Bob Geldof’s unpleasant memory of seeing The Beatles in 1964: “The smell of piss as girls fainted”

Bob Geldof recalled seeing The Beatles as a child in Dublin, describing the venue’s floor and the smell left behind when girls fainted. His vivid but unpleasant memory offers a glimpse of the intense physical response that Beatlemania could provoke among audiences.

Geldof told NME in 2015 that he attended with his sister, aged about 12. The article says The Beatles played two shows at Dublin’s Adelphi Cinema in November 1963, although Geldof remembered the visit as 1964; he later said he and his sister met Paul McCartney at the band’s hotel. The pair reunited on stage at Live Aid in 1985 to sing “Let It Be”.