In August 1964, the Beatles arrived in America for their first official tour of the United States. Although the famed musical group had made their initial foray across the Atlantic Ocean in February of that year for The Ed Sullivan Show and performances in New York and Washington DC, this second journey took the Fab Four from the West Coast to the East, with 30 concerts held in a total of 23 different cities.
As part of that tour, John, Paul, George and Ringo ventured into the Steel City on September 14, 1964, for what would be their lone performance in Pittsburgh, thanks in no small part to concert promoter Pat DiCesare. It was during the early stages of a career that would span another 35 years, with DiCesare eventually becoming the undisputed king of the Steel City music scene and influencing other promoters across the United States in the process.
Pat DiCesare was drawn to music at an early age, and maneuvered his way through the uncertain terrain of the industry instead of pursuing safer careers within the teaching field or at Westinghouse Electric, where his father worked. In his 2014 memoirs, Hard Days Hard Nights: From the Beatles to the Doors to the Stones, Insider Stories From a Legendary Concert Promoter, DiCesare weaves stories of his youth with anecdotes from many of the memorable concerts that he promoted in Pittsburgh, offering a glimpse into both his life and the evolution of rock music.
In 1954, for instance, DiCesare worked as a busboy during his junior year of high school at the famed Holiday House in Monroeville. The venue brought in acts ranging from Eddie Fisher to Phyllis Diller, and the atmosphere convinced young Pat DiCesare that he wanted a career similar to that of owner Johnny Bertara.
In addition to working for nightclubs and record distributers – which gave him contacts around the region – DiCesare tried his luck at being a musician as well. He formed a doo-wop band called the Penn Boys and even took it upon himself to compose original songs for group. Although the Penn Boys never found success, two songs written by DiCesare were recorded by another Pittsburgh-based band called the Del Vikings, who had a previous hit with “Come Go with Me.”
Pat DiCesare also ventured into recording other artists and releasing their songs on his own label. The first was a Duquesne University music student named Bobby Vinton. DiCesare was so impressed by Vinton that he named his label Bobby Records and released Vinton’s first recording ever. It never became a hit, but both Bobby Vinton and Pat DiCesare were destined for greater things nonetheless.
As DiCesare began booking more and more national acts in the Steel City, his reputation within the music industry grew as well. Whereas agents often demanded a fifty percent upfront fee from promotors, it was often waived for DiCesare. Even Bruce Springsteen’s manager was willing to have DiCesare simply mail a $750,000 check after Springsteen’s sold-out performance at Three Rivers Stadium in 1985.
Another key to DiCesare’s success was his ability to sign exclusive contracts with all the major venues in Pittsburgh, including the Civic Arena, Three Rivers Stadium and the Syria Mosque. Eventually it became virtually impossible for a national musical act to perform in the Steel City without going through Pat DiCesare.
Concert promotion was a business to Pat DiCesare. He therefore never hung out backstage with the artists but instead dealt with the barrage of problems, issues and last-minute difficulties that were the norm within the industry. He also fronted his own money on every concert, meaning that if a concert failed, he suffered a significant financial loss. DiCesare thus always had his finger on the musical pulse of the city, investigating which acts would draw the largest crowds and what prices the audience was willing to spend on tickets.
With the rise of rock music in the 1960s, meanwhile, Pat DiCesare also had to maneuver his way through venue managers, ushers and city officials who didn’t always understand the Cultural Revolution that was taking place in both the industry and around the country.
In 1969, for instance, Pat DiCesare booked Janis Joplin at the Civic Arena. From the very start of the evening, DiCesare was forced to deal with an array of unconventional hiccups. The headaches initially began when Joplin complained that she was running out of Southern Comfort before the show had even commenced – despite having a case of the whiskey backstage beforehand – and escalated when the singer was found “fornicating in her dressing room.”
Then came the concert itself, which was the first at the Civic Arena where the artist brought in their own sound system. With both the stage and ceilings of the venue packed with speakers, the sound was deafening. Janis Joplin added to the subsequent mayhem by wearing see-through fishnets and constantly uttered the F-word between songs.
The general manager of the Civic Arena, who was in his 60s at the time, was soon at his wit’s end. “Get that girl off stage and down here right now,” he told DiCesare. “I’m going to wash her mouth out with soap. We’re going to stop this show until she learns to behave herself.”
A premature end to the concert could financially ruin Pat DiCesare, so he stalled both the general manager as well as the police on hand as long as possible. When the crowd kept pushing their way further towards the stage, however, DiCesare ran out on time. Just as Joplin started singing “Piece of My Heart,” the house lights went on and the concert ground to a halt.
DiCesare tried to explain to an angry Janis Joplin that the crowd needed to return to their seats before she could continue, and although the singer consented, she refused to offer any assistance. Pat DiCesare thus made his way to the microphone alone, only to be booed by those in attendance once he delivered his message.
“Janis took the mic out of my hand,” DiCesare writes in Hard Days Hard Nights. “The crowd started to cheer. She said, ‘He’s The Man. He wants you to back off the stage and clear the aisles so we can start the show, okay?’ She was making me out to be the bad guy, which was all right with me. She repeated, ‘Back away from the stage just a little.’ When she said it, they listened. She turned around and nodded to the band, and they started into ‘Piece of My Heart.’ The crowd went berserk.”
When Pat DiCesare booked the Doors earlier in 1969, it wasn’t the general manager of the Civic Arena that he had to contend with but the mayor of Pittsburgh instead. A few months before the concert date, lead singer Jim Morrison – who was way beyond intoxicated at the time – began taunting the audience at a performance in Miami, and was subsequently arrested on stage for indecent exposure.
Although Morrison had merely stuck his hand down his pants and it was his finger that protruded from his zipper, his reputation quickly disintegrated afterwards nonetheless. Fearing a repeat of Miami, Mayor Joe Barr forced DiCesare to cancel the concert in Pittsburgh.
Fortunately, DiCesare was later able to reschedule the Doors for not one but two shows, eight months apart, that went off without any difficulties. The Doors even recorded their second performance for a live concert album, one of their last before the death of Jim Morrison in 1971.
Pat DiCesare organized an untold number of other concerts over the decades that followed, but none as famous or more memorable than the Beatles in 1964. DiCesare had to borrow $5,000 from his father – who took out a second mortgage on his home to acquire the funds – to bring the Beatles to Pittsburgh, and the city demanded that over 100 police officers be on hand for the event. No hotel in the region was willing to rent rooms to the group, meanwhile, so the band was forced to fly to Pittsburgh in the afternoon of the show and then fly out again immediately afterwards.
Four thousand fans greeted the Beatles at the airport, with many more lining the streets of the city as six police cars escorted their limousine to the Civic Arena. As for the concert itself, the Beatles performed for thirty minutes and could not be heard by the vast majority of those in attendance due to the continuous roar from the crowd.
Pat DiCesare eventually sold his concert promotion business in 1999 and subsequently retired from the music industry. He had been a giant within that industry for close to forty years, both in Pittsburgh and across the United States, and his impact on the Steel City cannot be understated. Pat DiCesare not only brought the Beatles to town, after all, but the changing winds of rock music as well. Suffice to say, neither the city nor the country was ever the same again.
Anthony Letizia