Nathan B.Spooner
29 August 1966
Susan Leibovitz smiles
at me and says, “Nathan, the Beatles play tonight in San Francisco, Candlestick
Park. Want to go?”
“Sure,” I reply. “But
I don’t have any money to get in.”
“Doesn’t matter, let’s
just drive to the park and see what happens.”
That’s what I always
like about my friend Susan. Just go for it. Don’t worry about the details.
So on this summer day
in August, with Susan’s fiancé Arnold, long gone to Brooklyn in New York state
for the summer and Lucy traveling to Hong Kong with her family, Susan and I
find ourselves together for an adventure. You could call it a date, I suppose,
but it’s not like we are courting one another or anything like that.
By 7:45 p.m., the
mellow August early evening turns glowing warm along the Bayshore freeway as
colored hues of red, gold, pink, and orange flood the San Francisco Bay waters
with end-of-day shadows, creating a wonderful West Coast sunset. Susan pays the
toll for the Bay Bridge, I supply the gas. We will make this $1.65 date a fun
time no matter what happens.
Susan laughs at my
silly jokes and I enjoy her warm smile. She and Arnie aren’t married yet and
their daughter, Jennifer, won’t be born for another eight years, but that smile
of hers—I feel secure with her.
My 1941 Chevy Coupe
Deluxe moves along the Oakland Bay Bridge at 55 miles per hour, and by the time
we reach the off ramp near Hunter’s Point, some miles south of San Francisco,
darkness fills the sky.
“We can drive onto
that road and park by that field,” she points out as I follow a car in the
night. Some other cars have parked nearby and we get out and walk in the general direction of the ball park a quarter
mile or so away.
We travel
toward the
open grassy area of what must be the right field of San Francisco’s
Candlestick
Park (there were no grandstand bleachers there at this time).
Eventually a larger wire fence halts our progress. We’re not quite in
the
arena itself, but close enough.
The jammed stands of
people in front of us listen to a popular singer do his top 40 hits. Then a
local D.J. teases the crowd for a while with some inane talk about this or that
and suddenly asks, “Are you ready?” The crowd screams, and out come John, Paul,
George, and Ringo.
The most popular singing
group in America, England, Europe, and the rest of the world comes out from
underneath the stands, walks up some stairs to a stage near the pitcher’s mound
and sings all their hits as the screaming crowd claps, shouts, wails, and
generally goes crazy, all the
I don’t remember
talking or even looking around during the performance. Sweet-smelling smoke
wafts through the air as the freebie crowd doesn’t get quite as vocal, but
definitely enjoys the evening.
After about half an
hour, their set ends. No point, apparently, in doing any encores. The crowd
never stopped screaming, and they were equally as loud as the music anyway.
Susan and I wait by
the fence. Soon a dark limousine drives by and we run alongside for a moment as
a smiling John Lennon looks out a window at Susan and me, waving at her. What a
great ending. We give each other a big hug and drive back across the bay to the
Steppenwolf. The noisy, raucous crowd drinks beer and wine, plays chess,
discusses worldly and private matters as Susan and I share a couple of glasses
of burgundy.
After we drive to her
apartment, she gives me a warm hug and asks “Do you want to come in for a
while, Nathan?”
Her sister apparently
hasn’t moved out yet and I don’t care for Annie’s personality. Even though a
few years later Annie will work for Rolling Stone magazine and take some
of the defining photographs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and lots of other
musicians and celebrities, for now it only matters that she makes me feel
unwelcome, so I decline to visit with my good friend.
“I’ll see you later
Susan,” I say quietly to her as she stands by the door looking at me with her
whimsical smile. “Thanks for the invite,” I add. “Tonight was kinda fun. Let’s
go to Lake Temescal soon.”
Not until years later
do we all learn that this concert on August 29, 1966, was the last public
concert the Beatles would ever play. Later, the Life magazine photo
shows Lennon and McCartney walking to the stage with their own cameras to
record the historic event. Maybe they knew something we didn’t.