On this day in music, The Beatles played to the largest concert attendance in 1965 in what stadium?

On August 15, 1965, the English rock band, The Beatles performed at Shea Stadium in New York, a highlight of the 1965 tour. The footage from this performance would be documented in a 50-minute long film.

Introduced by Ed Sullivan, the Fab Four, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr emerged to a crowd 55,600 strong. The screaming audience almost drowned out the sound of the band, who began their set with "Twist and Shout."

While it is currently commonplace to attend a concert in a stadium, in 1965, The Beatles made rock and roll history by being the first band to perform a stadium concert. The band made $160,000 and would set the stage for future stadium concerts. In the 1970s, stadiums would become the desired place for popular performers to hold their shows. This allowed attendance from 20,000-100,000 people for one performance.

The performance was made into a 50-minute documentary filmed by a crew led by Andrew Laszlo, who used 14 cameras to chronicle the performance. The film highlights the hysteria of Beatlemania in America. The documentary would first release on BBC1 on March 1, 1966, in West Germany on August 2, and in the US on January 10, 1967.

The Beatles' setlist for the Shea Stadium concert from 1965

1. "Twist And Shout"
2. "She's A Woman"
3. "I Feel Fine"
4. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" a Larry Willams cover
5. "Ticket To Ride"
6. "Everybody's Tryin' To Be My Baby" a Carl Perkins cover
7. "Can't By Me Love"
8. "Baby's In Black"
9. "Act Naturally" a Johnny Russell cover
10. "A Hard Day's Night"
11. "Help!"
12. "I'm Down"

The video below is a snippet of "Dizzy Miss Lizzy." You can view the entire concert on YouTube.

The Shea Stadium was just one stop during the band's third US tour. This concert is perhaps the Beatles' most famous. The New York Times would comment that the young fans created a "magnificent and terrifying voice. They also quoted a policewoman who called the attendees "psychos."

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