I Read The New Today Oh Boy About the Beatles Snubbing Imelda

The Beatles played two concerts at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium exactly 40 years ago. The first concert at four in the afternoon drew 30,000 people while the evening concert attracted 50,000, the second biggest concert attendance for the greatest band in history, second only to the Shea Concert in New York in August 1965.

But that was not why July 4, 1966 was very memorable not only to the Beatles and their fans but to the whole Philippines as well.

The date was important for what did not happen. Eric Gamalinda started his novel, "The Empire of Memory" with it. It was called the "Hard Day's Night in Manila." Robert Cuevas, who recently died, entitled his Manila Chronicle article, "Furor Over Beatles Snub Mars Show" and this was shown in the definitive "Beatles Anthology" which called the whole thing, "Incident in Manila" and found it important enough to start Part VI with it.

Apparently, the Beatles snubbed an appointment with then First Lady Imelda Marcos (with about 300 children of politicians and military officers including the Marcos children) at the Malacanang.

Joseph William Smith, more popularly known as Pepe Smith and was a member of the "Eddie Reyes and D'Downbeats" which was one of the front acts of the Beatles concert, said that the Beatles have nothing to do with the snub.

"They were unaware of the appointment. It was out of their schedule," he said.

"(There was) no invitation. Or maybe they were informed about it two hours before,' Pepe Smith recalled.

Different people had a different version about it. The Beatles blamed their late manager George Epstein for the booboo and who, of course, is not alive to defend himself. Others said Epsteain's message not to go on with Malacanang visit did not reach Imelda.

"No one thought about it during the concert. But when I woke at about 11:30 the next morning, the whole neighborhood was glued to Channel 3 showing the presidential table all set up with no Beatles on sight," Smith said.

Apparently, even the Beatles had a rude awakening.

Ringo Starr in the Anthology said that when they woke up, the service at the Manila Hotel suddenly went cold with their requests for breakfast and newspapers went unheeded.

"Still nothing happened, so we put the TV on and there was a horrific TV show of Madame Marcos screaming: "They've let me down." There were all these shots with the cameraman focusing on empty plates and up into the little kids' faces, all crying because the Beatles hadn't turned up," Starr said.

"We sat there in amazement. We couldn't believe it. We just had to watch ourselves not arriving at the presidential palace," said George Harrison, as quoted from the Anthology.

Taking cue from the snub, only one motorcycle escort accompanied them to the airport; compared to their arrival motorcade when "there were thousands of kids, with hundreds upon hundreds of policemen," as Ringo described it.

Pepe Smith, who, together with some of his band members, escorted the Beatles to the Manila International Airport, said that things even became uglier at the airport.

"A caliber 44 revolver was pointed at them. An attaché case said to contain their money was taken from them. No shuttle was provided and they were made to walk to their plane," he said.


Reports said that the money the Beatles made in Manila was indeed taken from them.

"There were a number of them coming up to us, pushing and screaming, "Get over there!" They forced us back and then another one would come around the other way, doing it again: "Get over there!" I was trying to keep my eye on all the people, keep moving ahead of them to stay out of their way. It was all really negative. I saw a couple of Buddhist monks and went and hid behind them," Harrison recalled.

"There was chanting, with people hating us all the way. They started spitting at us, spitting on us, and there's the famous story of John and me hiding behind these nuns because we thought, "It's a Catholic country, they won't beat up the nuns," Ringo recalled.

"There was a group of nuns in the corner of the airport and when all the fisticuffs broke out we went over to the nuns. It was rather a nice little shot, nuns and Beatles in the corner. They didn't actually protect us; they just stood there looking a bit bemused. Whenever they moved, we moved the other side of them," said Paul McCartney.

McCartney must have seen the connection of the nuns and People Power because he would say alter in the Anthology: "It was an unfortunate little trip, but the nice thing about it was that in the end, when we found out what Marcos and Imelda had been doing to the people - the rip-off that the whole thing was - we were glad to have done what we did. Great! We must have been the only people who'd ever dared to snub Marcos. But we didn't really know what we were doing politically until many years later."

Needless to say, the Fabulous Four vowed not to come to the Philippines after what happened. Not even if the once-unnamed green pomade sold in little packs would later be renamed "Beatles" in their honor.

The Beatles also swore off making live concerts after what happened to the Philippines and had their last big concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park in August 1966.

Pepe Smith said that it was unfortunate that the "snob" was given more prominence.

"After a few weeks, the whole thing was forgotten anyway in the Philippines," he said.

"Bongbong (Marcos) would say later, "Well, I now prefer the Rolling Stones" and that's it," Smith said.

Young Beatles fans also became apologetic after watching the Beatles Anthology.

Typical is musician Chino Singson's plea: " Maybe, just maybe, one of you would consider swinging by Manila one of these days to perhaps do a few numbers? I promise nothing of the same sort will happen. No pressure, sirs. Take your time.Finally, I'd like to say thank you. Your music and ideals have so deeply penetrated my life and my own music. I will be a fan forever."

What Pepe and the more than 80,000 who attended the concert was the music or the lack of it.

The local front acts for the Beatles concert included Dale Adriatico, Wing Duo, Lemons Three and The Reycards. Lemons Three became Lemons Three Quartet because Pilita Corrales joined them. Corrales was included because her brother is the promoter of the concert.

D'Downbeats composed of Smith on drums and vocals, Eddie Reyes on keyboards, Tony Jalandoni on lead, Charlie Miehleib on rhythm and Tonette Fabie on base was the glamour band then.

To make a big impression, D'Downbeat's first song was "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones.

Smith said that their act made an impression on the Beatles crew because they said that it was like watching the Stones and the Beatles at the same time.

Smith recalled fixing the drums when he heard some people talking with a London accent behind him.

"When I looked, Whoa! It was Paul and George. They wanted to know if the number of the crowd. Now there's a rule among musicians that you don't peek but the two did on opposite ends of the curtain,' he said.

Harrison recalled that in their contract they were supposed to play for only a few thousands.

"But we got there it was like the Monterey Pop Festival. There were about 200,000 people on the site," Harrison said.

Smith recalled that after their act, he and his bandmates went down and they were pushed around below the stage.

"Unknown to us we had the best seats in the house. The screams were so loud though but we could almost hear their natural voices,' he said.

Unfortunately, a video or audio recording of the Manila concert has yet to surface but musical historians said that they played the same set as the one in Japan and their repertoire was: Chuck Berry's Rock and Roll Music followed by their compositions" "She's a Woman," "If I Needed Someone," "Day Tripper," "Baby's in Black," "I Feel Fine," "Yesterday," "I Wanna Be Your Man," "Paperback Writer" and "I'm Down."

Smith was able to get guitar strings from Harrison and drumsticks form Ringo. "I don't where I kept them but I used a smaller model than Ringo's although there was a gig when I used it,'" he said.

Others who kept their tickets (P20 for the general and P30 for the ringside) are raking it in for 1000 times their price in Internet auctions