poster and much rarer than Candlestick Park. "Beatles Concert - Tix on Sale Here!" it proclaims. Well, right away that makes it different from any of their other posters. That presumably eliminated all random postings like fences, telephone poles and other scattered places around town. "Here!" indicates that this piece of advertising was only used in record, musical-instrument, drug and department stores - wherever tickets were actually sold. That would also surely cut down on the number of posters printed, one would think... how many ticket outlets could there have been? Shea and Candlestick could've been posted 50 miles outside of town, in a laundromat... but not this piece. Nope, supposedly money changed hands anywhere this window card was posted.

This poster has a ton going for it, and rather than working against it, we think the black & white look is compelling and completely appropriate. Sort of like how B&W was perfect for their Hard Day's Night movie. If New York City and San Francisco could afford nice colors on their Beatle posters, isn't it right that the midwestern smaller town could only afford black & white? It's straightforward, simple and informational, and that's all we needed.

Just like the famous and pricey Shea Stadium '66 concert poster (we can't resist: $275,000 in April 2022 from Heritage), the centerpiece of this window card is the band's 1966 publicity photo. Paul, Ringo, George and John are adorned in suits and ties, all looking right at the camera. This must've been one of their last suit-and-tie photo sessions ever... the psychedelic song "Tomorrow Never Knows" had already been released on Revolver, so before you knew it the boys had started sporting sideburns, scarves and hip clothing from swinging London. So this is truly the end of an era.

The basics, right under their photo: "The Beatles - Live - In Person. Cleveland Stadium - Sunday, Aug. 14. 7:30 P.M. - All Seats Reserved. $3.00, $4.00, $5.00, $5.50." If you go to see Paul McCartney in concert these days, you're lucky to get a bottle of water for those prices.

Then there's the opening acts. It's humorously ironic that The Cyrkle are misspelled here. Not only had "Red Rubber Ball" been a big hit for them earlier this year, but no less than John Lennon had suggested their offbeat spelling as a way of getting attention. That's right; the Cyrkle were managed by Brian Epstein, so the Lennon connection was made, and his idea was adopted. John certainly had the track record with "Beatles" vs. "beetles." So it's a funny twist that the group's name is misspelled again in a different way on this poster. (It's also worth noting that the Cyrkle's only other Top 20 hit, "Turn-Down Day," would hit Billboard magazine's singles chart the very weekend of this concert.)

Also playing were the Ronettes, whom the Fab Four had first met in London in January 1964, when the Ronettes were an opening act on a Rolling Stones tour. So a friendship was stuck up, and the Phil Spector-produced group ended up joining the Fabs' last American tour. The Ronettes had one more charting single left in them, later this year... "I Can Hear Music."

Then you have "The Remains" without leader Barry Tashian being mentioned, but they went by both the shorter and longer (Barry & The Remains) names. Tashian ended up writing a photo-laden memoir of this experience, Ticket to Ride: An Extraordinary Diary of the Beatles' Last Tour, published in 1997.

Then the poster says "Other Exciting Acts." Wait a minute - what about Bobby Hebb? Not only was Bobby on the tour, but his "Sunny" was the #2 record in the country right now! My goodness, what an oversight. Oh well, he may have been a last-minute addition to the tour, or still an unknown when the poster was designed.

The final line of the board states, "Rain or Shine - Don't Miss This Historic Show!" How did they know it was going to be historic? This must be the only Beatles concert poster in the world that ever said that. Pretty prescient.

Then the local printer's credit is given in small print at the very bottom, "Jontzen - union bug - Cleveland."

As for the show itself, Cleveland was always a raucous tour stop for the moptops, with crowd difficulties surfacing both in 1964 and again this year (they skipped the city in '65). For this concert, roughly 10% of the 20,000 fans in attendance poured onto the field and rushed the stage during the fourth song, halting proceedings for about 30 minutes. Must've felt pretty routine to the Beatles by now.

So here's your chance to get one of only a handful of legitimate Beatles concert-advertising posters produced in America, because they were almost always a sell-out and posters weren't needed. We love the way it says directly under John Lennon in the photo, perfectly centered below him: "Live - In Person." There's nothing more exciting than seeing your favorite group live in concert, and there's nothing more exciting than getting a sublime concert poster from the heyday of the greatest band ever. Measures 14 1/2" x 20" and grades to Very Good condition. From the David Swartz Concert Poster Collection. COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: The board has a 3 ¼" diagonal crease in the upper right corner, which just barely intersects the top of the "t". There's also a very light brown blemish near the edge to the lower right of the exclamation point. There's a tiny edge nick directly to the left of "Tix." Each corner has a nudge to its tip, ranging from 1/8" to ½". The poster's front has almost no toning, whereas the backside has the age toning. Interestingly, the verso shows a couple of surfaces creases to the board which simply don't show up on the front. A couple of printer's anomalies exist in the form of black ink smudges, which are not considered damager, under the "S" in "Beatles" and on the "X" in "Tix."


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