Excerpt: Inside the Beatles' 1964 Historic Australasian Tour
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This month marks the 60th anniversary of the Beatles‘ historical visit to Australia, which began on Thursday, June 11th, 1964, at 7:45am when John, Paul, George, and Ringo landed at Sydney’s Mascot Airport.
To celebrate the landmark anniversary of what would sadly be the Beatles’ only Australian tour, a new book takes fans inside the extraordinary cultural moment.
Written by UK-based writer Andy Neill (whose previously worked on books about The Who and Rod Stewart & the Faces) and Melbourne-based Beatles expert Greg Armstrong (co-host of the world’s longest-running Beatles radio show), When We Was Fab: Inside the Beatles Australasian Tour 1964 tells the story of the Liverpool band’s two-week trip Down Under in unprecedented detail, including hundreds of evocative and mostly previously unseen images, original documents, press clippings, and vintage memorabilia.
Based entirely on first-hand research spanning two decades, Neill and Armstrong’s process involved sourcing hundreds of original newspapers, magazines and business documents, and conducting first-hand interviews with over 100 key participants, including promoters, support acts, press and radio personalities, as well as original fans who came out in their thousands to see the Beatles.
In the below excerpt from the book, we’re taken inside Sing for Shell, the only official TV recording of the Beatles performing during their Australasian tour.
Source: au.rollingstone.com
