The part of fame that upset the Beatles the most

The part of fame that upset the Beatles the most

Alexis Mardas, an engineer who was very close to the band, saw up close how the musicians dealt — and suffered — with their success

During the so-called Beatlemania, the name given to the period in which Beatles performed shows already as a popular phenomenon — between 1963 and 1966 —, the Beatles experienced practically unprecedented fame in music. The Fab Four drew crowds of ecstatic fans wherever they went. However, the success achieved by its members also brought some negative aspects.

Who witnessed this up close was the Greek engineer Alexis Mardas — also known as Magic Alex —, who was very close to the band. In an interview for the book All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Wordswritten by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines (via CheatSheet), he mentioned which part of fame most upset and bothered the band, in addition to mentioning the musician most affected by the issue.

Mardas he said:

It reached a point where the Beatles They wanted to have privacy. Ringo (Starr) even said, at the time, that he would give anything in his life to go to a pub, which is a tradition in England, to have a beer. He couldn’t. So he had to build a pub in his house. But it wasn’t the same because he missed a real pub.”

The engineer even said that at a certain point, he noticed the band in a state of depression due to this consequence of fame. He stated:

This made them very sad. I mean, they had everything on one side, but from the other point of view, they completely lost their freedom. For me, that’s the reason they abandoned the stage. They didn’t want that publicity.”

Beatles off stage

In fact, we know that the Beatles They stopped touring from 1966 onwards — also because their songs were increasingly complex, the logistics of touring were complicated and the quality of equipment at the time affected their live performances. However, Magic Alex believes that the decision also brought another bad consequence for the group.

They made a mistake. They thought that withdrawing from the stage, staying at home and just going to the studio to record albums would make people forget about them and leave them alone to just record. But they remained equally famous. It was tremendous stress and daily tension. I mean, they barely left their houses because they couldn’t show up in town. They had to be isolated at home without friends, without anything. You go crazy like that because you have everything but can’t enjoy anything.”

Who was Alexis Mardas

Yannis Alexis Mardas saw his life change in 1965, after deciding to move to London with the intention of studying. It didn’t take long to meet Brian Jonesof the Rolling Stoneswho introduced him to John Lennon shortly afterwards.

The musician was impressed by an invention of Mardas and the two soon became close – the Beatle was responsible for giving the engineer the nickname Magic Alex. From then on, he also met the other members of the group.

You Beatles they liked it so much Mardas that he was one of the first employees of Apple Corps, a company created by the band, and had his own laboratory at the company. Furthermore, he accompanied the Fab Four during the musicians’ famous visit to study transcendental meditation in India.

Collaborated: Augusto Ikeda.

Source: Rollingstone

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