55 Years Ago Tonight John Lubinski from Malden GOT ONSTAGE WITH THE BEATLES 1966

 BOBBY HEBB PLAYED THE 1998 TV3 CHRISTMAS PARTY.   HE ALSO PERFORMED WITH THE BEATLES IN REVERE, MASS. 

55 YEARS AGO TONIGHT  1966

Here's my interview with a Boston area person who saw Bobby Hebb with the Beatles in 1966 By Joe Viglione / https://www.wickedlocal.com/article/20100513/NEWS/305139018

Meet the Beatles — Malden native John Lubinski did

Posted May 13, 2010 at 12:01 AM Updated May 13, 2010 at 1:20 PM

But did you know there was a Malden resident who managed to run up on stage with the Fab Four that day? Do you wonder if the guy made it out of there alive? Well, former Malden resident John Lubinski is alive and well and living in Las Vegas.

Are you one of the lucky individuals who went to Suffolk Downs racetrack in Revere on August 18, 1966?

Did you hear longtime North Shore resident Bobby Hebb (now back in Nashville) sing his immortal classic, “Sunny,” along with “Crazy Baby,” Van McCoy’s “For You,” a cover of Darlene Love’s “Good Good Lovin,” and the classic “Got My Mojo Working” backed up by Boston’s very own Barry Tashian & The Remains?

Perhaps you’ve read Tashian’s book, “Ticket To Ride: The Extraordinary Diary of The Beatles’ Last Tour” (Dowling Press, 1997)?

If you were there on that magical point in history, you probably heard the Beatles perform songs like Chuck Berry’s 1957 hit, “Rock & Roll Music,” or Lennon/McCartney classics like “Day Tripper,” “Baby’s In Black,” “I Feel Fine,” “Paperback Writer,” “Nowhere Man” and more.

But did you know there was a Malden resident who managed to run up on stage with the Fab Four that day? Do you wonder if the guy made it out of there alive? Well, former Malden resident John Lubinski is alive and well and living in Las Vegas. The Observer has an exclusive interview with the Maldonian whose out-of-order activity way back when has made him a rather notorious footnote in Boston area Beatles lore.

A local daily newspaper article of the 1966 Suffolk Downs event leaves the readers hanging on the outcome of the daring young man who jumped the stage...it says he was handed ”...into the clutches of six Boston policemen.”

Close call

“It caused a little bit of a riot where a lot of people were running for the stage or trying to get up there,” said Lubinski. “I ended up getting away. They put me in a police car, and I got out the other door. They were kind of distracted ...trying to stop the other people. I got out the door, ran to the fence, hopped over, wandered back into the crowd and got away.”

The aforementioned newspaper article referenced above is reprinted in the book “Ticket To Ride: The Extraordinary Diary of the Beatles Last Tour” with additional information from Judith Sims, editor of TeenSet magazine. On Page 56 of Ticket To Ride Sims’ article notes, “In Boston, a second young man made it to the stage; he first informed one of the English disc jockeys that he had managed to get past the barriers and guards to the stage area...”

https://www.wickedlocal.com/article/20100513/NEWS/305139018

Lubinski recalled that that was Kenny Everett, the pirate radio on-air personality. “Kenny Everett was interviewing me before I jumped onstage; I told him I was going to do it...he didn’t believe me. Right after that I made it up onstage, Kenny Everett went crazy.”

The Beatles were performing the Little Richard classic, “Long Tall Sally,” concluding their set, and after Lubinski got away he hooked up with the two friends he convinced to go to the show with him.

“I miraculously found them again and we took the train home,” said Lubinski. “I was pretty excited...pretty jazzed up...as one girl told (documentary filmmaker) Erik Taros, I was holding court on the train.

“There were people on the train who wanted to touch me because I was onstage with the Beatles,” Lubinski reminisced.

 

 

Taros, a Swampscott resident known as “Dr. Beatle” for his many chats on radio about John, Paul, George and Ringo, was searching for Lubinski to chronicle the event in his movie about the Suffolk Downs show.

An audio of the Everett/Lubinski British interview from 1966 was posted on WBZ’s Web site as BZ host Dan Rea appears to have spoken with Beatle historians Cha-Chi Loprete and Erik Taros on December 9, 2008. Cha Chi is the longtime promotion man for WBCN, WZLX and now 98.5 the Sports Hub who also hosts “Breakfast with the Beatles” on WZLX, Sunday mornings at 8 a.m.

Lubinski told the Observer that he was on the computer and by accident found the December 2008 Podcast (a broadcast posted to the Web) of a John Lennon anniversary show/Beatles program, with Dan Rea, Taros and LoPrette.

“I heard the one minute clip with me from Kenny Everett,” he said.

And that’s how Lubinski and Taros got to connect for the upcoming film. Taros was searching quite awhile for John Lubinski, and the WBZ airing finally got them together.

The Beatles are coming

John Lubinski was born in Gardner but the family moved to Malden around the age of 1 since both his parents are from Malden. He lived on 19 Boston St. and attended Brown School in Malden for the first and second grade. Lubinski went to the Belmont School from the third to the sixth grade and then Lincoln Junior High. He attended high school outside of Malden. During his youthful years in Malden Lubinski played baseball.

And for music he listened to the radio: “I didn’t play an instrument, but I liked the Beatles from the moment I heard them.”

He was 17 when the concert happened in 1966.

“At the time I was working at American Aluminum Company on Eastern Avenue in Malden; about a month before I read in the newspaper that the Beatles were coming. I went with a couple friends from work.”

And when the Observer asked if it was a major event at the time, Lubinski replied in the affirmative: “Yeah; [and] it really didn’t register with me or [I didn’t] think about it, but that was the first concert I ever went to in my life. That’s kind of funny — ironic now. It never really registered with me until recently. What a way to start.”

That 1966 concert was one of the final live performances ever by The Beatles.

Brushes with history

Lubinski’s most recent brushes with history have been less eventful, more as a fan than a participant. In 2007 he went to The Beatles “Love” show at the Las Vegas casino, the Mirage, “and they had The Beatle’s Fair at that same casino, I went to that too. Beatles fans from all over the country go there and they have all different events going on, films and people selling Beatles memorabilia. Different bands playing Beatles songs. I went to a similar Beatles event in L.A. about 15 years ago, but this was the first time they had it in Vegas, I believe.”

On The Beatles Cirque du Soleil LOVE show Lubinski is most enthused: “I enjoyed it. I love all the Beatles music. It’s the Beatles music (in the Cirque du Soleil show) ...they have so much of that going on that it is almost like a little too much...but overall it’s great.”

As for other Beatles-associated performances, the former Malden resident says he also attended a Ringo concert in San Diego about 10 years ago while living in that city.

But as for that historic Suffolk Downs concert, Lubinski said, “I remember Bobby Hebb singing the big song “Sunny,” which I like a lot.”

Lubinski noted that the response was huge for Hebb’s big hit of the Summer of 1966.

But what of the city where he was raised — he escaped the police at Revere Beach’s Suffolk Downs; has he escaped Malden as well?

“I still have two cousins that live in Malden; I just talked to one a couple of weeks ago. I was back there in 2005... I’ll be coming back.”