Beatles Press Conference, Vancouver - August 22, 1964

55 years ago today, on August 22, 1964, the Beatles held a press conference before their show at Vancouver's Empire Stadium. Maclean's magazine reviewed the event: "The Beatles press conference has become as memorable an institution as President Roosevelt's fireside chats, and at the Vancouver session, Paul, John, George and Ringo were at their flippant best. Eighty-nine newsmen crowded into a room designed for forty, including the traveling Beatles experts from the Liverpool Echo and London Daily Mirror, the CBC's Royal Tour expert, several writers from the U.S. and Eastern Canada, a score or so of electronic journalists and Disc Jockeys, five reporters from Victoria — the empire's last anti-Beatle outpost and a thirteen year old Beatlemaniac named Susan Lomax whom The Sun sent along to get the youthful viewpoint. All of them were aware that the craze has now reached the stage where the press needs The Beatles much more then the Beatles need the press, and all of them were charmed by their now-familiar Liverpudlian cockiness. When a reporter asked how the boys felt "now that Britannia rules the airwaves," Paul McCartney jeered: "Oo, you worked that one out, didn't you!" Asked about the customs delay, John Lennon replied, "We had to be deloused." Most disarming of all was the Beatles’ cheerful admission that, when nubile young girls throw themselves at their feet, they have no compunction about picking them up. (Question: “What is the most unusual request you've had from your fans?” Lennon’s leering answer: “Well, I wouldn't like to say.”) Enjoy this recording, originally released on Jerden Records.