TICKETS ON SALE TOMORROW (MONDAY, DEC. 18.) SEE DETAILS BELOW.
December 17, 2023
"...[W]e’d stare out into the pitch-black nothing of the Atlantic, with only the distant sparkling lights of night-charter fishing boats revealing the horizon line. We’d listen to the ocean waves crashing rhythmically on the shore far behind us, the sea lapping against the rocks onto our bare and sandy feet. You could hear a Morse code, a message moving in over that great black expanse of water... with the stars burning the night sky bright above us, you could feel it... something British this way comes."
-Bruce Springsteen,
"The Beatles changed the world literally overnight. There were no bands in America on February 8, 1964. There was one in every garage on February 10."
-Stevie Van Zandt,
The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music has announced that it will hold a one-day symposium at Monmouth University on Saturday, February 3, 2024. Entitled Get Back... To 1964, the symposium will get a bit of a jump-start on celebrating the 60th anniversary of the event that launched popular music's "British Invasion:" the February 9, 1964 appearance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.
“The arrival of The Beatles in February 1964 profoundly changed the course of American music,” said Bob Santelli, the Archives/Center's Executive Director. “They inspired musicians here from New York to San Francisco and brought to rock & roll brand new ideas as to how the music could be made.”
“The Beatles transformed American music, fashion, and culture. Their mop-top hair styles, Beatle boots and mod clothing became an overnight obsession in the 1960s,” said Eileen Chapman, the Archives/Center's Director. “They encouraged the younger generation to take a deeper look at what was happening in the world.”
The day-long event will include panel discussions, interviews, book signings, and musical performances of early Beatles’ songs performed by regional musicians. Scheduled participants include Beatles’ authors Ken Womack (Living the Beatles Legend) and Bruce Spizer (The Beatles Please Please Me to With The Beatles); radio personalities Dennis Elsas and Tom Frangione of SiriusXM's The Beatles Channel; and musician Jim Babjak of The Smithereens.
The symposium, which is open to the public, will be held in the auditorium of Monmouth University’s historic Great Hall, located in West Long Branch, NJ. Tickets are $64 each and will go on sale tomorrow, Monday December 18, at 12pm ET in-person at the Monmouth University Box Office in the Ocean First Bank Center and online here.