“Ladies and Gentlemen — The Beatles!”

It was Feb. 9, 1964, and Ed Sullivan barely got the Fab Four’s name out before the audience went into a screaming frenzy.

Millions of Americans watched “The Ed Sullivan Show” every Sunday night. None of us knew, as we watched girls in the theater screaming their hearts out and crying at the sight of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, that music and pop history was being made.

The intense fan fever, girls screaming their hearts out and crying, was just the beginning; for nothing could compare to the Fab Four's Aug. 15, 1965 Shea Stadium concert.

That night was frenzied hysteria.

Girls were fainting, girls and guys were being chased by officers across the ball field, some apprehended fans were being dragged to the stadium seating by the belt loops of their pants.

And Bill Kirby, best known as Boothbay's proprietor of all things metaphysical at Enchantments gift store, knows about that hysteria first hand.

He was there on Aug. 15 and at The Beatles' second concert there on Aug. 23, 1966.

When he talks about those shows and the impact The Beatles have had on his life, he smiles and his eyes shine.

“The thing about The Beatles, for me, was that they were different, unique, expressive; something I could finally relate to. The Beatles were me. I looked at them and saw myself,” Kirby said. “I bought their first album released in the U.S., ‘Meet the Beatles’ when it came out at Woolworth's in Washington, New Jersey, for 99 cents.

“Changed my life.”

In 1965, 15-year-old Kirby begged his father for the $5.50 tickets — promised to do anything, anything. His cousin, Bruce Morrow, was a deejay on WABC in New York City, and they could get the tickets from him.

Kirby and a girlfriend waited in line for five hours before seating began. He describes the seats as “grand”: on the aisle in the eighth row behind the pitcher's mound and facing the stage straight on. The seats were so grand they had a steady stream of mothers and fathers of teenage daughters coming to them with offers of money to trade seats, but the money, Kirby said, “meant nothing.”

“The build up was amazing; eventually over 55,000 people took their seats in the stadium. The girls started screaming an hour before The Beatles got there, and when they did ... oh my god ... you physically vibrated from the screams. It was monster!”

Kirby says despite reports to the contrary, he could hear all the songs just fine, along with the comments John, Paul, George and Ringo were making on the stage.

“I'll never forget when John was singing ‘I'm Down,’ and he started running his elbow up and down the keyboard. I remember thinking that I was seeing history being made. I heard Paul say, 'This is unbelievable' and other things like that ... I think they were as overwhelmed by us as we were by them! Just being in the same space is what I went for — they didn't have to play a note.”

But play they did.

The tunes “I Feel Fine,” “She’s A Woman,” “Help,” “Ticket to Ride,” “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Baby’s In Black,” Ringo’s “Act Naturally,” “A Hard Day's Night,” and others were performed during that 30-minute show.

Kirby wrote letters to The Beatles' producer George Martin half a dozen times; once to ask if Martin could arrange a meeting with the Fab Four if Kirby and his father came to London.

“I asked him all kinds of stupid things, the things a 16-year-old kid would ask. How many people would be dumb enough to write to him,” said Kirby, laughing. “But he answered all of my letters himself. I loved the 'Esq.' at the end of my name on the envelopes ... I thought, ‘Woo! I'm hot stuff!’”

The memorabilia

Kirby’s collection of Beatles memorabilia is impressive, and he has a London pen pal of 50 years, Ron Turner, to thank for much of it. Ron would send him the monthly Beatle magazines (1964-68), the innumerable Beatles postage stamps, postcards, and albums not released in the States.

Ron would stand in line the day the postage stamps were released, with hundreds of others, to buy some. The stamps would sell out the same day. Some people, Ron told Kirby, bought $300 to $400 worth.

Ron would send some of them on a canceled envelope the very same day. Apparently, Kirby was told, they are worth more. Some of Kirby's mailings are stamped “Abbey Road.”

“Ron and I met in person 20 years ago. I flew him and his family here,” Kirby said. “Since then, every three years or so, I go there or he comes back here.”

In addition to his 1966 ticket stub (he gave his 1965 ticket to the son of former employees/friends years ago) that was just $5.75, all the albums (including one of Martin's arrangements of Beatle songs prior to the Beatles' release of them), Kirby has photos taken at the concerts, photos of items he had, but lost over the years, including Beatle dolls, a Beatle wig, Beatle talcum powder, a Yellow Submarine lunchbox, towels, posters and a guitar.

If it was Beatles-related, Kirby had to have it.

His most recent acquisition of a collection of Beatles pins were sent to him by a woman in Liverpool ordering a crystal necklace from Enchantments' on eBay.

“When she told me where she was from, I told her what a huge Beatles fan I was and she asked me if I'd like her to mail me some little pins from the Cavern (a Liverpool club the band used to play in the early days) to add to my collection,” Kirby said.

Just three weeks before the August 1966 Shea Stadium concert, Kirby, then 16, and his father did travel to London.

Kirby knew he wouldn't be meeting The Beatles. He knew they weren't playing anywhere nearby. For Kirby, just being there, walking the streets The Beatles walked, seeing shops and clubs they saw, was more than enough.

Their presence could still be felt.

And it was enough — enough to remember for his lifetime.