Historic Beatles photos up for sale

Photographs of The Beatles' first ever US concert are going up for sale.

It was 1964 and Beatlemania ruled. Two days after their momentous US debut on 'The Ed Sullivan Show', the Fab Four boarded a train from New York for Washington, DC, for their first US concert.

An enterprising 18-year-old Mike Mitchell was there, a press pass in hand, shooting photographs just feet away and even jumping onto the stage for the group's brief pre-concert press call.

Forty-seven years later, Mr Mitchell has made 50 silver gelatin prints from his negatives of the event and the Beatles' September 3, 1964, performance at the Baltimore Civic Centre.

He is offering them for sale at Christie's New York auction house on July 20. The total pre-sale estimate is $100,000 (€69,827); the images will be sold individually.

Mr Mitchell laughs when he describes the scene at the indoor arena that night - not only of screaming fans but also of his unrestricted access to the stage. No cordoned-off media pens, no tight security.

"It was a long time ago. Things weren't that way then," the 65-year-old said in a telephone interview from Washington, where he lives and works as an art photographer.

"It was as low-tech as the concert itself. The concert was in a sports venue and the sound system was the sound system of a sports venue."

Equally astonishing is how few other photographs from that first concert exist. Simeon Lipman, head of Christie's pop culture department, said it is not clear why, but he said Mitchell's black and white photographs were remarkable for their quality.

"They're very close-up, very animated. The light is very interesting. They're very intimate shots," Mr Lipman said

In addition, Beatlemania was at its peak, so much so that the Beatles stopped performing live in 1966 - their last concert was in Candlestick Park in San Francisco - "because they couldn't hear themselves sing. The girls were so hysterical", Mr Lipman noted.

Mr Mitchell stored the negatives all these years in a box in the basement of his home. For the silver gelatin prints in the auction, he used digital technology to do "much better 'darkroom' work that could ever have been done in a traditional darkroom".

The batch of prints, showing the Beatles in their early signature mop hair, suit and ties, also will have a nearly invisible "secret moniker" that will not be used for any other of his images, he said.

The highlight of sale is a backlit photograph of the band with light halos around their heads that Mr Mitchell shot at the press call while standing directly behind the group. Sotheby's has not yet determined what it is expected to fetch.

The photographs will be displayed at Christie's London galleries on June 11-12, and then at several other London venues before being shown July 11-20 at Christie's New York prior to the auction.