“The sound at our concerts was always bad. Fresh bullet holes on the fuselage of the band’s plane cleared up any doubts: They were in harm’s way.Īt least the audience couldn’t hear how ragged they had become – not that they would have cared. They torched Beatles albums, boycotted songs and unleashed a torrent of death threats. The off-the-cuff joke turned to a horrifying reality when a supposedly anti-religious statement made my John Lennon ignited a firestorm among Bible-toting zealots south of the Mason-Dixon line. “We’re going to have a couple of weeks to recuperate before we go and get beaten up by the Americans,” George Harrison cracked with more than a touch of resentment. Only after being stripped of concert proceeds were they permitted to leave the country.įollowing the harrowing ordeal, no one was particularly thrilled about having to hit the road again for a U.S. Their entire police detail was suddenly withdrawn and the Beatles were left to defend themselves against a hoard of angry nationalists who manhandled them all the way to the airport. A trip to Asia that July ended with a frightening incident in the Philippines, when an inadvertent snub of the dictatorial first family provoked a nationwide turn against the foursome. Perhaps not literally, but that seemed like less of a guarantee with each passing day.
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