Concerts at Dodger Stadium

Baseball parks contain an aura and grandiosity that seem ripe for events beyond the game. Yet their odd angles, inconsistent dimensions, and strange sightlines have made them a historic challenge as a site in which to pull off a concert.1 Still, some of the most famous shows on American soil took place somewhere between a diamond and outfield grass. At Shea Stadium, The Beatles touched down in 1964 for the first show of their momentous American tour. Billy Joel sent Shea off into the sunset with a classic performance in 2008 that saw guests, including Paul McCartney, offer their farewells. Bands like Pearl Jam have pulled off successful shows while encased in the history of Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. Yankee Stadium has routinely hosted acts like Metallica and Jay-Z.

Dodger Stadium, with its scenic view of the San Gabriel Mountains and its proximity to the stars, seems the perfect venue for a night of popular music. However, with competition from some of the most famous venues on earth, from the intimate Troubadour to the outdoor stunners – such as the Hollywood Bowl and the Rose Bowl – Dodger Stadium has often sat vacant when the home team is away. As of 2023, Dodger Stadium has held 110 concerts, 77 of which have happened in the twenty-first century. By contrast, Fenway Park has hosted nearly 150 concerts since 2003.

The ballpark opened its doors for its first-ever baseball game on April 10, 1962, in front of 52,564 fans. It didn’t host a concert until 1966. On August 28 of that year, a small group from Liverpool called The Beatles played the next to last concert of their last tour ever.2 The show wasn’t a sellout, with about 45,000 fans filling a stadium that proved ill-equipped to contain them. The following night, fewer people showed up to see the group’s final official concert. Perhaps believing the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze, organizers didn’t put on another show at Chavez Ravine until 1975, when Elton John fronted two epic shows that locked the singer and the ballpark into history forever. Still, only a handful of other acts took the field through the rest of the 1970s and 1980s before a very different kind of concert, performed by the Three Tenors to honor a sporting event other than baseball, solidified Dodger Stadium as a backdrop for some of the most storied musical acts on American soil.

The Great Escape: The Beatles – August 28, 1966

By 1966, Beatlemania was past its apex, even if the band remained popular. In March John Lennon said they were bigger than Jesus, which coincided with an evolution of the band that ultimately led to their breakup. For now, they were still an event. Before the Dodger Stadium show, the band fielded questions, including some about the Jesus quip. Their response was combative, including Paul saying, “I think most sensible people took it for what it was … and it was only the bigots that took it up and thought it was, you know, on ‘their’ side … thinking, ‘Aha! Here’s something to get them for.’”3

As talk of the group’s decreased popularity grew, the group’s manager, Brian Epstein, worked to sell the idea that the chatter was greatly exaggerated. “It’s much better all round this year, from the point of view of increased interest, and we are actually playing to bigger audiences,” Epstein said. “People have been saying things about diminishing popularity, but all one can go by is attendances, which are absolutely huge.”4 Epstein also mentioned that a 1967 concert at Shea Stadium (that never occurred) was already on the books. The band was paid $120,000 apiece for its performance.

The hometown Dodgers beat the rival Giants 5-2 in San Francisco that afternoon, with the game ending just about the time that music fans were taking their seats back in Los Angeles. To keep the crowd of 45,000 under control, concert promoters hired only 102 security guards. “As soon as we heard they were coming to the stadium, we started working with the (Los Angeles) Fire Department and a lot of people to see what we could do to keep the crowd from taking over the field, which they had done in a lot of other places,” said Bob Smith, manager of Dodger Stadium.5 Gates opened ahead of the 8:00 P.M. time on the ticket, and fans were introduced to a stage built behind second base. “It was absolutely magical,” remembered Barb Cabot, who attended the concert with friends. “We all looked alike – long straight hair parted in the middle and bell bottoms.”6

Three opening acts, The Ronettes, The Remains, and The Cyrkle, warmed up the crowd. With no fans allowed on the field, The Beatles emerged from the third-base dugout and strode out to the outfield grass like ballplayers taking their positions. Los Angeles radio station KRLA hosted the event, as evidenced by the sparking white K-R-L-A letters affixed to the front of the stage’s shiny blue curtain. The band stood on the square stage as if grouped in the middle of a boxing ring without ropes. Beyond the platform, with a clear path to the center-field fence, a tent housed a Lincoln Continental in which the band was expected to leave via the outfield gate once the show ended.

The Beatles opened their set at 9:30 P.M. with a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music.” They played 11 songs for just 27 minutes, highlighted by original songs like “Yesterday,” “Day Tripper,” and “Paperback Writer.” “Honestly, I didn’t hear one song. … It didn’t matter,” Cabot said about the screaming crowd.7 As the set wrapped up with a cover of Little Richard, fans started to push forward toward the stage. “Even before the group started Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally,” hundreds of fans invaded the field and surrounded our getaway car,” said Tony Barrow, the Beatles press officer. The limited security proved ill-equipped to hold back the hordes of bodies. “By the time the Beatles left the stage, and we were ready to pull away, many hundreds if not thousands more had positioned themselves across our path,” Barrow said. As the vehicle moved toward the center-field fence, they were surrounded and had no choice but to back up across the diamond. “Our driver yelled: ‘Hold very tight, folks!’ Then he slammed his gears into reverse, and we sped backwards across the field at breakneck speed,” Barrow recalled.8

The group jumped from the Continental and went back through the third-base dugout into the Dodgers clubhouse. They decided to take an armored car out through the typical player entrance, but someone had let the air out of the car’s tires during the show, so it was immovable. On the Dodgers broadcast on the 50th anniversary of the concert, Vin Scully remembered:

“So, they decided, ‘OK, how to sneak the Beatles out?’ And they got an ambulance … the Beatles were put into the ambulance; they were covered with blankets, with lights flashing, sirens blaring. The ambulance seemed a reasonable bet to get through the crush of kids beyond center field. And the plan was, once they got through the kids, they would get out to the 76 Station, they would get out of the ambulance, into the armored car, now with fully inflated tires. … Again, something went wrong; the driver had navigated through the fans, hit the gas, and the ambulance ran over a speed bump, and, would you believe, the radiator fell out of the ambulance.”9

The band was rushed out of the ambulance and into the armored car, but fans swarmed the vehicle. “The truck was just piled with girls and unable to move without injuring someone,” said Bob Eubanks, the young radio host who promoted the show (and gained fame hosting television’s The Newlywed Game). “Lord knows where they came from but all of a sudden a bunch of Hells Angels surrounded the truck and got the Beatles out of Dodger Stadium,” Eubanks said.10

After “one of the most chaotic nights in rock and roll history,”11 the Dodgers flew across the country to face the Mets in the ballpark where the Beatles first made their mark on America. The Fab Four took the Dodgers’ place in San Francisco as they headed up to Candlestick Park, where crews were prepping the field for what turned out to be their final concert for a live audience on August 29.

A Legend is Crowned: Elton John – October 25-26, 1975

Nine years went by before Dodger Stadium retried its hand at a musical event and invited arguably the biggest star on the planet for the comeback. By October of 1975, at 28 years old, Elton John had made a half-dozen records that reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. His newest album, Rock of the Westies, was also headed for number one. On the night of October 24, Elton John had friends and family over to a pool party at his Beverly Hills estate in Los Angeles. “And that,” John wrote in his memoir, “was when I decided to commit suicide.”12 John reportedly swallowed “a load of Valium” and dove headfirst into a pool in full view of guests, including his mother, Sheila. John later said he wasn’t trying to kill himself. John’s longtime songwriter, Bernie Taupin, said, “It wasn’t that big a deal. Just our boy putting on a dramatic show for friends and relatives. He was very good at that!”

Two days earlier, John, sporting a lime-green suit and matching bowler hat, had received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.13 “Unless one actually lived through that time period, it’s almost impossible to imagine just how big a phenomenon John was in 1975,” music writer Doug Fox said. “He was littering the rock landscape with hit after hit en route to delivering a couple of No. 1 albums per year. His concerts, complete with outrageous costumes and stage antics, were already the stuff of legend.”14 Privately, John was struggling with his sexuality, and with the spotlight of the planet on him. He also was battling addictions to drugs, sex, and food. But for two nights, he captured lightning in a bottle and put on iconic shows that are not only etched into the history of Dodger Stadium but linked the performer to the stadium for the rest of his life.

“Our relationship with LA has always been sacrosanct,” said Taupin. “It was here we flourished and found our sweet spot. LA embraced us before anyone, so we’re indebted.”15

Before the concert John said that flying his friends and family to Los Angeles for the shows “was a total shock to [him].” Of Hollywood, he said, “When I first came here, I was impressed. … It wears thin. … People knock it for its phony [people], but if you know that, that’s all you have to worry about.” As 55,000 fans filed into Dodger Stadium to view the stage much in the same spot as it had been for The Beatles, John’s mother waited with anticipation, “I have butterflies, but then I know he doesn’t worry about anything,” she said. “If I thought that he was nervous, then I’d be a bundle of nerves.”16 This time, fans were allowed on the field (for a $10 general admission ticket), taking seats lined up between short center field and home plate, covering most of the baseball diamond.

John had photographer Terry O’Neill document the event in real time. “At the time, they were the largest outdoor concert events ever done by a single artist,” O’Neill said. “On the first night, I went all the way to the top of the back of the stadium so I could get shots of what it looked like from above. I couldn’t believe it when I got there – how enormous the stadium was, what 55,000 people looked like.”17

Gates opened at 10:00 A.M., and John made his way to the stage around 1:00 P.M. for the feature presentation. He played a 10-song opening set that began with “Your Song,” a slower ballad that was a number-one single. As noted in Ultimate Classic Rock, “The opening piano notes preceding the rise of the curtain, and his piano starting at the back left of the stage and slowly moving to the front as the song progressed.” The following nine songs featured several tracks from his new album. He then left the stage and returned wearing perhaps his most famously outrageous outfit in a lifetime of them: a now-iconic sequined Dodger uniform with his name and the number 1 embroidered on the back. The back half of the show was filled with his known hits of the time, including “Funeral for a Friend,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and “Bennie and the Jets.”

Backup singer Cidny Bullens recalled a magical moment from the second concert: “We were singing ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.’ The sun was going down behind Dodger Stadium, and we were onstage watching it go down, and everyone in the crowd had their Zippo lighters out. You could feel the hairs go up on everyone’s necks. I’ve done a lot of concerts in 50 years. That was the most profound moment I’ve ever had onstage.” According to Bullens, “Elton cried after the concert was over.”18

Offstage, John often wore a T-shirt with tennis star Billie Jean King’s face and the score to her famous “Battle of the Sexes” win over Bobby Riggs. The LA shows were capped by King jumping onstage and bouncing around with John as she sang backing vocals for “Philadelphia Freedom.” Taupin, who rarely appeared on stage with John, assisted with “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down,” adding flair to the memorable moment.

As to how John was able to captivate over 100,000 people over two nights in Hollywood: “It wasn’t Elton sitting still. … It was Elton flying around,” O’Neill said. “There’s a great contact sheet we found where Elton is standing at the top of the piano, the next frame he’s in-flight, the next he’s landed and, a second later he’s back at the piano!”19

“He never short-changed people with his shows,” O’Neill recalled. “So given this opportunity to play at that stadium – the first musical act to do so since The Beatles – I knew it was going to be special.”20 “Those are the gigs you live for,” John summed up years later. “It was a pinnacle.”21

Opera Goes Pop: The Three Tenors – July 16, 1994

On the surface, the third most unforgettable concert in Dodger Stadium couldn’t be more different from the other two. The Three Tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, from Italy, and José Carreras and Plácido Domingo, both from Spain, were world-famous but not yet pop stars. Yet, there’s a certain synergy between the Hollywood ending of The Beatles and the coming-out party of Elton John, with these classical musicians who, often to the frustration of traditional music purists, made opera into popular music. The concert was fittingly in the world’s entertainment capital as it ushered in future popular acts like Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli.

In 1990, just before the FIFA World Cup Final, the Three Tenors came together for their first performance as a group. Pavarotti commented that the famed trio had been asked to perform together “at least 50 times” before finally agreeing.22 What brought them together at this moment was their shared love of soccer. After the success of their 1990 show, promoter Tibor Rudas put together the plan for them to repeat the performance at the following World Cup, this time away from Europe, where soccer is far and away the most popular sport, but in America, where the effort to popularize the game was in full swing. The three performers were each paid $1 million plus royalties for the show. As the Rose Bowl was prepared for the final game between Brazil and Italy, the concert further bridged the gap between European culture and America by taking place in a baseball park.

The Los Angeles concert was determined to be a star-making special, ultimately turning the three classical artists into traveling moneymakers. Tickets for the event ranged from $15 to $1,000. Rather than position general admission on the field, seats were sold to VIPs. Placing the event in Hollywood meant many celebrities were in attendance, including some of the biggest names of the 1990s, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dennis Hopper, and Dustin Hoffman, along with some of the stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age like Charlton Heston and Gregory Peck. The production design was far more resplendent than anything constructed for The Beatles or Elton John. The enormous stage took up the entirety of the outfield and was decorated with two dozen fake columns, palm trees, shrubbery, and waterfalls. The souvenir stands sold merchandise that ranged from seat cushions to baseballs autographed by the singers, and the event ultimately grossed over $12 million.

Gates opened at 5:00 P.M., and the show began just as the sun went down at 8 o’clock. After “The Star-Spangled Banner” and an Overture by the composer/orchestra leader Leonard Bernstein, Carreras kicked off the set with “O souverain, ô juge, ô père” from the French opera Le Cid for the 56,000 people in attendance. Backed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Opera, Indian conductor Zubin Mehta shaped the roughly hour-and-a-half show, which included classic opera arias and Neapolitan tunes, along with a handful of American pop hits. The inclusion of show tunes roiled some traditional critics. While most songs in the set were performed by individual members of the group, the pop songs were each performed together. Perhaps playing to the Hollywood crowd, the Tenors sang “America” from West Side Story (scored by Bernstein) and “Singin’ in the Rain” from the Gene Kelly musical of the same name. They also performed a cover of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” with the glassy-eyed Chairman of the Board himself getting a standing ovation from the audience.

Music critic Martin Bernheimer was frustrated by the show, including aspects related to the stadium experience. He arrived late due to a traffic jam leading to the venue. He complained that the sound system and audiovisual presentation was “a little time warp,” making for a poor-quality image coming from the stadium’s screen. “Their televised visages lagged disconcertingly behind their ever-echoing voices,” Bernheimer complained.23 Critical of the capitalist intentions behind the event, he called it a “megatenor show” and called the singers “contenders for the universal Golden-Larynx award.” “In the final analysis, the singing seemed virtually irrelevant,” Bernheimer concluded. “This was a night for celebrating personalities and personality-cults.”24

Bernheimer and the Los Angeles Times were inundated with letters either agreeing with or denouncing the writer’s pan. However, no matter the intention or purity, by virtually every barometer the concert was an enormous success. An estimated 1.3 billion people watched the live television broadcast. The CD of the concert finished second among all classical albums on the Billboard charts at the end of the year and has gone on to sell over 8 million units internationally. The DVD of the event continued to sell into the next decades. The concert made the Three Tenors a sensation, and they took their show across the globe. Imitators even spawned internationally, including the Irish Tenors and the Three Chinese Tenors.25 On the original group’s worldwide tour, they received $500,000 per show plus a percentage of merchandising and royalties. “Is it good money?” Pavarotti said. “By God, it’s good money.”26 The trio continued the World Cup tradition, singing at the 1998 event in Paris and, finally, the 2002 event in Yokohama.

Given the relative scarcity of shows in Dodger Stadium’s 60-plus-year history, the proximity to the media industry has provided some of the most memorable and career-shaping (and industry-altering) concerts ever. Since the Three Tenors’ 1994 show, Dodger Stadium has seen an uptick in concerts taking place on the field. Acts like Madonna, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Fleetwood Mac, and Bruce Springsteen have all performed to huge crowds. In 2019 Paul McCartney returned to the stadium, this time for two solo performances. On November 19, 2022, Elton John came back to the place that cemented his legend for the final performance on what he announced as his final tour. Roughly 50,000 people attended his last show, which went for nearly three hours and was streamed live to millions of viewers on Disney+.

ZAC PETRILLO holds a Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College and a Master of Fine Arts from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. His experience spans directing multiple short films and producing content for networks like Comedy Central and TruTV. In 2016 Zac played a pivotal role in the launch of Vice Media’s 24/7 cable network, Vice TV. As an active member of SABR, he dedicates his research to exploring the realm of post-1980s baseball, particularly examining its intersection with the media industry. Currently, he serves as the director of technical operations at A+E Networks and imparts his knowledge in television studies as a lecturer at Marymount Manhattan College.

 

Notes

1 Forgotten Places, “Why Baseball Stadiums Make Terrible Concert Venues,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTViQum19hU, June 14, 2023.

2 This was the group’s third-to-final live performance ever and next to last in front of a live audience.

3 “Beatles Interviews Database: Beatles Press Conference: Los Angeles 8/24/1966,” The Beatles Ultimate Experience, https://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1966.0828.beatles.html (last accessed December 2, 2023).

4 “Live: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles,” The Beatles Bible, https://www.beatlesbible.com/1966/08/28/live-dodger-stadium-los-angeles/ (last accessed December 2, 2023).

5 “Los Angeles – Sunday, August 28, 1966,” The Paul McCartney Project, https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/concert/1966-08-28/ (last accessed December 4, 2023).

6 Chris Erskine, “In 1966, The Beatles Brought a Whole New Ballgame to Dodger Stadium,” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2011, https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-xpm-2011-aug-26-la-sp-erskine-beatles-20110827-story.html (last accessed December 6, 2023).

7 Erskine.

8 “Los Angeles – Sunday, August 28, 1966,” The Paul McCartney Project.

9 Adrian Garro, “Vin Scully Weaved a Story about The Beatles Escaping Dodger Stadium into His Play-by-Play,” MLB.com, August 28, 2016, https://www.mlb.com/cut4/vin-scully-recounts-the-beatles-escape-from-dodger-stadium-in-1966-c198222742 (last accessed December 4, 2023).

10 Erskine.

11 Joe Daly, “The Night The Beatles Were Guarded by Christ and Moses,” Louder, July 14, 2023, https://www.loudersound.com/features/beatles-christ-moses-us-tour-1966 (last accessed December 4, 2023).

12 Craig Marks, “Elton John Will Take His Final Bow at Dodger Stadium. So Let’s Time Travel Back to His Legendary 1975 Concert,” Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2022-11-16/elton-john-dodger-stadium-concert-1975-farewell-yellow-brick-road (last accessed December 6, 2023).

13 Marks.

14 Doug Fox, “Inside Elton John’s Historic Sold-Out Shows at Dodger Stadium, Ultimate Classic Rock, October 25, 2015, https://ultimateclassicrock.com/elton-john-dodger-stadium/ (last accessed December 4, 2023).

15 Marks.

16 Philip Anness, “Elton John – Dodger Stadium Documentary from 1975,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57JYxacBnrk, October 12, 2017.

17 Interview with Terry O’Neill, “October 25-26, 1975: Elton Knocks It Out of the Park at Dodger Stadium,” EltonJohn.com, October 24, 2015, https://www.eltonjohn.com/stories/october-25-26-1975-elton-knocks-it-out-of-the-park-at-dodger-stadium (last accessed December 4, 2023).

18 Marks.

19 Interview with Terry O’Neill.

20 Interview with Terry O’Neill.

21 Marks.

22 Anastasia Tsioulcas, “How the Three Tenors Sang the Hits and Changed the Game,” National Public Radio, July 16, 2014, https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2014/07/16/330751895/how-the-three-tenors-sang-the-hits-and-changed-the-game (last accessed December 4, 2023).

23 David Ng, “A Look Back at the Three Tenors Concert at Dodger Stadium,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2014, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-three-tenors-dodger-stadium-20140714-story.html (last accessed December 6, 2023).

24 Ng.

25 Tsioulcas.

26 Tsioulcas.