The Beatles, 60 years since their monumental concert in Barcelona

“The children of the year 2000 will be listening to the Beatles, and I mean that sincerely.” These were the prescient words of Brian Epstein, the band's manager and fifth member of the shadowy group, in an interview with American journalist Larry Kane. He said it in 1965, and now, from the future, in 2025, we can tell him he was right.

On July 3rd, the 60th anniversary of the only concert that the Liverpool band gave in Barcelona will be celebrated, the only one in Spain along with the one they gave the day before in Madrid, and to commemorate such a significant date, not only for Spanish music lovers and fans, but also for the history of our country, the musician, collector and researcher passionate about the Beatles Miguel Navarro publishes the book When The Beatles Visited Barcelona .

As the title suggests, this is an exhaustive review of the eighteen hours the singers spent in Barcelona, ​​from the moment they landed at El Prat Airport until their return to London, when John Lennon posed for the press in a very flamenco pose. A journey into the past, with a prologue by journalist Toni Vall, it features two core themes that are pure gold: previously unpublished photographs of that day and firsthand accounts from some of the people who experienced that show.

It's known that the Beatles arrived in Spain, the only Spanish-speaking country they visited as a group, at a time when life was very different from today. Yes, they were the greatest musical and social revolution of the time, but we can't ignore the fact that the country was ruled by a dictatorship that, in Vall's words, "had no choice but to let them play that concert." In a context where there was talk of openness and economic regeneration, opposing the band's European tour would have been highly counterproductive.

It's important not to lose sight of this when reviewing the images and first-person texts that make up this printed account. Only in this way can we understand the massive presence of the police, the gray police, both inside and outside the Monumental, or the fact that the four artists were overwhelmed on the plane's stairs before setting foot on Barcelona soil, with offerings "typical of the land" such as flamenco dolls and monteras. One of the treasures of this book are the photos that capture the English people's surprised reaction upon seeing the gifts. Without wishing to give away any spoilers, the final destination of those bullfighting hats that so amused the singers is also revealed.

When The Beatles Visited Barcelona is the result of over fifteen years of research by Miguel Navarro, a Uruguayan living in Barcelona who left his job as a dentist to pursue his true passion: music and collecting. At 66, he is a tireless collector of material related to this artistic discipline, be it magazines, posters, or concert tickets, and his catalog of possessions includes some 800 objects from the English group. “The Beatles are above good and evil,” he states with a compelling passion, which drives him to continue digging into the past to find gems like the ones he is now compiling.

The work, financed and self-published by Navarro and available for purchase through his social media accounts (@beatlesbarcelona on Instagram), also represents a tribute to those photographers who captured the essence of a Barcelona yearning for a breath of fresh air and seeking its own spaces for intellectual connection. Horacio Seguí, Kike Pérez de Rozas, Joana Biarnés (who shared a small group time with the Beatles in their suite at the Hotel Avenida Palace and whose photographs are their treasured testimony), and Pep Puvill are just a few of them. The images included come from institutions such as the National Archive of Catalonia, the Barcelona Photographic Archive, and private collections.

Leslie of the Sírex: “Are you tired?” the Beatle asked him, to which he replied, “Yes, and in five minutes you will be.”

Puvill, who was 23 years old at the time and an amateur photographer, recalls attending the concert, camera in hand, invited by his brother-in-law, who was "well-positioned" and was able to pay for his ticket. "I went up to the stage and nobody said anything to me," he recalls, adding, "I pretended not to know, and it worked out fine." He didn't wear "accreditation or tags, like now," but he managed to be one of the photojournalists who photographed the Beatles at the Monumental. These snapshots finally see the light of day in Navarro's book, having been kept hidden until now because their author considered "they weren't good photos."

The show was longer than many would have liked. Presented by Torrebruno and with a long list of guests who entertained the audience before the English arrived, the most applauded were Los Sírex, the Barcelona rock and roll band led by Antoni Miquel, Leslie , who is still active sixty years later. “We only managed to play four songs because we were doing a double act and had to play another concert in Cornellà. The problem was leaving the bullring. Inside it was packed, but outside there were many more people and a ton of police on horseback with long batons to control the youth,” he recalls, confirming that “it was unbearably hot, the sound was horrible, and the stage was tacky.” Let's not forget that the venue was a bullring, so the audio transmission systems weren't suitable for a show like that.

The singer also recalls a few anecdotes, such as his brief exchange with Paul McCartney when the latter was returning from the bathroom and saw him, sweaty and gasping for air, in the back corner of the stage, from which he had stepped off a few seconds before the encore. "Are you tired?" the Beatle asked him, to which he replied, "Yes, and in five minutes you will be." He also recalls the gesture McCartney made toward Lennon when the latter dropped his harmonica on the floor. "Paul picked it up, placed it in his partner's hands, and slapped him on the butt. Back then, people were already saying they were at each other's throats, but I thought they were on good terms."

About to turn 81, Leslie, who grew up in Barceloneta listening to the rock and roll and rockabilly brought by foreign sailors, confesses to being more of a fan of the Rolling Stones than the Fab Four, because "I like movement more, things happening on stage, and the Beatles seemed like cloistered nuns to me." However, he maintains that it was a magical night for Los Sírex, who, due to time constraints, had to perform in Cornellà wearing the same sweaty tuxedos they wore at the Monumental.

Also among the audience was Vicenç Comas, who was 17 years old and had to ask for an advance of 80 pesetas from the bank where he had started working on July 1, 1965, two days before the concert, in order to pay for his ticket. Now, at 77, he continues to recount his experiences of that night with the same passion he felt then. “There were more people outside the Monumental than inside because the tickets were so expensive,” he recalls at the presentation of this book at Casa Golferichs in Barcelona, ​​wearing a Liverpool Four T-shirt. He also doesn't forget that “if anyone stood up, the police would come and hit you with their batons. Flashbulbs weren't allowed either,” an anecdote echoed by one of the voices interviewed by Navarro, who asserts that the audience couldn't dance. It's nothing like how concerts are experienced now, in the middle of 2025.

It was a hot July night when Barcelona was tinged with color and excitement by the presence of the Beatles, who performed a barely 35-minute set of twelve songs, some played faster than the original version and others shortened. Early the next morning, they returned to London having won over the Spanish audience, but with excess baggage that cost them an extra 200 pounds (was it because of the flamenco dancers?). Recalling that musical milestone by flipping through the pages of When The Beatles Visited Barcelona , ​​discovering that Ringo Starr's drum kit was chained, or what Lennon did with the Cordovan hat he wore, is a privilege considering that only two of them are still alive and are already over eighty. A journey back in time that makes it impossible to exclaim, "What a night that day... at the Monumental de Barcelona!" A day whose memory, thanks to the work and determination of fervent fans like Navarro, will always live on.