It Started With The Crazy Lady

2/9/1964, Convention Hall, Philadelphia

The four Beatles had been summoned from their dressing room and led through the dreary passageways towards the edge of the stage. It was completely unnecessary for anyone to lead them, as the already ear-splitting screaming from the fans in the auditorium would have proved a sufficient guide. And, once there, they had to stand and wait, keeping well back and out of sight so that the energetic compere's equally unnecessary revving up of the fans wasn't ruined by the Beatles' appearance before he'd finished all his howls of "Do you want to see John?" etc. George stood with the others, his head down, staring at his guitar, unthinkingly stroking its body, toe tapping in impatience and his lower lip caught between his teeth in a bout of last minute pre performance nerves.

"Do you want to see RINGO???"

George sighed in irritation.

"Well here they are! The fabulous BEATLES!!!"

At last. Grasping the neck of his guitar firmly John strode on to the stage. Paul followed him, and George marched on after Paul...

up some shallow steps towards a big grand glass doorway. A big blue canopy came down above the door, and there was a gold crown on the canopy. It all looked very lush and grand. He was approaching the glass doors...

and stepped on to the stage in Philadelphia, the hysterical noise of the fans almost buffeting in its intensity.

"George?" He could hear Ringo's voice just behind him. Very close behind him, because Ringo had had to stop dead to avoid falling over him. "George? Wassup?" Ringo grasped George's elbow, and tugged him to try to turn him to face him. "George!" But George was motionless, he was rigid, and his face was white as paper and his eyes were wide and filled with a terror that Ringo had never seen on his friend's face. "George! Come on!! What's wrong with you?"

By now, Paul too had noticed that there was something wrong. He couldn't hear what Ringo was shouting, but he'd realised that George hadn't taken up his place between himself and John, and neither had Ringo started to climb onto the drum riser. He signalled frantically to Ringo, arms raised in query, eyes wide in a question. Ringo shrugged and shook his head, and then turned back to George. "George!! Come on!! We've got to start!" He gave the motionless guitarist a push towards centre stage. John had left his spot and had taken a few steps towards them.

The fans noticed nothing. The Beatles were on stage in the same place as them, breathing the same air as them, and that was all that mattered to them.

Finally, thankfully, Paul and Ringo watched as George's wide and frightened eyes returned to almost normal, his body seemed to unfreeze; it was as if he had only just realised where he was and what he was doing. He took a hesitant step or two towards the amp and carefully, as if needing every ounce of his concentration on this familiar task, he plugged in his guitar lead. Paul exchanged a puzzled but relieved glance with Ringo, and then whirled around to the mic.

"One two three fah!!..." he began. John looked at him in surprise but fell into place, and they waited for George's guitar intro.

Which didn't come. George was staring at the guitar in his arms as though he hadn't seen it before, standing towards the rear of the stage as always, still unmoving. Paul spared him another piercing glance, as though he could prompt his friend into playing just through the medium of a glare, and then made a swift decision and spun back to the mic. "Well she was just seventeen..." he began. Ringo was there, John too, and, finally, the three heard George fumbling his way back to his place in the song, discord following discord until he hit the right place and the right notes – and was back with them, in the present, on the stage with untold thousands of fans declaring their love with their noise.