** WEINER-Break** Unseen pictures capture outbreak of Beatlemania

[SoCalDem]

http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/322446/unseen-pictures-capture-outbreak-beatlemania




Photographer Mike Mitchell poses with his previously unseen photographs of the first US performance of The Beatles at the Washington Coliseum in 1964. (AFP Photo)

By Mike Collett-White
June 13, 2011, 2:29pm


LONDON (Reuters) – They have been gathering dust in a basement for more than 40 years, but now U.S. photographer Mike Mitchell has decided to auction a group of pictures which capture the moment the Beatles became a worldwide phenomenon. Mitchell, now in his mid-60s, was given a press pass to the Fab Four's first U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum in 1964, just two days after their breakthrough television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

He was back later that year to cover their concert in Baltimore, by which time their fame had grown considerably . I heard the music and I had to be there," said Mitchell, surrounded by a selection of the black-and-white images which had a spontaneity that many later photographs lacked.

He is selling the collection through Christie's auctioneers in New York on July 20, and is exhibiting them in London first to raise awareness among potential bidders. "Things were much different back then," he told Reuters on Friday. "There was no big security presence, the press wasn't corralled and I was free to sort of embrace my own ambition."

snip

[madrchsod]

1. that will bring him a nice retirement fund....

[Lucinda]

2. I want to see them!

:) Hope they sell well!

[Scuba]

3. Fab 4 him.

[Art_from_Ark]

4. Ah, Beatlemania

I don't remember so much of it, but I remember having the Beatles' first US 45 release, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"/"I Saw Her Standing There" and preferring the "B" side exponentially to the "A" side. And then there was the Beatles cartoon show. I never could understand it, but it was still entertaining.