Selling his wares

I thought this was interesting---it is a man selling unofficial Beatles stuff on the sidewalk before the Beatles concert.   I know security was super tight in Japan---I wonder how this guy got away with it?

The Beatles' dark suit concert

If you have been a Beatles fan for a long time, you will remember the concerts of the Beatles in Japan.    They were often on homemade VHS and were faded in color.   The first one was called "The black suits concert" and the second was called "the white suits concert."   It was well known that the black suits looked better and the white suits sounded better.      Of course as time went by, we learned that what we thought were black suits were really green!  And the white ones had orange stripes!  

Today I watched the "dark suit" show from 50 years ago.  I wanted to see if the Beatles really sounded as bad as I remembered.    And what I found is that George sang out of tune more than the others and Ringo has a terrible scowl on his face several times.  I also discovered (which I had forgotten about) that the microphones used by Paul and John kept moving while they sang.   They messed with those mics more than anything and it wasn't helping them perform.  


Here are some photos from this iconic concert.   Enjoy!

Japanese Press conference

On June 30, 1966 the Beatles gave a press conference in Tokyo.  I had this press conference on a cassette tape for a long time and I remember how tedious it was to listen to because you would have to hear the question asked in Japanese and then translated into English---the Beatles answered and then their answer was translated into Japanese.    If it was tedious for me to listen to, I can't imagine what it was like to be there.

Adorable John

I think these photos of the Beatles in a car in Japan are from when they were heading to the press conference later in the day.   Isn't John cute?

Driving away

We've arrived in Japan!

They finally made it!   The Beatles laded in Japan on June 30, 1966 and waved to their fans.

the mixed feelings of the Japanese

The fans in Japan couldn't wait to have the Beatles come to their country for the first time.    Tickets were hard to get and fans were scrambling to get them.   This article from KRLA tells the story:

On the other side of the fence was the "right," the people that did not want the Beatles to come to Japan.  They did not approve of the influence of what they considered to be "American culture" being accepted by the youth in their country and felt like while the Beatles were British, they attributed to the change they were seeing in the teenagers.    There was a group of extreme right Japanese men that had plans to kidnap the Beatles and cut off their hair!    But most of the protests were because the Beatles were going to perform at the Budokan, which had only been open for two years and was reserved for wrestling and athletics and not for rock concerts.    This upset thousands upon thousands of people and formal protests occurred.     The Beatles weren't really accustomed to being protested.  Sure, there had been little things here and there over the years, but this one was the first really big protest---and it sure wasn't the last!

Flying

I always find dating the photos from the time the Beatles were in Japan to be a bit confusing because they lost a day due to the International Date Line.    They left Alaska early in the morning on June 28, 1966 and basically lost that day and spent June 29, 1966 flying to Tokyo.