The Beatles flying from London to Hong Kong1964 was the year the Beatles made their first world tour. The year they transformed from a UK/West German phenomenon to a global sensation. It was, to obviously understate it, a very busy year for the band. Two of the very many international places the Liverpool lads performed at that hyper-hectic year were Hong Kong and Sydney. The venues in both locations played by the Four Moptops—as is the case with many of the venues they played—no longer exist.
The Beatles without drummer Ringo Starr⌧ touched down at Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong in early June of ‘64 and booked into a suite recently vacated by the President of Indonesia in the President Hotel in Kowloon. The band only stayed in the British crown colony for a couple of days while they played two concerts at the Princess Theatre (130 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui) on the 9th June…long enough though for Beatle Paul and road manager Neil Aspinall get themselves bespoke tailored suits made up in 24 hours.
Note concert date, incorrectly printed as 10-06-64 (Source. ha.com)The Princess Theatre (above), built in the early Fifties, was better known for screening first-run flicks than teen-hysterics pop concerts. On the bill supporting the Beatles was a New Zealand group, the Māori Hi-Five. Instrumental backing for the headline performers was provided by Sounds Incorporated. The concerts were surprisingly not a sell-out, basically because tickets were priced exorbitantly high, the equivalence of a full week’s wage for the average Hong Kong worker (the best seats fetched HK$75).
The Beatles didn’t find the smallish, old-fashioned venue very vibe conducive and McCartney remarked that the band’s performance at the Princess was pretty flat accordingly. The full complement of Beatles came back to Hong Kong in 1966 on their Far East tour, but only for a stopover on route to the Philippines where the performers and their handlers ran into trouble with a capital T❈❈.
Ownership of the Princess Theatre changed hands in 1970 and the building with theatre seating for 1,722 was demolished in 1973 to make way for a new hotel.
Early boxing bout at the Old Tin Shed (Source: Nat. Lib. of Aust.)Next destination after Hong Kong for the Beatles was Sydney Airport for a three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand. Sydney’s allotment was six concerts over three nights (18–20 June) at Sydney Stadium in Rushcutters Bay, a venue affectionately known as the “Old Tin Shed”, and hitherto the arrival of Beatlemania probably better known as a boxing stadium. At that time the Stadium was the city’s only large-capacity concert venue. Again, as they did in Hong Kong, the Beatles bedded down close to the concert venue, at the Sheraton Hotel, Potts Point.
Supporting the Beatles on that tour were several local (trans-Tasman) artists including Johnny Chester, Johnny Devlin and The Phantoms, along with Sounds Incorporated who had made the trip from Hong Kong with the Beatles.
Jimmy N, all alone at Melbourne Airport, end of the fairytaleBy now Ringo sans tonsils had rejoined the quartet in time for Sydney and Jimmy (or Jimmie) Nichol was unceremoniously cast off and sent home, abruptly closing the door shut on his 15 minutes of fame…it was all downhill in the music caper from there for the Ringo stand-in, less than a year later poor Jimmy was forced to declare himself bankrupt.
Source: ha.comAfter some initial hesitancy from audiences the Sydney Stadium concerts were all massive sell-outs with frenzied young women the most conspicuously vocal of fan attendees. Seeing the band in Sydney seemed comparatively more affordable than in Hong Kong, Tickets started at 15s & 6d, ranging up to £1, 17s & 6d.
Boxing matches and rock ‘n roll concerts at Rushcutters Bay are long a thing of the past. In 1970 the six decades old-stadium on the corner of Nield Avenue and New South Head Road closed and was demolished in 1973 to make way for the construction of the Eastern Suburbs Railway.
Staid NZ says “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!” (Source: nzherald.co.nz)After Sydney the Beatles headed across the Tasman, taking most of their Australian support acts with them, to shake up the hitherto seemingly hebetudinous youth culture in New Zealand. Just like in Australia, mass turnouts of fans posed the same crowd control problems for Kiwi authorities and level of teen-generated frenzy at the concerts in the four main NZ cities made for deja vu.
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⌧ stuck back in a London hospital with tonsil trouble and substituted by previously unknown drummer Jimmy Nichol
❈❈ see earlier blog on this site ‘Beatles Not For Sale: Public Enemy # 1 in the Philippines’, March 2022
Bibliography
‘The Beatles arrive in Hong Kong’, The Beatles Bible, www.beatlesbible.com
‘Beatle Place: Hong Kong, Princess Theatre‘, FAB4tracks, www.fab4tracks.home.blog
‘Meet Jimmy Nicol, the forgotten Beatle, stand-in drummer for Ringo’, Craig Cook, The Advertiser, 11-Jun-2014, www.adelaide now.com.au