{"id":8163,"date":"2020-01-06T18:07:22","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T23:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?p=8163"},"modified":"2020-01-06T18:07:22","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T23:07:22","slug":"monday-january-6-1964-at-745-p-m-a-moment-in-time-that-changed-my-life-exactly-56-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/monday-january-6-1964-at-745-p-m-a-moment-in-time-that-changed-my-life-exactly-56-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday, January 6, 1964 at 7:45 p.m.: A moment in time that changed my life, exactly 56 years ago!"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Fest Founder Mark Lapidos<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

56 years ago tonight, I heard I Want To Hold Your Hand for the first time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I know I have told this story before but some stories are worth retelling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since Christmas and New Year\u2019s fell on Wednesday in 1963-64, as it did this year, Monday, Jan 6th was the first day back in school in New Jersey. I was out of town for two weeks and my transistor radio did not work, so I heard nothing about The Beatles until that evening.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I remember it as if it were today. I was almost 16 years old, sitting on my bed doing my homework, listening to the radio – WABC in particular. It was the biggest station in the U.S. and was called a Top 40 station. They played all the hits of the day. At 7:45 p.m., the Legendary Scott Muni puts on this new record I had never heard before.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The song immediately caught my attention and I got so very excited, I put down my homework, jumped to the edge of the bed and listened, wondering what was I hearing. Who was singing?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the time the song was over, I was hooked. Scott Muni said that was a song by a band from England who called themselves The Beatles. My immediate thought was \u201cWhat a strange name!\u201d The next day I came home from school and since Tuesday was always new survey day, the radio went on as soon as I got home. Within minutes, Dan Ingram (another radio icon) played the new Number One song and it was I Want To Hold Your Hand<\/em>. How could that be — hearing it for the first time and #1 immediately!!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Apparently a lot of people must have had the same reaction as I did. I have met many fans at the FEST over the years who tell me a similar story. I guess that is why we celebrate our common love for The Beatles there. It was a moment in time indeed. My father bought me a guitar the day after he asked me if I wanted to learn how to play guitar. I was jumping up and down playing air guitar to Twist and Shout on the car radio and my dad (a professional musician himself) definitely took notice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Beatles took hold of me 56 years ago tonight and never let go. The Ed Sullivan Show was five weeks later and two weeks after that I saw The Beatles in the flesh leaving the Deauville Hoel in Miami Beach. My family happened to be staying at the hotel right next door on vacation. I was running down Collins Avenue alongside the limo waving and they were smiling and waving back at me as they headed off to the airport to go back to London.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Peace and Love,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark Lapidos – FEST Founder<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Fest Founder Mark Lapidos   56 years ago tonight, I heard I Want To Hold Your Hand for the first time.   I know I have told this story before but some stories are worth retelling.   Since Christmas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[132,117,30],"class_list":["post-8163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baby-boomer-beatles-blog","tag-i-want-to-hold-your-hand","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-fest-for-beatles-fans"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8165,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions\/8165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}