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In 1964 the Beatles came to the U.S. to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show. A few days later, the band played their first U.S concert at the Washington Coliseum, in Washington D.C. An 18-year old budding photographer, Mike Mitchell, was lucky enough to attend that famous event. He was on hand at Union Station when the Beatles arrived and documented the shrieking hysteria of their fans. Mitchell also shot the pre-concert press conference and was positioned at the stage for the entire Coliseum show. Later that year, he documented the Beatles concert at the Baltimore Civic Center. Unbelievably, the pristine Black & White negatives sat in a box for 45 years. Fifity of these photos were on auction last week at Christie’s Auction House. The collection sold for the unbelievable sum of $361,938. The photograph below, estimated to sell for around $2-3000 sold for an amazing $68.500.
Photographer Mike Mitchell said, “You know when I took that photo I don’t think I even knew it. I didn’t even remember it until I cracked into the negatives five or six years ago and found it. It had been overlooked because it was so underexposed that with traditional photographic methods it could never have been printed. So, I could resurrect it because of digital technology.”
“I wasn’t expecting this, when I took those photos all those years ago. It’s a pretty good feeling,” Mr. Mitchell told The Observer after the auction had ended. During the bidding he watched wide-eyed from the audience as the prices kept rising, in some cases surpassing their estimates by a factor of ten. Frantically, he texted with his sister, who is in Florida. “We were going ‘Wow, Wow, Wow!’”
The Beatles not only continue to fascinate their older fans but have also inspired each new generation. Ask any young musician and most will likely tell you that one of the big influences in their lives was the Beatles. Last year Harmonix released Beatles Rock Band and EMI released their remastered albums, which began selling on Itunes. Sales on Itunes alone, garnered over 2 million songs and 450,000 albums. Rapleaf, an online brand consultancy, did a study of its social-media user audience and found the Beatles had four times as many fans as Michael Jackson did before he died, and more fans than Elvis, Madonna and Jackson combined. The average age of a Beatles fan was the second-youngest of the four chosen musical celebrities; the band was the most popular in the 18-to-25-year-old group.
You can see all the images and their sale prices here. Don’t miss them.
NY Times Art & Design
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