ting height. During an interview with a New York radio station that trip, Lennon and the interviewer had a discussion about wav - ing, and whether the Beatles were allowed to wave down from their hotel to the fans amassed on the street. “They won’t even let us,” Lennon said of the police, because they’re “worried that it will sort of incite them.” That’s how crazy things were, a wave from eight stories up was too explosive. Can you imagine what the little stadium was like? The interviewer asked Lennon how the band managed the chaos. At Forest Hills the night before, an eight-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire was used to keep 16,000 fans from the stage. One fan, Lennon said, got through to George anyway: “I could hear wrong notes coming out. He was trying to
carry on playing, you know, with a girl hang - ing ’round his neck.” There were concerts at Forest Hills be - fore the Beatles. The earliest one anyone seems to remember was the Kingston Trio, in August of 1960. Judy Garland played the stadium the following July, and Joan Baez came in August of ’63, joined for two songs, “Troubled and I Don’t Know Why” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” by Bob Dylan (more on Dylan later). The Baez concert was part of the Forest Hills Music Festival, which wasn’t a single event but a lineup of shows on week - ends throughout the summer. The festival ran every summer for more than a decade, into the ’70s. The bills were wonderfully di - verse, like radio at the time. The 1970 festival featured Sly and the Family Stone, Leonard
Guillermo Vilas is carried off the court after winning the 1977 U.S. Open. russ adams
61
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker