the beatles 1964 australian tour

The Beatles live: Festival Hall, Brisbane, Australia

The Beatles’ 1964 world tour ended on 30 June 1964, with two shows at the Festival Hall in Brisbane. Each of the concerts was seen by 5,500 fans.

During the day they took two hire cars to the Gold Coast, where they spent time relaxing on a stretch of sand between Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise.

The Beatles returned to Lennons Hotel in Brisbane after their second concert of the night. The following day they began their long return journey back to England.

Also on this day...

• 2016: Paul McCartney live: Rock Werchter
• 2000: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Taste of Minnesota 2000, Saint Paul
• 1990: Paul McCartney live: Knebworth Festival
• 1968: Paul McCartney records Thingumybob by Black Dyke Mills Band
• 1966: The Beatles live: Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo
• 1965: The Beatles live: Palais des Expositions, Nice, France
• 1963: The Beatles live: ABC Cinema, Great Yarmouth
• 1962: The Beatles live: Heswall Jazz Club, Wirral
• 1961: The Beatles live: Top Ten Club, Hamburg
• 1960: The Silver Beetles live: The Institute, Neston, Wirral

Want more? Visit the Beatles history section .

Latest Comments

I saw the Beatles at Festival Hall for the first concert. I was at Qld Uni at a College and we queued for 2 days to get tickets. Couldn’t hear much because of the screaming. A group from our College wanted to get a name for ourselves so, stupidly we decided we would throw eggs at the Beatles at the Airport. Young and stupid. The poor Beatles thought that this would start a fad similar to girls throwing their panties at Tom Jones. It was in all the papers

I was there too, as a well-behaved 17-year-old, I think for the later concert, and with my sister and a workmate rather than with a group of morons posing as university students.

Not being an idle and well-funded student of independent means I was unable to dodge lectures (I was attending UQ part-time and went to all my lectures after a day’s work, as humble people did in those days because the taxpayer didn’t pick up the tab and most of didn’t have rich parents or win Commonwealth Scholarships, which were very scarce and required well-heeled parents anyway).

My mother queued for the tickets for us, and although it was a marvellous, selfless thing for her to do, it was more like two hours than two days; no one queued for two days. We had good seats too, although it’s true that you couldn’t hear anything because of the screaming young females (plus perhaps the cretinous full-time male university “students” making their recently-broken voices heard).

The Beatles certainly did not think that throwing eggs at them (and yes it was a very, very (how many verys may I include?) stupid thing to do) would start a trend, nor was it in all the papers. How extraordinary and cringeworthy that you and your cohort thought it a good idea.

Katter, as the son of a Commonwealth parliamentarian did throw eggs at The Beatles at the airport, and bad cess to him for having done so.

Young and stupid, eh? Is that supposed to be a defence?

We were all young, but we weren’t all stupid; perhaps you had to be well-off and young to be stupid? Most people were sensible in 1964; I remember it well.

I do hope you’re not an “eminent” jurist, parliamentarian, medical man or anything moderately important, Eddie, because your confession that you spent your university time as a fool is most distressing.

You are now at least as old as I am Eddie, but throwing eggs at The Beatles is up there with tripping the Queen.

Have you ever done that?

Leave a Reply

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A New Book About The Beatles’ 1964 Australian Tour Is Coming

Australian publishing house Woodslane Press have announced a new book entitled When We Was Fab: Inside The Beatles ‘ Australasian Tour 1964 . As its title suggests, the book documents the first and only time that The Beatles ever came to Australia and New Zealand in June of 1964. Its release on Saturday, June 1st will fall on the eve of the tour’s 60th anniversary.

When We Was Fab was written by music historian Andy Neill and radio presenter Greg Armstrong. The former is a published author of biographies of The Who and Rod Stewart , having also published two Beatles photo anthologies. The latter, meanwhile, is the host of the Melbourne-based Let It Be Beatles , which is described as “the world’s longest-running weekly live radio show dedicated to The Beatles”.

The book is a comprehensive look at the tour, which saw 30,000 people line the streets of Adelaide to welcome the band to the city and Beatlemaniacs flooding the airport in Sydney and Melbourne upon their arrival. It compiles never-before-seen photographs, press clippings, interviews and eye witness recollections from over 100 people that either saw or participated in the band’s visit.

The Beatles – 1964 Australian Tour Highlight Reel

The tour was also notable for the partial absence of drummer Ringo Starr . Struck with tonsilitis before the start of the tour, he was replaced by unknown session drummer Jimmie Nicol for eight shows of the band’s world tour – including two performances in Adelaide. Starr officially rejoined his bandmates when they arrived in Melbourne, to perform at the city’s Festival Hall for six shows.

Although John Lennon never returned to Australia again prior to his death in 1980, the three remaining Beatles all returned. Paul McCartney toured Australia with Wings in 1975 and returned for a solo tour in 1993. He would not come back until 2017 , however, which was later followed by the Got Back stadium tour in October of last year.

Starr, meanwhile, would not return to Australia for 49 years after the 1964 shows. He eventually came back to Australia in 2013, performing shows with his All-Starr Band across the country. As for George Harrison , the dark-horse Beatle never toured Australia again but did have a holiday home on Hamilton Island known as Letsbeavenue. The home was built in the 80s, with Harrison visiting Australia for the final time in 2000 before his death the following year.

Pre-orders for When We Was Fab: Inside The Beatles’ Australasian Tour 1964 are on sale now via Woodslane Press .

Further Reading

Paul McCartney Review – Beatles, Wings and a Lifetime of Memories in Sydney

Paul McCartney 2023 Australian ‘Got Back’ Tour Setlists

The Beatles Release Their Final Song ‘Now And Then’

The post A New Book About The Beatles’ 1964 Australian Tour Is Coming appeared first on Music Feeds .

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A New Book About The Beatles’ 1964 Australian Tour Is Coming

By David James Young

Australian publishing house Woodslane Press have announced a new book entitled When We Was Fab: Inside The Beatles ‘ Australasian Tour 1964 . As its title suggests, the book documents the first and only time that The Beatles ever came to Australia and New Zealand in June of 1964. Its release on Saturday, June 1st will fall on the eve of the tour’s 60th anniversary.

When We Was Fab was written by music historian Andy Neill and radio presenter Greg Armstrong. The former is a published author of biographies of The Who and Rod Stewart , having also published two Beatles photo anthologies. The latter, meanwhile, is the host of the Melbourne-based Let It Be Beatles , which is described as “the world’s longest-running weekly live radio show dedicated to The Beatles”.

The book is a comprehensive look at the tour, which saw 30,000 people line the streets of Adelaide to welcome the band to the city and Beatlemaniacs flooding the airport in Sydney and Melbourne upon their arrival. It compiles never-before-seen photographs, press clippings, interviews and eye witness recollections from over 100 people that either saw or participated in the band’s visit.

The Beatles – 1964 Australian Tour Highlight Reel

The tour was also notable for the partial absence of drummer Ringo Starr . Struck with tonsilitis before the start of the tour, he was replaced by unknown session drummer Jimmie Nicol for eight shows of the band’s world tour – including two performances in Adelaide. Starr officially rejoined his bandmates when they arrived in Melbourne, to perform at the city’s Festival Hall for six shows.

Although John Lennon never returned to Australia again prior to his death in 1980, the three remaining Beatles all returned. Paul McCartney toured Australia with Wings in 1975 and returned for a solo tour in 1993. He would not come back until 2017 , however, which was later followed by the Got Back stadium tour in October of last year.

Starr, meanwhile, would not return to Australia for 49 years after the 1964 shows. He eventually came back to Australia in 2013, performing shows with his All-Starr Band across the country. As for George Harrison , the dark-horse Beatle never toured Australia again but did have a holiday home on Hamilton Island known as Letsbeavenue. The home was built in the 80s, with Harrison visiting Australia for the final time in 2000 before his death the following year.

Pre-orders for When We Was Fab: Inside The Beatles’ Australasian Tour 1964 are on sale now via Woodslane Press .

Further Reading

Paul mccartney review – beatles, wings and a lifetime of memories in sydney.

Paul McCartney 2023 Australian ‘Got Back’ Tour Setlists

The Beatles Release Their Final Song ‘Now And Then’

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The Beatles Concerts at the Sydney Stadium, June 1964

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Plaque location

Plaque unveiling, the beatles concerts at the sydney stadium 18-20 june 1964, the fab four, the sydney stadium, 'the old tin shed', corner new south head road and neild avenue.

Between 18-20 June 1964, ‘Beatlemania’ arrived in Sydney. The Beatles performed six concerts at the Sydney Stadium, Rushcutters Bay as part of a two week tour of Australia and New Zealand. The tour was a major event for Australia - a link to the international culture of the 1960s, and a ‘once in a lifetime celebration of youthful rebellion’ for thousands of Sydneysiders.

Corner of Neild Avenue and New South Head Road, Paddington

View all plaques in Paddington

Plaque unveiling for The Beatles Concerts at the Sydney Stadium in June 1964. L-R Cr Anthony Marano, Mayor of Woollahra Cr Susan Wynne, guest speaker Dr Janis Lander, guest Bob Rogers OAM.

On 16 June 2021, a plaque commemorating The Beatles 1964 concerts in Sydney was unveiled near the site of the Sydney Stadium (demolished), the venue for the concerts on 18-20 June 1964.

The plaque is located on the footpath on Neild Avenue, near the corner of New South Head Road, Rushcutters Bay.

Watch the plaque unveiling here

DJ and radio broadcaster Bob Rogers OAM, who toured with the Beatles in 1964, speaking at the event

Guest speaker Dr Janis Lander

Guests at the plaque unveiling for The Beatles Concerts at the Sydney Stadium in June 1964

Guests watching the Beatles tribute band 'Beatle Magic'

Guests with Mayor of Woollahra Cr Susan Wynne (centre), Cr Anthony Marano and Cr Peter Kavanagh

Tribute Band 'Beatle Magic' playing at the event

Plaque unveiling for The Beatles Concerts at the Sydney Stadium

L-R Cr Anthony Marano, Mayor of Woollahra Cr Susan Wynne, guest speaker Dr Janis Lander, guest Bob Rogers OAM

Guest Sheridan Rogers

Guests with Mayor of Woollahra Cr. Susan Wynne

Guests at the plaque unveiling

L-R Chris Dawson, Cr. Anthony Marano, Graham Humphrey

Plaque for The Beatles Concerts at the Sydney Stadium in June 1964

Tribute band 'Beatle Magic' who performed at the event

Members of the band 'Beatle Magic' with Cr Anthony Marano, Mayor of Woollahra Cr Susan Wynne and Bob Rogers OAM (centre)

In June 1964, 'Beatlemania’ arrived in Sydney. The Beatles performed six concerts at the Sydney Stadium i , Rushcutters Bay as part of a two week tour of Australia and New Zealand.

For all the charisma the four emitted, the real stars of the tour were the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who screamed in public and viewed in private who were caught up by accident or intent in the joyful madness that swept the land... Glenn A. Baker, The Beatles down under : the 1964 Australia and New Zealand tour , p. 7

‘Beatlemania’

In 1963, the British Press coined the term ‘Beatlemania’, describing

the relentless and seemingly hysterical response of that country’s teenagers to an indeterminate mixture of musical presence, public personality, and social significance that was projected by this pop group from the port city of Liverpool, whose fresh-faced exuberance and insouciant wit had endeared them to a substantial number of adult Britons as well Jonathan Gould, Can't buy me love: the Beatles, Britain, and America , p. 1

The first Beatles single to be released in Australia was Please Please Me , issued on February 21, 1963 by EMI Records. The song was the second UK chart hit for the Beatles, making No. 2, but did not have the same success in Australia, the Beatles having been treated with a degree of indifference by the ‘painfully conservative Australian media and entertainment industry’. ii

This all changed in 1964, ‘the year that the 'Fab Four' took their potent aura to the world’. iii By then, the Beatles had notched up three UK No. 1 hits - From Me to You , She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand .

In February 1964 a Pan American Airways jetliner at Kennedy Airport delivered the group to New York, beginning the Beatles' so-called ‘conquest’ of America, with a tour of the East Coast. They appeared twice on the Ed Sullivan Show, performing at the Washington Coliseum and Carnegie Hall in New York. Capitol Records had spent $50,000 promoting the group.

Filming for the movie A Hard Days Night began in the UK just 9 days after the Beatles return from the US. By this time, seven of Australia’s ‘top 40’ records were Beatles numbers - She Loves You stayed on the Australian charts for 42 weeks.

In June 1964, following a series of concerts in Holland and Denmark, the Beatles undertook a ‘Far Eastern Tour’, flying first to Hong Kong, ahead of two weeks of engagements in Australia and New Zealand.

Australia – 1964

"It all started on June 11 with a scheduled flight from Hong Kong’s Kai Tak that refuelled in Darwin where Australia witnessed the first manifestation of Beatlemania; at 2.35 on a winter’s morning 400 fans crowded the little terminal to see John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and stand-in drummer Jimmy Nicol pass through Customs and Immigration". iv

‘Beatlemania’ had arrived ‘down under’ - it was the only time the Beatles would tour Australia. Author Jonathan Gould commented that "of all the tumultuous public receptions the group would experience, nothing before or after, in terms of scale, would compare with what awaited them in Australia". v

Incoming passenger cards record the arrival of the Beatles in Darwin on 11 June 1964, on BOAC Flight 801, listing their occupations as ‘Musician’ and length of stay 10 days. vi The Beatles’ onward flight touched down at Sydney’s Mascot airport just before 7:45am on Thursday 11 June 1964. Australian television, which was just eight years old, broadcast the event live to hundreds of thousands of viewers who watched the Beatles being ferried to the terminal on the back of a truck, in wind and drenching rain. vii

While in Sydney, The Beatles stayed at the Sheraton Hotel, Potts Point (40 Macleay Street, now apartments), taking over the top floor. The New York City Police department had given a warning to Australia, advising that ‘there will be chaos and confusion’ wherever the Beatles go. Hong Kong’s police chief had confidentially advised Sydney CIB that supporters (particularly young girls) would besiege their hotels, but that the Beatles themselves were amiable, and would ‘co-operate with police in the preservation of law and order’, spending most of the time, when not performing, in their hotel suites. viii

The Beatles' tour caused consternation among Australian police, aviation officials, hotel owners, parents and schools. Four of Sydney’s leading hotels (the Menzies, Chevron, Hotel Australia and Town House) had refused to book the Beatles. Eventually the owner of the small Sheraton Hotel in Macleay Street, Potts Point, offered to have them – it was a decision that would provide the hotel with free publicity for years to come. The Chevron manager wryly noted that they had originally refused the booking because of the expected crowds inside and outside the hotel - they got them anyway, but without the money or publicity, fans taking up vantage points outside the Chevron, hoping for a glimpse of the Beatles in the Sheraton Hotel opposite.

A polarisation of opinion regarding the presence of the Beatles was made obvious in the reaction of two Sydney girls schools. Miss P. Evans, headmistress of Ravenswood Methodist School banned students from having Beatles haircuts or carrying photos, stating that ‘We don’t want Ravenswood to be involved with those screaming mobs. I want to safeguard these children from something they do not understand’. On the other hand, Miss Betty Archdale, the indomitable principal of Abbotsleigh School for Girls at Wahroonga took a more enlightened view, allowing the girls to pin photos of the Beatles on their dormitory walls, and to watch the Beatles on TV, saying ‘I see no harm in the Beatles or the craze they have started’. ix

The first of the Beatles' twenty Australian shows was in Adelaide, followed by Melbourne, Sydney and finally Brisbane. The concerts usually consisted of a ten-song, half-hour set, performed to screaming audiences and padded out by four support acts. The show was compered by Alan Field, with performances in the first half by The Phantoms, who stayed on to back Johnny Devlin and Johnny Chester – the first half closed with Sounds Incorporated and the Beatles played the whole of the second half. There were two shows each night, one at 6pm and one at 8pm, and none on Sundays. Between the Sydney and Brisbane concerts there was an eight-day tour of New Zealand. x

“No single instance of Beatlemania throughout the globe ever came close to the intensity and sheer magnitude of the social upheaval which accompanied the 1964 Australian Beatles’ tour” Glenn A. Baker, The Beatles down under , p. 7

The concerts - Sydney Stadium

Between 18-20 June 1964, The Beatles performed six concerts at the Sydney Stadium, Rushcutters Bay. Ticket prices ranged from 15s 6d to £1 17s 6d. xi

Unlike the reception in Adelaide, where a large portion of the population had turned out, the initial response when the Beatles returned to Sydney was muted, with a relatively quiet crowd at the airport. Melbourne too had seen fairly chaotic scenes, with the Victorian police calling in the army and navy to assist.

The Beatles had by this time been reunited with their drummer, Ringo Starr, who had missed the first part of the tour due to a bad bout of tonsillitis, re-joining the Beatles in Melbourne. Stand-in drummer Jimmy Nicol quietly left Australia before the group returned to Sydney.

The first two Sydney concerts, on Thursday 18 June 1964, were only three quarters full. Promoter Kenn Brodziak was reported as saying “To this day, I’m not really sure why this happened. I tend to think that the sort of hysterical coverage which the Sydney press liked to run, frightened a lot of parents who thought there would be some kind of wild riot”. Following the first shows, when it was clear that no one would be trampled to death, the remaining four shows were packed. xii

A three minute newsreel in the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) features live footage of The Beatles and their fans during a concert in Sydney during their 1964 tour of Australia:  The Beatles at Sydney Stadium, 1964 . The curator notes that ‘Concert footage of popular acts was still in its infancy in the 1960s’ and ‘This professionally shot footage is the result of employing multiple cameras and stylish editing in post-production that effectively captures the phenomenon known as 'Beatlemania'’.

Terry Smith, Sports Journalist, devotes a chapter to ‘Beatlemania’ in his book  The old tin shed , a history of the Sydney Stadium. He attended the first Beatles concert in Sydney - tickets being one of the perks of being the  Sydney Morning Herald ’s boxing writer:

‘None of us who packed into the Stadium for the first Sydney concert…will ever forget it. Onto the revolving stage trotted The Beatles through a phalanx of uniformed police and security men’…‘It was absolute bedlam. The screams hit the tin roof and echoed round the stadium to create a noise level claimed by a sound expert to exceed that of a Boeing 707 jet in full flight’.

Annette Dixon, who was thirteen years old when she attended one of the concerts at the Sydney Stadium in 1964, shared her reminisences of the event:

I saw The Beatles then [in 1964]. My mum saved money to buy my ticket and our neighbour did the same for their daughter Sandra Hanmer. Her elder sister took us. We sat in what was called “the bleachers” … we screamed with everyone else - then we followed the crowd up to their [The Beatles] hotel Sheraton. They came out onto the roof of their hotel and threw a bucket of water out into the crowd. We gladly got wet. So, so long ago for us two 13 year olds. Annette Dixon

Newspaper reports of the Sydney concerts ranged ‘from the puerile to the refreshingly serious’. xiii Craig McGregor, of the Sydney Morning Herald , gave the ‘sole serious appraisal of the performance’ writing:

“The Beatles showed themselves last night to be every bit as polished, as exciting and engaging in person as they are on records – and what is more surprising a great deal gentler. This quality is somewhat unexpected in a Liverpool beat band whose music is raucous R&B, only slightly mellowed by a native English interest in harmony and musical colour …It was unexpected to find them singing numbers like ‘All My Loving’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ with such warmth and romanticism…Yet the Beatles were, without a doubt the wildest, swingiest and ravingest quartet of pop musicians to hit the stadium since Little Richard.”

Most other reporters focused on the noise and hysteria of the fans. Ron Ford, of the Sun , had reported:

“It hit the tin roof of the Stadium and thundered round the empty bleachers: She was Just Sev! En! Teen!. The first real live Beatle sound in Sydney. And that’s all they got out before the shrieks took over for thirty minutes solid. It was hard to believe that these four frail and largely lifeless looking lads could whip up such a scene. Round and round went the baffled Beatles [ a reference to the Stadium’s revolving stage ] with a ‘stop the stage I want to get off’ look on their faces.”

After the final two concerts the Sunday Telegraph reported that “Screaming teenagers last night turned the Beatles’ last two concerts into near riot” and the Sun-Herald noted that “Thousands of girls under sixteen who occupied the most expensive seats seem to be in a state of delirium …”

All three Sunday newspapers carried extensive reviews of the fifth and sixth concerts on Saturday night – the first to have ‘house-full’ signs up before the headliners hit the stage. The late show was the balltearer of the tour and even the out of touch reviewers managed to realise it .. Glenn A. Baker,  The Beatles down under , p. 101

“From the beginning there were several attributes that distinguished the Beatles from anything that had happened in popular music before. The first was their nationality. Since the term had been first coined in the 1920s, the very concept of a ‘superstar’ had become synonymous with celebrity entertainment culture of the US. The Beatles in 1964 were the first unmistakably non-American performers to achieve the status of superstars on an international scale ..spearheading a British invasion of the American music scene. Jonathan Gould, Can't buy me love , p. 9

The Beatles grew up in Liverpool, one of the British seaports serving North America, which picked up the new rhythm and blues releases from sailors before the rest of Britain caught on.

In all but name, the Beatles began with the friendship of John Lennon and Paul McCartney who met in July 1957 at a garden fete at St Peter’s Church, Woolton. xiv John Lennon’s band, the Quarrymen, played a mix of rock & roll and skiffle, which had jazz, blues and folk influences. Shortly afterwards Paul McCartney joined the band as rhythm guitarist. By the summer of 1958, the nucleus of the future Beatles, - Lennon, McCartney and Harrison – was formed …not so much a band as a small circle of musical friends xv , including John’s friend Stuart Sutcliffe. They adopted the name the Beatles in August 1960, recruiting drummer Pete Best before a series of engagements in Hamburg. Stuart Sutcliffe left the Beatles in 1961 to pursue a career in art and Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best in August 1962, completing the line-up most usually associated with the Beatles – John, Paul, George and Ringo.

In November 1961, Brian Epstein heard the Beatles play at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, and was immediately taken with them. Over the next few months he courted the group, becoming their manager in 1962.

“The years of [the Beatles] story coincided with a period of rampant social and cultural change in Britain and America, and throughout the industrialised world” … ‘it culminated during the 1960s with the emergence of London as a world capital of pop culture, ruled by an unruly elite of ‘war babies’ who were bent on taking their country’s new climate of expressive freedom to once unimaginable extremes. The Beatles began as creatures of this new social and cultural milieu; they wound up serving as the most prominent symbols of it for people all over the world”. Jonathan Gould, Can't buy me love , p. 14

In 1965 the British Prime Minister’s office, under newly elected Douglas Wilson, a fellow northerner, announced that the Beatles were to be appointed as Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Surprisingly, the award cited their contribution to commerce, not the arts, with some estimates putting the Beatles records sales at more than 150 million records worldwide by August 1965 xvi . A growth in Britain’s fashion, entertainment and tourism industries was also attributed to a rising ‘pop Anglophilia’ in the US, Europe and Asia.

The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 by Mick Jagger. xvii

John Winston Lennon MBE - 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980

John Winston Lennon gained worldwide recognition as the founder, co-lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist for the Beatles - his songwriting partnership with fellow Beatle Paul McCartney recognized as one of the most successful in the industry.

In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, Yoko Ono. After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon continued with a solo career releasing the album  Imagine . ‘Following the release of Imagine , Lennon’s nonmusical activities and personal life tended to overshadow his career as a recording artist’ - John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved to New York city in 1971 where they ‘immersed themselves in various left-wing political causes’ xviii , and were critical of US involvement in the Vietnam War, creating issues with John’s residency visa in 1973. Following the birth of his son Sean in 1975, John Lennon withdrew from the public and devoted the rest of the 1970s to his family.

Along with the other Beatles, John Lennon was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1965, but returned his medal in November 1969, with an accompanying letter stating: ‘I am returning this MBE in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts.’

John Lennon was tragically shot and killed outside his Manhattan apartment building in 1980 by a Beatles fan. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (posthumously) as member of the Beatles in 1988, and as a solo artist in 1994.

Paul McCartney (Sir James Paul McCartney CH MBE) 18 June 1942 -

Paul McCartney gained his initial international fame as co-lead vocalist and bass guitar player for the Beatles. Born in Liverpool, he attended the Liverpool Institute High School (a grammar school), where he befriended George Harrison. Paul McCartney’s songwriting partnership with John Lennon produced a large portion of the Beatles catalogue – both wrote lyrics as well as music – but many other well-known hits are credited to Paul McCartney, including: And I Love Her (1964), Yesterday (1965), Eleanor Rigby (1966) and Blackbird (1968). After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Paul McCartney pursued a solo career, forming the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine (formerly of the Moody Blues) – the group achieved a number of hit singles and albums during the 1970s – including Mull of Kintyre , a record selling single released in 1977. Since the 1980s he has toured and performed as a solo artist. Paul McCartney’s interests beyond music include a commitment to a number of international causes and charities including animal rights and vegetarianism.

In an essay for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - Paul McCartney was inducted as a solo artist in 1999 – teacher, journalist and music critic for the New York Times , Allan Kozinn, says of Paul McCartney:

“The fact is, his salient feature as an artist is not, as some might assert, the ability to spin out a melody at the drop of a hat. What really drives him, as both composer and performer, is an unquenchable musical curiosity and the urge to constantly create.’ ‘He could, of course, leave the public stage secure in the knowledge that his existing work will continue to thrill people in great numbers, and with his place in musical history assured many times over. But for someone with McCartney’s creativity and drive, stopping would be incomprehensibly out of character” . xix

Paul McCartney received a knighthood in 1997 for services to music in the British and in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours list he was awarded a Companion of Honour (CH) for his ‘lasting contribution to music in the UK and Worldwide’ xx .

George Harrison MBE 25 February 1943 - 29 November 2001

George Harrison was born on 25 February 1943 in the family home in Wavertree, Liverpool. He joined the Beatles in 1958, and was only 17 when the group went to Hamburg in 1960, achieving international fame as the lead guitarist for the Beatles. By 1965 George Harrison had developed an interest in folk rock, including the music of Bob Dylan and the Byrds, and Indian Classical music – these influences can be found in some of the Beatles later work such as Norwegian Wood , in which he used the sitar. Although the majority of the band’s songs were Lennon- McCartney compositions, George Harrison was also a songwriter – his work included well known Beatles songs such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Here Comes the Sun.

After the band broke up in 1970, Harrison released a triple album All Things Must Pass , which contained the hit single My Sweet Lord. He also organised a 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, and founded Dark Horse Records in 1974. George Harrison continued to perform as a guest guitarist and collaborated with Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and others.

George was a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee in 2004 (posthumously) for his solo career. When George Harrison died from lung cancer in 2001 at the age of 58, his remains were cremated and the ashes were scattered according to Hindu tradition in a private ceremony in India.

Ringo Starr (Sir Richard Starkey MBE) 7 July 1940 -

Best known as the Beatles’ drummer, Ringo Starr, Richard Starkey was born in Liverpool in July 1940, growing up in a run-down working class area of the city known as Dingle. Despite a childhood beset by medical issues, which impacted his education, Ringo ‘had decided flair’ - he was the ‘master of the Liverpudlian deadpan, the slow Liverpudlian double-take, and the curt Liverpudlian retort’ - and ‘from the moment he joined, the Beatles became almost unimaginable without him’ xxi . He sang vocals on a number of well-known songs, including Yellow Submarine and With a Little Help from My Friends , and wrote or co-wrote others, including Octopuses Garden .

Prior to joining the Beatles, Ringo co-founded the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group (1957), later joining Rory Storm and the Hurricanes which became a popular Merseyside band. He left the Hurricanes when he was asked to join the Beatles in August 1962. Ringo has had a successful career in music and film following the Beatles break up, narrating the first two series of the children's television programme Thomas & Friends, also touring with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.

In the testimonial on the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame, Ringo is said to have been the inspiration for many professional drummers.

"More than any other drummer, Ringo Starr changed my life. The impact and memory of that band on Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 will never leave me. I can still see Ringo in the back moving that beat with his whole body, his right hand swinging off his sock cymbal while his left hand pounds the snare. He was fantastic, but I think what got to me the most was his smile. I knew he was having the time of his life." Max Weinberg xxii

Ringo was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist (2015) xxiii and was appointed a Knight Bachelor for services to music in the 2018 UK New Year Honours List. xxiv

The promoter - Kenn (Kenneth Leo) Brodziak 31 May 1913 – 3 June 1999

“Kenn Brodziak’s presentation of the Fab Four from Liverpool, still cited as the greatest entertainment coup Australia has ever witnessed, was not the result of great vision or adept negotiation. It was, in fact, a classic piece of accidental good luck”. Glenn A. Baker, The Beatles Down Under

The Beatles tour was booked in July 1963 by Australian promoter Kenn Brodziak, Managing Director of Aztec Services Pty, who co-promoted international acts with Richard (Dick) Lean, Managing Director of Stadiums Ltd, managers of the Sydney Stadium. Brodziak had booked the Beatles - well before ‘Beatlemania’ became a worldwide phenomenon - as a supporting act for the modest sum of £1000 a week (accommodation not included) xxv . It was a verbal contract, not finalised until January 1964 when Epstein, the Beatles manager, honoured the original agreement to tour Australia, albeit asking for a slight increase to £1500 per week – it was still well short of the going rate. According to Glenn A. Baker, ‘at ten times that it would still have been an outrageous steal’.

“The Australian promoter, Kenn Brodziak, had negotiated the tour in July 1963, before the hysteria had begun in England. By the time they arrived here, they were the biggest musical act on the planet and Brodziak had his hands on the most successful undertaking in Australian show business history. In the intervening 11 months, the English press had coined the word ‘Beatlemania’ to describe the frenzied screaming of fans. This phenomenon had created a huge international demand for records, merchandise and concert tickets”. Peter Cox, The Beatles in Australia Essay , MAAS, 5 April 2018

Sponsors negotiated for the tour included the British Motor Company, who provided Austin Princess and Morris 1100 cars for the entourage, and Ansett, who outbid TAA by providing air transport for free. xxvi TAA did however manage to create some publicity of their own - the Beatles had arrived in Sydney in the middle of a storm, and agreed to tour the fans enclosure in an open truck despite the weather. As the group disembarked the aircraft, a quick thinking TAA executive handed each of them a large umbrella, boldly marked with TAA lettering, and the iconic images of the Beatles in their capes and TAA umbrellas went round the world.

Brodziak was an influential figure in the history of promotion in Australia, bringing the stage show Godspell to Australia, as well as touring Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Bob Dylan, Marlene Dietrich, The Vienna Boy’s Choir, and Peter Paul and Mary, amongst others.

The Sydney Stadium was initially conceived as a temporary structure, constructed by promoter Hugh D. McIntosh for the World Heavyweight Boxing title fight between Canadian Tommy Burns and Australian Bill Squires in August 1908. In December of the same year, the Stadium was the setting for another World Heavyweight title bout, when challenger Jack Johnson defeated Tommy Burns becoming the first African-American to win the title. xxvii

In 1912 the Sydney Stadium was roofed over and enlarged to a design by architect T. P. Sampson xxviii , becoming a more permanent structure, albeit of wood and galvanised iron, affectionately known as the 'old tin shed'. The roof was built in the form of an octagon and it was to become an iconic Sydney boxing and entertainment venue, hosting numerous boxing bouts and playing host to The Beatles, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Buddy Holly, and The Rolling Stones, as well as Symphony orchestras and religious evangelists. Boxing promoter and stadium manager, Henry Lawrence (Harry) Miller managed the Stadium for 33 years.

The sound systems available in all the venues for the Beatles concerts were fairly basic – essentially the same facilities used for wrestling, boxing and revivalist meetings. Glenn A. Baker quotes Ron Blackmore, who later supervised PAs for the Rolling Stones 1973 concerts, who explained

“there was one amplifier, of about 100-150 watts, into which ran an average of 8 microphones.. there was no mixer : the singer balanced the sound by moving back and forward on the mic. There was a volume knob and a tone knob and that was it. All this was usually locked away in a back room somewhere, although at the Sydney Stadium it was under the stage. Out front it was even worse. At the Stadium, there was a cluster of tin AWA horns on each of four posts which were aimed at the four seating sections. This was what the Beatles’ voices were carried through, though it wasn’t altogether as bad as it sounds. Groups in the sixties learned their harmonies so well that they could be put in separate rooms and still keep in time with the other guys. The Beatles harmonies weren’t bad at all”. xxix

Dressing rooms at all the concert venues were similarly primitive - draughty wooden boxes, reeking of sweat and liniment - the only exception was the Sydney Stadium where Dawn Miller, wife of Sydney Stadium manager Harry Miller, had redecorated backstage prior to the concerts. Walls were painted, two lounge suites and coffee table installed and curtains hung.

There was a suggestion that this may have been done to divert the Beatles’ attention away from the ‘curse of the Sydney Stadium – the revolving stage’ which was built on top of the boxing ring. Ron Blackmore explained: “Because the microphone cables ran up a centre pole, the stage couldn’t go around continually in one direction. It went one turn and then a little man by side-stage with a lever sent it back the other way so that the cables could untangle”. xxx Perhaps this was just as well – in 1954, in the middle of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong’s first Australian performance, dense smoke billowed from under the stage, caused by the electric motor which drove the revolving stage becoming red-hot and threatening to set the stage alight. xxxi

The Sydney Stadium was demolished in 1970 to make way for the Eastern Suburbs Railway.

Significance

In 2013 the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (the Powerhouse Museum) mounted an exhibition ‘The Beatles in Australia’ chronicling the tour’s lasting impact on Australian music and culture.

“The eruption of Beatlemania in Australia was more intense than anywhere in the world. For thirteen days in 1964 the nation was held in a kind of euphoria, captivated by the talent, the songs and the charm of the Fab Four on their concert tour” The Beatles in Australia , MAAS exhibition 2013-14

Terry Smith quotes rock music journalist and commentator Glenn A. Baker xxxii , on why The Beatles caused such an upheaval in Australia:

“The Beatles were a sign from above, a skewer to lance the boil of stifling traditionalism. They had the power to link us, a colonial backwater, to a big wide world of fads and fashions and uninhibited excitement. The Beatles, their presence and their lingering influence, became a catalyst for the suppressed frustrations of kids who had begun to realise that unquestioned obedience to anyone older was no longer a sacred law. It liberated young Australians…”

Peter Cox, who curated the MAAS exhibition, observed in his 2018 essay,  ‘The Beatles in Australia’ , that "The tour was a major event for Australia in the 1960s. It kicked into gear that tumultuous decade, sparking an exciting period in music and culture". He noted that The Beatles visit to Australia influenced a generation of Australians to travel to the UK at a time when London was becoming 'the font of youth fashion and popular culture'. The Beatles tour also paved the way for visits by other English groups. "This ‘British invasion’ caused a sudden and dramatic shift in Australian music. A new generation of local groups, most made up of recent migrants, including The Easybeats, The Bee Gees, Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, MPD Ltd and The Twilights, led an Australian ‘beat boom’ in the mid-1960s”.

The Beatles had arrived in Australia at a time when ‘overseas travel was prohibitively expensive, and so were international phone calls’ - not everyone owned a television. The Beatles concerts provided a link to the emerging counter-culture of the 1960s and a ‘once in a lifetime celebration of youthful rebellion’ xxxiii for thousands of Sydney-siders.

Baker, Glenn A. The Beatles down under : the 1964 Australia and New Zealand tour. Glebe : NSW, 1982

Coupe, Stuart. The promoters : inside stories from the Australian rock industry . Sydney : Hodder Headline Australia, 2003.

Gould, Jonathan, Can't buy me love : the Beatles, Britain, and America . New York : Harmony Books, c2007.

Hayward, Mark. The Beatles in Australia.  Sydney : New Holland Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd, 2005.

Smith, Terry, The old tin shed : Sydney Stadium 1908-1970 , North Sydney, N.S.W. : Eric Spilsted Publishing, c1999. [Chapter 8 Beatlemania]

https://maas.museum/event/the-beatles-in-australia/

https://maas.museum/the-beatles-in-australia-essay/

https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_beatles_in_sydney

i The Sydney Stadium, known as 'The Tin Shed', was an iconic large-capacity boxing and concert venue that stood on the corner of New South Head Road and Neild Avenue, Rushcutters Bay, until it was demolished in 1970 to make way for the Eastern Suburbs Railway.

ii Glenn A. Baker The Beatles down under : the 1964 Australia and New Zealand tour, Glebe : NSW, 1982, p. 11

iii Baker, Glenn A. p. 12

iv https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/the-beatles-in-australia-50-years-on-how-four-days-changed-melbourne/news-story/5de26eafc62b02396670d7aaf9615f59 .

v Gould, Jonathan, Can't buy me love : the Beatles, Britain, and America . New York : Harmony Books, c2007 p. 21

vi NAA Incoming Passenger Cards NAA: A1225, 9-12 JUNE 1964 NSW BEATLES

vii https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/the-beatles-let-it-be-in-australia-1964-20140606-zrvui.html

viii Baker, Glenn A., p. 24

ix Baker, Glenn A., p. 14

x https://maas.museum/the-beatles-in-australia-essay/

xi Average Weekly Male earnings in NSW for 1965-1966 as reported by the ABS were about $58.00 (£27.50) https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-work-hours/average-weekly-earnings-australia

xii Baker, Glenn A., p. 72

xiii Baker, Glenn A., p. 100

xiv Gould, Jonathan, p. 26

xv Gould, Jonathan, p. 57

xvi Gould, Jonathan, p. 273

xvii https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/beatles

xviii Gould, Jonathan, p. 602

xix https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/paul-mccartney

xx A tweet from the Royal Family’s official Twitter page read: “Congratulations Sir @PaulMcCartney who has been made a #CompanionofHonour at Buckingham Palace today for his lasting contribution to music in the UK and Worldwide.”

xxi Gould, Jonathan, p. 127

xxii https://www.classicdrummerhalloffame.com/ringo-starr

xxiii https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/ringo-starr

xxiv https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-new-years-honours-list-2018 and https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-43472196

xxv Baker, Glenn A., p. 11

xxvi Coupe, Stuart. The promoters : inside stories from the Australian rock industry . Sydney : Hodder Headline Australia, 2003. Part 2: The Beatles and Brodziak

xxvii In 2019, Woollahra Council unveiled a plaque commemorating the December 1908 bout

xxviii No title (1912, July 29). Construction : Weekly Supplement to Building (Sydney, NSW : 1909 - 1914) , p. 8. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article234759831

xxix Ron Blackmore as quoted in Baker, Glenn A., p. 94

xxx Ron Blackmore as quoted in Baker, Glenn A., p. 96

xxxi Louis Armstrong And Band Get A Hot Reception (1954, October 28). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) , p. 1. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18448805

xxxii From Glenn A. Baker, Places and Barely Human Race’ , 1995, as quoted in Smith, Terry, The old tin shed, p 101

xxxiii Robin Gerster and Jan Bassett, Seizures of Youth, The Sixties and Australia . South Yarra, Victoria: Hyland House, 1991, p 4, as quoted in Dictionary of Sydney - The Beatles in Sydney

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The Beatles down under : the 1964 Australia & New Zealand tour

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• June 16, 1964 Setlist

The Beatles Setlist at Festival Hall, Melbourne, Australia

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• I Saw Her Standing There Play Video
• I Want to Hold Your Hand Play Video
• You Can't Do That Play Video
• All My Loving Play Video
• She Loves You Play Video
• Till There Was You ( Meredith Willson  cover) Play Video
• Roll Over Beethoven ( Chuck Berry  cover) Play Video
• Can't Buy Me Love Play Video
• This Boy Play Video
• Long Tall Sally ( Little Richard  cover) Play Video

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8 activities (last edit by ExecutiveChimp , 10 Nov 2015, 06:50 Etc/UTC )

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• I Want to Hold Your Hand
• She Loves You
• Long Tall Sally by Little Richard
• Roll Over Beethoven by Chuck Berry
• Till There Was You by Meredith Willson
• Can't Buy Me Love
• You Can't Do That
• I Saw Her Standing There
• All My Loving

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Marquee memories: the dandy warhols.

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The Beatles 1964 Australasian tour: "Welcome to Australia, which one am I talking to?"

Join Jeff Black, one of Australia’s foremost Beatles experts and memorabilia collectors. Relive the excitement of the Beatles Australasian tour in 1964. Jeff will share a selection of his rare and precious collection at Logan Central and Logan West libraries throughout June. He will complement these displays with informative talks presented at both library locations. For those who lived it, the memories will come flooding back! Hear why The Beatles were so popular and how they revolutionised music and culture. Memorabilia on display at Logan Central and Logan West libraries from Monday 3 June to Saturday 29 June.

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• Please Please Me (1963)
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‘An explosion of screaming and hysteria’: US fans on how they were introduced to the Beatles

Four Americans on what it felt like to be swept up in Beatlemania, and reflecting on the band’s impact on their lives

W hat Janet DiGangi recalls most vividly about the day the Beatles came to town is eating cake and ice-cream with furious impatience. It was 12 September 1964, and DiGangi was 12, living in Boston, Massachusetts, the oldest of seven siblings. The Beatles were about to play Boston Garden but the family couldn’t leave until they’d celebrated her brother Peter’s second birthday with candles and presents.

“I was furious, because I didn’t want to be late,” recalls DiGangi, now 72. She had saved up all her babysitting money to buy the band’s second US album, Meet the Beatles! “I was so excited.” Thankfully, DiGangi made it to the show on time. It was “electric”, and sent fans wild. “It was just an explosion of screaming and hysteria,” she says.

Like many Americans who watched the Beatles arrive in the US – either on 9 February 1964 on their first Ed Sullivan Show, or those who caught their North American tour later that year – the experience for DiGangi fostered a lifelong love and fascination with the band from Liverpool. As she grew up from a schoolgirl to an adolescent to a young woman, she tagged along as the band’s sound developed, from the boys next door of A Hard Day’s Night to the mop-haired artists of Revolver to the mature and creatively fractious White Album.

Next month marks 60 years since the Beatles secured all the top five slots on the Billboard Hot 100 on 4 April 1964 – the height of Beatlemania in the US. “To look back 60 years from now, I remember things so vividly,” DiGangi says. “I totally remember watching them on television and just crying.”

DiGangi, whose favourite album is Rubber Soul, has passed on her passion for the band to the next generation, taking her niece to Abbey Road in London in 2017. “It was just as thrilling for me then as if it were 1969,” she says.

For many fans in the US, encountering the Beatles as teenagers sparked a lifelong desire to play music. Michael Shaw, a 76-year-old in Atlanta, Georgia, says he was part of the manic crowd of flailing limbs that greeted the band at Miami airport when they arrived for their second Ed Sullivan appearance, on 16 February 1964. Shaw was 16 and played lead guitar in a band called the Outcasts.

“The Beatles and the rest of the British invasion absolutely changed music and the style of music we were playing,” he says.

“I used to practise guitar four hours a day at that time, and I would sit down with my latest LP and play a song over and over trying to learn the chords,” Shaw says. As the Beatles’ sound matured, it was hard to keep up with George Harrison’s evolving style: “It really made me stretch,” he adds . Six decades on, Shaw – who says he owns a Höfner bass guitar signed by Harrison and Paul McCartney – is still in a band. They play southern rock. “I keep on trying to get my bandmates to cover some Beatles songs,” he says.

Ruth Yost, 71, says she “watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and felt the world was changing”. Aged 12, she took along binoculars when the Beatles came to Indianapolis, Indiana, on 3 September 1964.

Yost could hardly hear the music over the screams but it was enough to be in the same room with the Beatles. “I didn’t feel like myself, I felt like somebody else,” she says. “It was almost frightening, to think here I was.”

Yost became a collector of all things Beatles; her son now keeps her original LPs safe. Yost says she was a hesitant girl, the baby of a large family, and saw something of herself in George Harrison. She even dressed up as him for Halloween in 1964. “I always identified with George,” she says. “He seemed so sweet.”

Yost says the band got her through the turbulence of adolescence. “I feel like the Beatles – their music, their humour – helped a shy junior-high girl grow up through high school,” she says. The band broke up in April 1970, the year Yost graduated. “It was as if they stuck together to see me make it,” she says.

Susan Bendinelli says she saw the Beatles at San Francisco’s Cow Palace on 19 August 1964 with her older brother when she was 10. “They just had me from then on,” she says. “They had such an amazing energy, and their songs were like nothing we’d ever heard,” adding: “It was black-and-white to Technicolor.”

The seats were up in the gods and all she could see was “these four little Beatles on a stage”. She recalls being frustrated that the screaming drowned out the music. At the concert, Bendinelli, now 69, got a set of Beatles figurines – she still has Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

The Beatles helped her generation “find our voices”, she says. As she grew up, and the Beatles themselves became more political engaged, Bendinelli got involved in the anti-nuclear and anti-war movements, protesting against the US war in Vietnam, and promoting sustainability through Earth Day and local environmental activism.

“All through my life I’ve been an activist. And I don’t know if I would have done that if I hadn’t had those experiences when I was really young and watched the Beatles become activists as well,” she says. “They definitely created a foundation for me that I still feel I walk on.”

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One of the beatles’ most famous songs reaches a new high on the hot 100.

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2nd July 1964: The Beatles (from left to right, John Lennon (1940 - 1980), George Harrison (1943 - ... [+] 2001), Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr) arrive back at London Airport after their Australian tour. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

The Beatles were one of the most successful musical acts when it came to collecting Hot 100 hits during their heyday. The band pushed pretty much every single they released to the ranking of the most-consumed songs in the U.S. for nearly a decade. While many of their beloved smashes reached the competitive tally, plenty of other well-known tunes from the group never had a chance to shine on the chart, based on how it was arranged at the time.

This week, one of The Beatles’ most recognizable songs finds a home on the Hot 100. It does so thanks to an inventive and beautiful cover from one of the biggest musical stars in the world—and it reaches a new peak thanks to the reworking.

A cover of The Beatles’ “Blackbird” by Beyoncé debuts on the Hot 100 this week. The tune opens at No. 27 on the ranking of the most-consumed songs in the U.S.

Beyoncé’s take on the Beatles classic sticks pretty close to the original, though she does make it her own in some ways. For starters, she changed the name, but only slightly. To help differentiate it from the classic, and to keep it in the same format as her other tracks on her latest album, she’s added a second "i," calling it “Blackbiird.”

Also, Beyoncé’s “Blackbiird” is not a solo track. She invited several Black women in the country world to join her on the tune, helping all of them reach the Hot 100 for the first time. Her song features Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts.

The original Beatles “Blackbird” was credited to the band, but it was really a solitary effort. Paul McCartney wrote it, and he both sang all the lyrics and played all the instruments.

Beyoncé’s version of “Blackbird” is not the first to reach the Hot 100, but it’s now the highest-rising. The cast of the TV show Glee covered the tune, and their rendition peaked at No. 37. The Beatles’ track never landed on the chart, as it wasn’t spun off as a single. Back in the ‘60s, only singles reached the Hot 100, though now, because of digital sales of individual tunes and streaming, any cut is eligible for the list.

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