When The Beatles stepped off their plane in Wellington, June 1964, thousands were there to greet them, this despite New Zealand having no network TV, barely any pop music on the radio and just newspapers to spread the word.
And yet excitement about the arrival of the world’s first supergroup had been building for months.
Music historian Chris Bourke was only five when the Beatles came, but he remembers his father’s anger at being caught up in a Beatlemania traffic jam.
They shook up the world, and in 1964, the Beatles shook New Zealand. Photo:
“When they arrived in Wellington there were 7000 people at the airport and then those people got in their cars, and they drove down Cobham Drive towards the St George Hotel and then blocked that intersection. It was on Cobham Drive that my dad got caught up.”
Angry commuters aside, New Zealand’s teenagers were excited.
“They were in the air, they were everywhere, the teenage girls next door couldn't stop talking about them,” he told Jesse Mulligan.
Beatles Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison singing during their Wellington Concert. From The Dominion Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library. Photo:
Not all in the land of 'rugby, racing and beer' were on board the Beatles bus, parents saw them as a threat and older musicians were sceptical, Bourke says.
“The old jazzers talked amongst themselves and were sure that the Beatles got all their songs from professional songwriters who paid 1000 bucks for each song.”
And when Auckland mayor, Dove-Myer Robinson, decided to hold a civic reception for them, one of his councillors complained about encouraging "hysteria, antics, adulation, rioting, screaming and roaring" associated with "these bewigged musicians".
Howard Morrison was also unimpressed with the invading Fabs, putting out a parody single; 'I Want to Cut Your hair' with the Huhus.
New Zealand’s burgeoning record business had other ideas, keen to cash in on the Beatle bonanza, by April 1964 there were nine singles on the market, three EPs and two albums.
“Capital in the States had done this, and HMV copied their way of just inundating the market with these singles,” Bourke says.
Audience and police at the Beatles concert Wellington Town Hall June 1964 Photograph by Morrie Hill of Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. Photo:
While the record business was ready, New Zealand’s constabulary were caught flat-footed, Bourke says.
“A Dunedin policeman was asked by the Beatles management, why there were only a couple of policemen coming tomorrow and he said, ‘Don't worry, it'll be right. We've had Vera Lynn through here'.”
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The Beatles got their first New Zealand mention in early 1963, Bourke says, in a review of ‘Please, Please Me'.
“The Truth reviewer, they spelt Beatles with two Ts, described the Beatles as an all-male vocal quartet and [said] the song had a good twist-beat and was rather raucous.”
From then on, he said, the hype built and by 1964, The Beatles were newspaper regulars.
“By April, a couple of months before they arrived, there was virtually a news item every day in the newspapers. That's how it built.”
Beatle Ringo Starr on stage during Wellington concert. From The Dominion Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library. Photo:
Of all the Beatles, Ringo was a crowd favourite, Bourke says.
“It's Ringo that people mostly remember from the concerts. The concerts were so loud you couldn't hear much, but when Ringo sang ‘Boys’ the crowd didn't forget it and talked about it for years later.”
The shows were short, sharp and barely audible, he says.
The Beatles on the balcony of the Hotel St George, Wellington by Morrie Hill. Alexander Turnbull Library. Photo:
“They came as package tours, the Beatles only played for 28 to 30 minutes. They just played 10 songs and of course, they're all about two-and-a-half minutes long.
“They rattle through them, three cover versions, ‘Rock and Roll Music’ and the other song that people remember, because it was a quiet song, was Paul singing ‘Till There Was You’, which was a very gentle ballad from the musical The Music Man.
“‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ all blur into one the people [say they remember] because of the screaming."
And in a world of short, back and sides, those Beatle mops were a revelation too, he says.
“I had long, dark, brown hair, and the girls called me Ringo for a while there … the hair was such a phenomenon. Never forget the hair.”
The echoes of that Beatle tour rang on for years to come, Bourke said.
“Before the Beatles, many of the bands were like the Shadows, they played instrumentals, they wore suits, they had the Brill-creamed hair back off the forehead, and bands that had a singer in front of them, like Cliff Richard and the Shadows, they suddenly seemed old hat compared to these beat combos.”
The Beatles at a press conference during their tour, Wellington by Morrie Hill. Alexander Turnbull Library. Photo:
Chris Bourke is a writer, producer and content director of New Zealand music website Audio Culture.
