Back in the 1960s, when rock music journalism was in its infancy, great pieces of writing stood head and shoulders above the rest. These days it has become so commonplace, so everyday, that true opinion, true experience and true style have become difficult to find. Reading a lot of rock writing nowadays you start to wonder why the people involved picked up a pen in the first place.

These days the rock'n'roll lifestyle has become a cliché. In fact the myth of Beatledom (a lifetime squeezed into ten short years) is now so well-known, so much a part of modern history, that it can be emulated (at least in theory) by fledgling rock stars from places as far apart as St Petersburg and Auckland. Back in the days when Rod Stewart wanted to be a rock star he was more or less escaping the drudgery of the production line; these days the job comes with a pension plan, it's not surprising that rock journalism has become a cliché too.

A few days later Nick Sevano brought a new press agent, George Evans, to the show. ‘I was bringing George Evans down the aisle to get closer to the stage,’ recalled Nick Sevano. A girl stood up and threw a rose at Frank and the girl next to her moaned a little. That's all George needed to see. A couple of days later he created an absolute pandemonium for Frank.' After seeing Frank sing at the Paramount, the astute press agent worked with dervishlike energy to turn the sparks of a tossed rose and a moaning teenager into a conflagration of screaming hysterical women.

He hired twelve long-haired, round-faced little girls in bobby socks and paid them five dollars apiece to jump and scream and yell ‘Oh, Frankie. Oh, Frankie’ when Frank started to sing one of his slow, soft ballads. He drilled them in the basement of the Paramount, directing them to holler when Frank bent and dipped certain notes. ‘They shouldn’t only yell and squeal, they should fall apart,' Evans said. Two of the girls were coached to fall in a dead faint in the aisle while the others were told to moan in unison as loudly as they could.

To pack the theater to capacity, Evans distributed free tickets to hundreds of youngsters on school vacation. He told a few select columnists that a new young singer was appearing at the Paramount. He said Frank was going to be bigger than any other singer because he made women fall on the floor. Photographers were alerted, and the next day's newspapers showed pictures of young girls being carried out ‘in a swoon’ after seeing Frank Sinatra. Twelve were hired but thirty fainted.