beatles 1966 japan tour

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Beatles Budokan Tokyo Japan 1966 Nippon TV

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Beatles in Japan: See Intimate Photos of Historic 1966 Tokyo Trip

By Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Last summer marked the 50th anniversary of the Beatles ' first and only Japanese concerts, and Hello, Goodbye: The Beatles in Tokyo, 1966 , a limited-edition book featuring photos by Shimpei Asai, commemorated the occasion. Never before published outside of Japan, Asai's images give a surprisingly intimate glimpse into the Beatles' behind-the-scenes world during their final year as a live band – a period documented in Ron Howard's Grammy-nominated 2016 film The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years .

Asai followed the group from their arrival at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on June 29th, 1966, through their departure for the Philippines three days later. While there, the Beatles played five brief sets at the Nippon Budokan. Prior to Asai's experience photographing the group, the Beatles' music had made a serious impression on him. "I first heard the Beatles accidentally on the radio," he recalled in a press release. "I had a feeling I had never experienced before. I was just stunned. I pulled over in my car and stopped by the road, and for a while I stared at the leaves of the trees trembling in the breeze."

Sample Asai's images below, along with exclusive remembrances from the photographer. Hello, Goodbye , which was published in a limited-edition of 1,966 copies, is available now from Genesis Publications.

Beatles Make Their Getaway

"Though there had to be a lot of security, the Beatles actually escaped from it briefly. I think they accepted their situation though."

Japanese Fans Flaunt Their Beatlemania

"I saw many teenage girls and they seemed to be the generation that understood the Beatles most. They were certainly the first generation of Beatles fans, and I was struck by their willingness to accept the newness of the band."

Fan Reading Up on John

 "I think [the Beatles] must have felt so many things during this short period. And they started thinking of all the experiences they'd had that many people didn't."

Beatles Onstage

"I could hear almost nothing, music or screaming, though the concert featured 11 songs. As I concentrated on taking photographs, I felt a kind of noise."

Meet the Press

"They looked frustrated about the amount of security, and they were. But they didn't hate this situation, they accepted it."

Ringo and Paul During Downtime

"When I first saw the Beatles, they were in a large room, resting. They didn't talk to each other very much, they seemed so used to each other they didn't have to."

Beatle at Leisure

"John and Paul did escape from the hotel for a short time, but they saw almost nothing in Tokyo before they had to come back."

View From the Hotel Window

"The Beatles mainly just saw the scenery from the hotel and the car that took them to the Budokan. I think they looked at the country through windows."

Signed Program

"I decided I wouldn't just photograph the Beatles, but also what they saw, touched and felt. An ashtray that I photographed of theirs is now a collectors' item, which makes me laugh."

George With Antique

"One Japanese antiques dealer was brought to the Beatles' room. Their experience of seeing and touching the objects was important for them to get to know Japanese culture."

John and Paul Embrace the Japanese Spirit

"They were still young and they didn't know much about Japan. These seemed appropriate items for them to start having an interest in the country."

John in Kimono

"I tried not to make them conscious I carried the camera, so they wouldn't feel my presence."

"I was allocated a room on the same floor of the hotel as the Beatles. So I could get to know their routine, and when was good to photograph them."

Japanese Beatlemania in Full Effect

"I had never felt this before. I did know about hysterical fans, but the atmosphere in the Budokan was different. It was as if all the audience shared one idea, and this was the only time they had."

Beatles at Budokan

"Live performance started being more significant in the Sixties, and the Beatles were typical of this shift. They were exciting and original."

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The Beatles live: Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo

The Beatles performed their last two shows at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Japan on this day. They performed five times in total at the venue over three days.

Each of the shows was seen by 10,000 fans. Death threats against The Beatles had been received, and the concerts took place in a subdued atmosphere.

It was upsetting. I remember when George was in Germany he got a letter saying, ‘You won’t live beyond the next month.’ And when they went to Japan they had such heavy guards that they couldn’t move anywhere. The Japanese took those death threats very seriously.

The Beatles performed an 11-song set, the same one used throughout their 1966 tour: ‘Rock And Roll Music’ , ‘She’s A Woman’ , ‘If I Needed Someone’ , ‘Day Tripper’ , ‘Baby’s In Black’ , ‘I Feel Fine’ , ‘Yesterday’ , ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ , ‘Nowhere Man’ , ‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘I’m Down’ .

The show was a bit weird! There were the jujitsu people who used the Budokan, so they felt it was their temple. This was the first time they’d had a rock band in there, and they didn’t like it. There were threats from them, and so there were a lot of police around. The Japanese were very disciplined. There were 3,000 police for 10,000 fans. The police were all over the place, keeping them under control.

There was heavy police presence, and the audiences were unusually quiet. For the first time in years this allowed The Beatles able to hear themselves play live for the first time in years, and had the unfortunate effect of exposing their weaknesses as a live act.

For the first time in a long while the audience could hear. There was no loud screaming, which came as a surprise: the band suddenly realised they were out of tune and they had to get their act together. The second show was pretty good – they had got it together by then – but the first one, in the afternoon, was a bit of a shock.

After the concert, while staying at the Tokyo Hilton, The Beatles completed their painting Images Of A Woman (see 30 June 1966 entry ).

Also on this day...

Want more? Visit the Beatles history section .

Latest Comments

During one of these shows in Japan which were filmed and can easily be seen, Paul’s microphone clip isn’t screwed on tight enough and it keeps rotating away from him during Paperback Writer. He has to practically throw it back into the correct position and appears understandably a bit irritated by it. He was probably glad there weren’t many more live shows for The Beatles left to play.

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The Asahi Shimbun

Rare footage of Beatles’ 1966 Japan tour finally released

By KYOTA TANAKA/ Staff Writer

September 25, 2022 at 17:58 JST

Rare censored footage of the tight security put in place by Tokyo police when the Beatles came to Japan to perform in 1966 has finally reached the public domain.

The nearly 36-minute black and white silent movie shot by the Metropolitan Police Department documents a level of security normally accorded to state guests.

The group was in Japan from June 29 to July 3. It was their first and last tour in Japan as a band.

It shows police meetings to discuss security measures and officers at checkpoints set up around Haneda Airport in the capital for the arrival of the four-member group.

The footage also captures a vehicle displaying a banner that read “Demoralizing Beatles must be driven out” heading in the direction of the cameraman.

The band members--John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr--all feature, too.

Beatles expert Toru Omura labeled the film as “historically significant.”

“The film is stunning for Beatlemania around the world,” he said. “It captures the public mood back then and is historically significant.”

The group gave five performances in all: on the evening of June 30, day and evening shows on July 1 and the same on July 2.

The footage  includes the never-before-seen final performance at the Nippon Budokan hall on July 2.

Of the five performances, audiences were at their most frantic during the last show, according to Omura.

He noted that the first show was marred by problems, including Paul’s microphone, which was improperly set on the stand, allowing it to occasionally swing sideways as he sang.

“It shows members of the band waving to their fans as they also waved handkerchiefs during the final concert, giving us a peek into what it was like inside the concert venue,” he said.

The video was disclosed in response to a disclosure request made by a nonprofit group Joho Kokai Shimin Center (Civic center for information disclosure) in 2015.

A representative said the center received a DVD of the video in July. It was shown during an event in Yonago, Tottori Prefecture, on Sept. 24.

It came with the faces of people blurred, except for the Beatles. The Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that measures should be taken to protect their privacy as it was possible to identify the individuals shot in the video.

As a result, the faces of fans, police officers--even Brian Epstein, the manager who was known as a fifth Beatle--were blurred.

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• July 2, 1966 Setlist

The Beatles Setlist at Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan

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Tour: Asian Tour 1966 Tour statistics Add setlist

• Rock and Roll Music ( Chuck Berry  cover) Play Video
• She's a Woman Play Video
• If I Needed Someone Play Video
• Day Tripper Play Video
• Baby's in Black Play Video
• I Feel Fine Play Video
• Yesterday Play Video
• I Wanna Be Your Man Play Video
• Nowhere Man Play Video
• Paperback Writer Play Video
• I'm Down Play Video

Note: 6.30pm show

Edits and Comments

27 activities (last edit by Nikitovich , 7 Sep 2016, 19:05 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• I Feel Fine
• She's a Woman
• Day Tripper
• Paperback Writer
• If I Needed Someone
• Nowhere Man
• Baby's in Black
• I Wanna Be Your Man
• I'm Down
• Rock and Roll Music by Chuck Berry

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• Jul 04 1966 Rizal Memorial Football Stadium Manila, Philippines Add time Add time

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The Beatles' 1966 tour of Germany, Japan and the Philippines

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The English rock group the Beatles toured West Germany, Japan and the Philippines between 24 June and 4 July 1966. The thirteen concerts comprised the first stage of a world tour that ended with the band's final tour of the United States, in August 1966. The shows in West Germany represented a return to the country where the Beatles had developed as a group before achieving fame in 1963. The return flight from the Philippines to England included a stopover in Delhi, India. There, the Beatles indulged in two days of sightseeing and shopping for musical instruments while still under the attention of the press and local fans. The concerts were well attended yet provided the band with little in the way of artistic fulfilment. The programme was in the package-tour format typical of the 1960s, with two shows per day, several support acts on the bill and the Beatles' set lasting around 30 minutes. The band's setlist included their new single, "Paperback Writer", but no songs from their recently completed album, Revolver . Often marked by poor playing, the shows highlighted the division between what the group could achieve when performing live as a four-piece with inadequate amplification and the more complex music they were able to create in the recording studio. Concerts at the Circus-Krone-Bau in Munich and the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo were filmed and broadcast on local television networks.

The tour signalled a change in the Beatlemania phenomenon, as harsh measures were used to restrain crowds for the first time and the band became a symbol of societal division between conservative and liberal thinking. The bookings at the Budokan, a venue reserved for martial arts, offended many traditionalists in Japan, resulting in death threats to the Beatles and a heightened police presence throughout their stay. In Manila, the band's nonattendance at a social engagement hosted by Imelda Marcos led to a hostile reaction from citizens loyal to the Marcos regime, government officials and army personnel. The Beatles and their entourage were manhandled while attempting to leave the country and forced to surrender much of the earnings from the group's two shows at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.

On their return to London, the Beatles were outspoken in their condemnation of the Philippines. As a result of the events in Manila, the band lost faith with their longtime manager Brian Epstein and made the decision to end their career as live performers that year. By contrast, the stay in Tokyo established an enduring bond between the Beatles and Japan, where each of the band members visited or performed in the decades following the group's break-up in April 1970.

• 1 Background
• 2 Repertoire, tour personnel and equipment
• 3.1 Munich and Essen
• 3.2 Return to Hamburg
• 4.1 Ideological concerns and controversy
• 4.2 Arrival and confinement
• 4.3 Concerts and reception
• 5.1 Arrival in Manila
• 5.2 Invitation to Malacañang Palace
• 5.3 Concerts and national backlash
• 5.4 Departure
• 5.5 Aftermath
• 6 Stopover in India
• 7 Return to England and fallout from Manila

Background [ ]

... when London was the best place on earth and they were the best people to be, they had to do the one thing they wanted to do the least; they had to leave. It was summer and it was written in the gospel according to Brian that in summer they went out on tour.

Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, had intended that 1966 would follow the format of the previous two years, in which the Beatles had made a feature film with an accompanying soundtrack album, toured in North America and select countries during the summer months, and then recorded a second album for a pre-Christmas release. Following the group's UK tour in December 1965, however, the band members decided to reject the planned film project, an adaptation of Richard Condon's novel A Talent for Loving , for which Epstein had purchased the film rights. The band therefore had an unprecedented three months free of professional engagements. The group resumed work in early April, when they began recording Revolver , an album that reflected a more experimental approach as well as the increasing division between the music they made as live performers and their studio work. The band briefly interrupted the sessions to perform at the NME Poll-Winners Concert on 1 May.

During the early months of 1966, Epstein arranged bookings for the Beatles to play a series of concerts beginning in late June, in West Germany, Japan and the Philippines. These locations comprised the first leg of a world tour that would resume on 11 August, when the group embarked on their third US tour. When discussing a possible itinerary in New York on 3 March, Epstein had said that the Beatles were likely to play in Britain also but made no mention of the Philippines. Concerts in what was then the Soviet Union were also under consideration.

The band completed work on Revolver on 22 June and flew to Munich the following day to begin the tour. According to author Jonathan Gould, the Beatles would gladly have stayed in Britain rather than continue to perform in halls filled with screaming fans. The band's dedication to completing Revolver , together with their lack of touring experience since December 1965, ensured that they were under-rehearsed for the concerts. Author Philip Norman writes that the knowledge that they would not be heard above the hysteria of their fans was another factor behind the group's failure to rehearse adequately for the tour.

Repertoire, tour personnel and equipment [ ]

Given the complexity of their new recordings, the band did not include any of the songs from Revolver in their 1966 setlist. Author and critic Richie Unterberger writes that this omission has been interpreted as laziness by some commentators, yet it was in keeping with the Beatles' policy not to perform any unreleased material. Their current single, "Paperback Writer", was included, but as with the few selections from Rubber Soul they performed live – "Nowhere Man" and "If I Needed Someone" – the Beatles were unable to capture the intricacies of the multi-track recording in concert. The set comprised eleven songs and lasted just over 30 minutes. Aside from the introduction of "Paperback Writer" (in place of "We Can Work It Out"), it was relatively unchanged from the 1965 UK tour. "Rock and Roll Music" became the opening song, while Ringo Starr's moment as the featured singer, "Act Naturally", was replaced by "I Wanna Be Your Man". The Beatles played "Yesterday" – which had previously been a Paul McCartney solo performance, on acoustic guitar – with electric group backing for the first time. According to author Jon Savage, "It was a strange set ... Rockers were interspersed with slow or mid-paced numbers, preventing any excitement from building."

The Beatles' entourage consisted of Epstein, press officer Tony Barrow, road managers Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans and Peter Brown, Epstein's assistant. Robert Whitaker, a photographer who regularly worked with the Beatles during this period, documented their time in Germany and Japan. In addition, Vic Lewis, Epstein and Brown's colleague at the management company NEMS, joined the tour party in Japan, having helped arrange the Far East concerts. The band's chauffeur, Alf Bicknell, was also present in Tokyo and Manila.

The Beatles' main instruments were Epiphone Casino guitars for John Lennon and George Harrison, McCartney's Höfner "violin" bass, and Starr's Ludwig drum kit. After adopting the Epiphone as his stage guitar for 1966, beginning with the NME Poll-Winners Concert, Lennon continued to use it throughout the Beatles' career. The band used new 100-watt Vox amplifiers throughout the tour. Harrison played his Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar on "If I Needed Someone", while a photo taken by Whitaker shows that Harrison's Gibson SG and McCartney's Rickenbacker 4001 were also among the guitars they took to Japan.

West Germany [ ]

Munich and essen [ ].

The concerts in West Germany were the Beatles' first in that country since December 1962, when they played a New Year's Eve show as their final engagement at the Star-Club in Hamburg. The principal reason that they had not returned in the past four years was the threat of a paternity claim by a young Hamburg woman. The 1966 visit was presented by Karl Buchmann Productions and sponsored by Bravo magazine. At the Beatles' insistence, the venues were restricted to a maximum capacity of 8,000 seats, which meant that Bravo was making a loss on the outlay for the tour. The band arrived in Munich on 23 June, exhausted from their recent work in the studio, and booked into the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, where they gave a short press conference. The support acts for the German concerts were Peter and Gordon, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers and the Rattles. The latter were a German group who had performed on the same circuit in Hamburg as the Beatles in 1962.

The first shows were held at Munich's 3,500-seat Circus-Krone-Bau at 5.15 and 9 pm on 24 June. The Beatles wore matching dark green suits with silk lapels, designed by the new Chelsea boutique Hung On You. The 9 pm show was filmed by the West German ZDF network and first broadcast locally, in edited form, on 5 July. The Beatles held a rare backstage rehearsal in advance of the concert. According to musicologist Walter Everett, the Munich concert film shows the Beatles generally playing poorly amid the noise created by their fans and humorously attempting to remember the lyrics to the final song, "I'm Down". Author Steve Turner writes that the tour was marked by average-quality performances masked by riotous screaming and that for the first time, the hysterical crowds were subjected to violent treatment and beatings by the host nation's police force.

The Beatles travelled between destinations by train, accommodated in luxury coaches that were normally used for visits by international heads of state, including Queen Elizabeth II's the previous year. After arriving in Essen on 25 June, they played two shows at the city's Grugahalle. A correspondent from Beatles Monthly magazine described the concerts as "frightening" due to the police's subjugation of the group's fans using tear gas and guard dogs. The band then travelled overnight to Hamburg, where they stayed at the Hotel Schloss, a former palace located well north of the city centre.

Return to Hamburg [ ]

Their arrival in Hamburg was highly anticipated. It was the German audiences in Hamburg who'd spotted the group's potential and had nurtured their development from callow adolescent hobbyists to battle-hardened professionals.

The Beatles' return to Hamburg was viewed as a homecoming due to their past connections with the city. On 26 June, the band played two shows at the 5,600-seat Ernst-Merck-Halle and reunited with old friends such as Astrid Kirchherr and with Bert Kaempfert, a German arranger and composer who had briefly worked as the Beatles' producer. Lennon was heard to say during one of the Ernst-Merck-Halle concerts: "Don't listen to our music. We're terrible these days." Among those attending the concert was the future Chancellor of West Germany Helmut Schmidt and his wife Loki. A scheduled group outing to St Pauli, the area of Hamburg where the Beatles had been based in the early 1960s, was cancelled due to the potential security risk. Lennon and McCartney nevertheless made a late-night visit to familiar sites along the Reeperbahn in St Pauli.

The band members had a mixed experience in Hamburg. Harrison later said that "a lot of ghosts materialised out of the woodwork – people you didn't necessarily want to see again, who had been your best friend one drunken Preludin night back in 1960." McCartney commented: "It was as if we'd mutated into something different and yet we were still just the boys. But we knew and they knew that we'd got famous in the meantime …" The Beatles had also tired of the generally inane questions put to them at press conferences throughout the German tour, with only McCartney attempting to humour the local reporters. At the between-shows press conference in Hamburg, Lennon's impatience was palpable, leading a female reporter to ask why the band had become "so horrid and snobby". On 27 June, the Beatles and their entourage flew from Hamburg to London's Heathrow Airport, where they boarded a Japan Airlines (JAL) flight over the North Pole to Tokyo.

Ideological concerns and controversy [ ]

The Beatles' flight to Tokyo stopped in Anchorage, Alaska late on 27 June, local time, and was grounded there due to the presence of a typhoon over Japan. Epstein arranged for the Beatles to wait out the delay at Anchorage's Westward Hotel, where the band's presence instantly attracted a crowd of local fans, who serenaded them from the street below. The flight finally arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in the early hours of 29 June, according to a report by Dudley Cheke, a chargé d'affaires at the British Embassy. Alternatively, an arrival time of around 3.30 am on 30 June is given by Beatles biographers Barry Miles and John Winn and in a 2016 Tokyo Weekender article about the visit.

The Beatles served as cultural ambassadors in Japan, where the authorities had viewed the band in an unfavourable light until their appointment as MBEs in 1965. The visit had been the subject of national debate and coincided with an era in which Japan sought to re-establish its cultural identity, following the country's defeat in World War II. While the more progressive-minded elements of the population welcomed the spirit of change and youthful optimism that the Beatles represented, traditionalists were opposed to the band's influence. To meet Epstein's requirement of $100,000 (equivalent to $900,000 in 2022) for each performance, the 10,000-seat Nippon Budokan hall was chosen; tickets were priced at twice the rate of any previous visiting pop act.

The announcement that the concerts were to take place at the Budokan – a venue reserved for martial arts, as well as a shrine to Japan's war dead – outraged the country's hardline nationalists, who vowed to intercede and stop the proceedings. This issue, combined with a written death threat that the Beatles had received while in Hamburg, ensured that security around the group was extreme throughout their stay. In an operation that compared with Japan's measures when hosting the 1964 Olympic Games, around 35,000 police and fire brigade personnel were mobilised to protect the Beatles.

Arrival and confinement [ ]

The four band members descended from the aircraft dressed in happi coats bearing the JAL logo. Their attire was a publicity coup for the airline, who, recognising the value of being associated with the Beatles' financial success, had instructed one of its First Class flight attendants to ensure that the band emerged wearing these traditional Japanese coats. Faced with a wall of glaring lights, the four musicians believed they were waving to a throng of fans, as was usual when they arrived in a new country. In fact, they were surrounded by security personnel, and only twenty members of the public were present to witness their arrival. Supervised by a large police presence, the band's fans were instead organised in groups along the road into the city. In a 2016 feature article on the Beatles' Tokyo concerts, The Japan Times said that the photograph of the group dressed in JAL happi coats and descending from the plane had become "an iconic image of the Beatles' visit".

The Beatles were accommodated in the Presidential Suite of the Tokyo Hilton. For the duration of their stay in Japan, the band members were confined to the suite, aside from a single press conference and the concert performances. During the press conference, held in the afternoon of 30 June, Lennon spoke out publicly against the Vietnam War on the Beatles' behalf. This marked the first time that the band had spoken out against the war in one of their press conferences, and followed Lennon and Harrison's warning to Epstein before the tour that they were no longer prepared to stay silent on this issue.

A scheduled group visit to Kamakura on 30 June was cancelled after the Beatles learned that the police could not guarantee their safety. Accompanied by one of their road managers, Lennon and McCartney each managed to venture out at one point, only to be escorted back to the hotel once they were discovered. Starr recalls that every time the Beatles had to leave for an engagement, the process was handled with military-style precision by their Japanese hosts. To lighten the mood, the band took to delaying their exit from the hotel suite, thereby causing consternation for the time-conscious security staff.

Concerts and reception [ ]

The band played the first of their five concerts at the Budokan on 30 June. The support acts were all local artists: the Drifters, Yuya Uchida, Isao Bitoh, the Blue Comets, Hiroshi Mochizuki, and the Blue Jeans. The shows were sponsored by the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun and promoted by the Kyodo Agency. Both the 30 June performance, when the Beatles were dressed in dark green suits with red shirts, and the first show on 1 July, when they wore Hung On You-designed grey suits with thin orange stripes, were filmed in colour by Nippon TV. The footage was swiftly edited by the television company and combined with brief segments of documentary footage for broadcast, as The Beatles Recital: From Nippon Budokan, Tokyo , at 9 pm on 1 July.

In sober truth, no recent event connected with the UK – apart from the sole exception of the British Exhibition of 1965 – has made a comparable impact on Tokyo … Most commentators accepted them for what indeed they are – agreeable, talented and quick-witted young musicians.

As ultranationalist students demonstrated in the city and outside the venue, the police presence was especially heavy inside and around the stage. According to Tony Barrow, the police feared that these right-wing students might have placed snipers in the audience. The stage itself was set on an 8-foot-high podium; all ground-floor seating had been cleared, meaning the audience was restricted to the hall's first and second tiers. Concertgoers were warned that anyone standing up or cheering risked being arrested. The Beatles felt that the uniformed officers subdued the crowd, although the Japanese fans' more reserved nature, relative to the group's usual audiences, was also a factor. The band gave an especially poor performance on 30 June. According to Barrow and Aspinall, the group were humbled by this, having grown accustomed to not hearing themselves play, and resolved to perform well for the remainder of the Budokan dates.

During their extended periods in the hotel suite, the Beatles collaborated on a psychedelic-themed painting, using brushes and paints supplied by one of the visiting tradesmen, and listened to a tape of their new album. Whitaker photographed them at work and later commented: "I never saw them calmer, more contented than at this time. They were working on something that let their personalities come out … They'd stop, go and do a concert and then it was, 'Let's go back to the picture!'" Having struggled to find a title for the new album since their arrival in Munich, the Beatles finally settled on Revolver and informed EMI of their decision by telegram on 2 July. Whitaker recalled that, despite the hours of confinement in the Hilton, the atmosphere within the band while in Tokyo was "a crescendo of happiness".

The Beatles and their entourage departed for Manila in the Philippines, via Hong Kong, mid-morning on 3 July. The Japanese press were highly favourable in their assessments of the Beatles' visit, with the extreme security measures and the brevity of the band's performances being the only areas of disappointment. Reporting to the Foreign Office in London, Dudley Cheke wrote that the cyclone over Japan had been replaced by a "Beatles typhoon", which "swept the youth of Japan off their feet". The Beatles embodied a new identity for the country's youth; in the description of Japanese academic Toshinobu Fukuya, their presence had signalled that "one did not always have to obediently follow arrangements prescribed by adults; it was possible to follow one's own path and still be socially and financially successful in life." On 15 July, the Beatles' stay in Japan was the subject of an article in America's Life magazine.

Philippines [ ]

Arrival in manila [ ].

The Beatles' concerts in Manila had been anticipated by the local population on a level that Gould likens to the band's 1964 tour of Australia, when the whole country appeared to view the visit as a national event. The group's commitment to perform in the Philippines reinforced the country's pro-Western image and was especially welcomed by the recently elected president, Ferdinand Marcos, and his wife Imelda. Although the Beatles' tour itinerary originally listed the venue as the Araneta Coliseum, the concerts took place at the Rizal Memorial Stadium. The shows were promoted by Ramon Ramos and his company Cavalcade International Productions.

The Cathay Pacific flight carrying the Beatles landed at Manila Airport at 4.30 pm on 3 July. The nation's police and military forces were in a state of high alert comparable with President Eisenhower's 1960 visit; noting the prevalence of firearms, one of the Beatles asked whether there was a war taking place in the Philippines. In Starr's description, the atmosphere was "that hot/Catholic/gun/Spanish Inquisition attitude". Whereas the band and their entourage were usually given the privileges afforded to visiting diplomats, on this occasion, the four Beatles were hustled into a vehicle by armed men wearing civilian clothes. Harrison later recalled their alarm at being separated from Epstein, Aspinall and Mal Evans for the first time on a tour; his immediate concern was that, with their hand luggage left behind on the runway, the band would be arrested once their supplies of marijuana were discovered by the authorities. The Beatles were driven to the headquarters of the Philippine Navy on Manila Harbour and led to a press conference attended by 40 journalists. They were then escorted by military personnel to a luxury yacht owned by Don Manolo Elizalde, a wealthy Filipino industrialist, whose 24-year-old son wanted to host a party to show off the Beatles to his friends. Epstein finally caught up with the band before the yacht sailed out into Manila Bay. After spending several hours on board, he and the Beatles returned to the marina and, at 4 am, arrived at the Manila Hotel, where Epstein had booked accommodation.

Music journalists Jim Irvin and Chris Ingham have referred to the Beatles' abduction at the airport and detainment on the yacht as a kidnapping. Alternatively, Turner writes that, unknown to Epstein, arrangements had been made between Ramon Ramos and Vic Lewis for the Beatles to spend the night on the yacht, since that presented a better security option than a city hotel. Aspinall, who had arrived at the marina with the Beatles' hand luggage while they were out on the bay, said that their abduction was carried out by a militia gang who were rivals of the individuals presenting the upcoming concerts.

Invitation to Malacañang Palace [ ]

Apart from McCartney, who went sightseeing with Aspinall, the Beatles slept in late on 4 July until woken by security staff intent on taking them to a party hosted by Imelda Marcos in their honour at Malacañang Palace. The event was scheduled for 11 am and had been announced in the previous day's edition of The Manila Times . While the Beatles were unaware of this announcement, Epstein had already declined the invitation when they were in Tokyo. This was in keeping with his policy since 1964 regarding all embassy or other official functions to which the group were often invited while on tour. The 1966 itinerary mentioned only that the Beatles might "call in" at the palace at 3 pm en route to their first concert. Turner interprets the casual wording of this item as Ramos, faced with delivering on Imelda Marcos's wishes, "burying the invitation in the small print, hoping for a compromise on the day".

When confronted by Lewis, who was also woken by the presidential guards that morning, Epstein dismissed his suggestion and that of Leslie Minford, a chargé d'affaires at the British Embassy, that the Beatles should make an exception for the First Lady of the Philippines. The Beatles were equally adamant; when told by the guards that President Marcos was among the dignitaries awaiting their arrival, Lennon retorted: "Who's he?" The band learned of the offence that Imelda Marcos had taken at their nonappearance while watching television at the hotel before leaving for the first concert. Footage from the palace was broadcast of the empty seats reserved for the four Beatles, children crying in disappointment, and the First Lady saying that the visiting musicians had let her down.

Concerts and national backlash [ ]

The Beatles played the first of their two concerts at the Rizal football stadium at 4pm before a crowd of 30,000. The band performed on a small stage behind a wire fence. Pilita Corrales, the Reycards and the Downbeats were among the six local support acts. The second show took place at 8:30pm and was attended by 50,000 fans. The combined total of 80,000 was the largest audience to see the Beatles in concert on a single day. The band were well received by their fans, although the poor sound and the distance from the stage was a problem for many. In his review of the concerts, Filipino writer Nick Joaquin detected a halfheartedness in the Beatles' performance and said that even the fans' screams "seemed mechanical, not rapture but exhibitionism". Another reviewer concluded: "The sound was terrible, The Beatles were terrific."

After watching the continual news broadcasts at the hotel, between the two shows, Epstein resolved to record a message to explain the Beatles' nonappearance at Malacañang Palace. The message was filmed by the government-owned Channel 5, at the Manila Hotel. When the segment was broadcast later that evening, however, the sound was distorted – a seemingly deliberate act – and Epstein's explanation was rendered inaudible. Barrow recalls that a backlash against the Beatles was evident straight after the evening show at Rizal, when their convoy of cars was briefly trapped behind a closed gate and surrounded by a large crowd of "organised troublemakers". As the NEMS representative who had dealt directly with the Filipino promoter, Lewis was taken away by police officers during the night and subjected to a three-hour interrogation for his role in "snubbing" the Philippines. Lewis contacted the British Embassy, where Minford, in a telegram to the Foreign Office, reported that "a technical hitch over payment of Philippine income tax" was likely to delay the Beatles' departure. Death threats against the Beatles were reported at the embassy and at their hotel.

Departure [ ]

The Beatles woke up early on 5 July in readiness for their flight to Delhi in India. After their requests for room service had gone unanswered, Evans went down to reception and found that all security protection inside the hotel had disappeared. The morning newspapers carried front-page stories condemning the Beatles for their failure to attend the engagement at Malacañang Palace. The tour party faced further intimidation initiated by Marcos loyalists. The Bureau of Internal Revenue presented a tax bill on the band's concert earnings, which were still held by Ramos; this was despite a stipulation in NEMS' contract with Cavalcade that any such tax would be paid by the local promoter. All assistance from the hotel staff was withdrawn, as was any police escort through the city traffic, leaving Epstein to call ahead and plead with the pilot of their KLM flight to delay his takeoff. On the way to the airport, their Filipino drivers appeared to forget the route; in another example of what Aspinall termed "obstacles [put] in our way", a soldier sent their cars repeatedly around the same traffic roundabout.

"You treat like ordinary passenger! Ordinary passenger!" they were saying. We were saying: "Ordinary passenger? He doesn't get kicked, does he?"

In Peter Brown's description, when they arrived at the airport, it resembled an "armed military camp". Aside from a heavy army presence, hundreds of irate citizens lined the path into the terminal building, where they harassed and jostled the tour party as each member walked by. Inside the terminal, on the instructions of Willy Jurado, the airport manager, the escalators had been turned off, and the band and their entourage were denied any assistance with musical instruments, amplifiers and luggage. The crowd from outside the building were then permitted into a glass-walled observation area, from which they continued their haranguing of the Beatles. The tour party moved into a large departure lounge, where uniformed men and others that Harrison recognised as the "thugs" from their arrival in Manila, began beating and kicking them, moving them from one corner of the room into another. Jurado later bragged about knocking Epstein to the ground and punching Lennon and Starr in the face, adding: "That's what happens when you insult the First Lady." Along with Alf Bicknell, Evans received a particularly thorough bashing after he intervened to shield the four band members from their attackers.

The tour party were finally allowed to board the aircraft. According to Barrow, the harassment continued as they crossed the tarmac leading to the steps up to the plane. Some of the band's fans were also present; when they expressed sympathy for the Beatles, they too attracted scorn from the mob. McCartney recalled that, such was their relief once inside the cabin, "We were all kissing the seats." An announcement then called Epstein off the plane to finalise the unpaid tax demand. Barrow and Evans were also told to disembark. After their passport irregularities had been sorted out, they both re-boarded and the plane was able to take off. Lewis then got into a heated argument with Epstein regarding the concert takings. Epstein admonished Lewis for focusing on money, given the ordeal they had all just endured, and asked him: "Who was it that screwed up the party invitation?"

Aftermath [ ]

Soon after the Beatles had left Manila on 5 July, President Marcos issued a statement acknowledging that the group had not purposely snubbed the First Family. He attributed the violent scenes at the airport to citizens overreacting to a "misunderstanding", and announced that he had lifted the tax on the band's earnings in the Philippines. Although Brown, writing in his 1983 memoir The Love You Make , said that the Beatles' performance fee had been received from Ramos in two instalments, subsequent evidence suggests that the band were not paid. In his concluding report to the Foreign Office, Minford mentioned that some individuals at the airport had used "unnecessary zeal" towards the Beatles and he credited Benjamin Romualdez, the brother of Imelda Marcos, with sorting out the episode.

Writing two weeks after the Beatles' visit, Joaquin commented that the Philippines had been attracted to the band's image without appreciating that, behind the image, their message was one advocating individuality, adventurousness and originality over tradition and order. Joaquin cited this underestimation as the cause of the Beatles' recent problems and likened the group's presence in Manila to Batman being transplanted to Thebes in Ancient Greece.

Stopover in India [ ]

Before leaving London, Harrison had arranged to disembark in Delhi with Aspinall on the return trip, and buy a top-quality sitar there. During the tour, the other Beatles had each decided to join the pair, although, after their troubles in Manila, all of the band would have preferred to return to London immediately. Their plane landed at night at Delhi's Palam Airport. While the Beatles had assumed that they were unknown in India, they were welcomed by a crowd of 500 fans and journalists and forced to give a brief press conference. The group's two-day stay in Delhi similarly came to resemble the stops throughout the tour in terms of media attention and periods of confinement in their hotel, the Oberoi.

On 6 July, the band managed to evade the fans camped out in front of the hotel and go to Connaught Place. There, they shopped for Indian musical instruments at Lahore Music House and the prestigious instrument-makers Rikhi Ram & Sons. Since their presence had soon attracted a crowd of fans, the Beatles arranged for the Rikhi Ram staff to visit them later at the Oberoi Hotel with a sitar for Harrison, as well as a sarod, tambura and tabla. The entourage were also given a tour of Delhi, during which their Cadillacs were chased by a vehicle carrying the head of the local Associated Press bureau. Once the journalist had received a comment from McCartney about the controversy in Manila, the tour continued on to villages outside the city. The primitiveness and poverty they saw there was a shock to the band. Starr described India as the first genuinely "foreign" country he had visited; Harrison found it sobering to realise that their Nikon cameras, which were a gift to the group from their Japanese promoter, "were worth more money than the whole village would earn in a lifetime". Other locations they visited while in Delhi included the historic Red Fort and Qutb Minar.

At the Oberoi, the Beatles discussed the recent events in Manila and privately expressed their dissatisfaction with Epstein's management of their tours. According to Brown, when Aspinall said that Epstein was already booking concerts for 1967, Lennon and Harrison insisted that their current tour would be their last. They relayed this decision to Epstein either at the hotel, where he was bedridden with a high fever, or during the flight to London. The decision was also informed by the band's increasing dissatisfaction with the inadequate sound systems at the venues they played and the inane questions they faced at each press conference.

Return to England and fallout from Manila [ ]

The Beatles arrived at Heathrow Airport early morning on 8 July and immediately conveyed their bitterness over Manila in a television interview for ITV. Lennon said they would "never go to any nuthouses again" while McCartney accused their attackers of being cowards. Harrison said the only reason to return to the Philippines would be to drop a bomb on the country. Referring to this comment, Lennon wrote on a copy of the tour itinerary: "we all silently agreed." Starr later described their ordeal in Manila as "the most frightening thing that's ever happened to me". Two days after the band's return, it was announced that Freddie and the Dreamers had cancelled their upcoming concerts in the Philippines, as a gesture of solidarity with the Beatles.

Distraught at the group's decision to stop touring, Epstein was diagnosed with glandular fever and went to a remote hotel in North Wales to recover. On 5 August, he was called away to the United States to ameliorate the controversy that had resulted from the publication of Lennon's comment that the Beatles had become more popular than Christ. When the 1966 world tour resumed there on 12 August, the band were the subject of radio bans in some southern states and further death threats. According to Barrow, the decision to quit touring after 1966 was made without McCartney's agreement and marked the first time that the Beatles had committed to a course of action without unanimous agreement among the four. McCartney said that he was finally persuaded to join the others' way of thinking following the group's concert at St. Louis, which took place on 21 August.

Over the decades since the Beatles performed their first Asian concerts there in 1966, Japan has continued to occupy a significant place in the band's legacy. After meeting his second wife, the Japanese artist Yoko Ono, in November 1966, Lennon enjoyed visiting the country during the 1970s. In December 1991, having never recovered his enthusiasm for performing live after the Beatles' experiences, Harrison carried out his second of only two tours as a solo artist in Japan. McCartney and Starr have regularly toured the country since the late 1980s.

Following the controversy surrounding the Nippon Budokan's first hosting of a rock concert in 1966, the hall has become the main venue for acts touring Japan. Writing in The Japan Times in 2016, Steve McClure said that the Beatles' performances at the hall had "conferred on it a quasi-sacred status in rock mythology". Among the fans who saw the Beatles perform there were future Japanese music-industry executives Aki Tanaka and Kei Ishizaka. Tanaka describes the concerts as "a social phenomenon" and credits them with inspiring "the birth of a real Japanese rock music scene", in which local artists wrote their own songs rather than merely covering Western rock songs.

Steve Turner comments on the significance of the first leg of the Beatles' 1966 world tour in terms of the development of the Beatlemania phenomenon, in that the band's influence now incited "potential acts of terrorism", just as their music had started to "fuel the fight between conservatives and liberals" in the countries they visited. Turner also views the brief stopover in India as important, since it represented the group's formal introduction to a culture with which they became increasingly associated over the next two years.

For several years, the combined audience of 80,000 at the Rizal Memorial Stadium on 4 July 1966 stood as the world record for any act on a single day. The Marcoses were enjoying a honeymoon period in the mid-1960s as the Philippines' American-style First Family, but the president later came to be seen as a dictator and, having amassed a personal wealth of up to $10 billion, fled to the United States after being deposed in 1986. They were indicted for racketeering, although Imelda Marcos was acquitted and returned to the Philippines, where she faced charges of corruption. Given these revelations, McCartney has said that the Beatles were "glad to have done what we did … We must have been the only people who'd ever dared to snub Marcos." As of 2016, none of the former Beatles had ever returned to the Philippines, despite an attempt by Filipino musician Ely Buendia – in response to the promotional campaign for Starr's 2015 album Postcards from Paradise – to lure Starr back to the country.

Set list [ ]

According to Walter Everett (lead singers appear in parentheses):

• "Rock and Roll Music" (John Lennon)
• "She's a Woman" (Paul McCartney)
• "If I Needed Someone" (George Harrison)
• "Day Tripper" (Lennon and McCartney)
• "Baby's in Black" (Lennon and McCartney)
• "I Feel Fine" (Lennon)
• "Yesterday" (McCartney)
• "I Wanna Be Your Man" (Ringo Starr)
• "Nowhere Man" (Lennon, with McCartney and Harrison)
• "Paperback Writer" (McCartney)
• "I'm Down" (McCartney)
• 1 Jim McCartney
• 2 The Long One
• 3 The Silver Beetles

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• Entertainment

Never-seen-before footage of The Beatles' 1966 tour of Japan released

September 28, 2022 (Mainichi Japan)

Japanese version

NAGOYA -- Rare footage showing scenes including the security environment when the mega famous English rock band The Beatles visited Japan in 1966 taken by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) was released for the first time on Sept. 25.

The Beatles arrived in Japan on June 29, 1966, and from the following day performed a total of five shows at the Nippon Budokan hall over three days. The silent black-and-white footage shot on 16-millimeter film runs for just under 36 minutes.

The tape begins with a security meeting during which senior police officers are seen shouting out loud in front of a map of the area surrounding the venue, and includes a scene of police officers arguing with members of a right-wing group who came in a propaganda truck to protest the band playing at the Budokan.

The footage also captured the band's performance on the last day of the tour, which has apparently never been released before, and shows John Lennon and other members of the band wearing sunglasses.

Nagoya-based nonprofit organization Joho Kokai Shimin Center filed an information disclosure request with the MPD in 2014, and a partial disclosure decision was made the following year. The nonprofit group fought to the Supreme Court for full disclosure, but lost the case as the appearance of people other than band members was considered personal information. The footage was released in July this year with the faces of security personnel, fans and others blurred out.

(Japanese original by Shinichiro Kawase, Nagoya News Center)

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Rare footage of Beatles' 1966 Japan tour finally released

Rare censored footage of the tight security put in place by Tokyo police when the Beatles came to Japan to perform in 1966 has finally reached the public domain.

The nearly 36-minute black and white silent movie shot by the Metropolitan Police Department documents a level of security normally accorded to state guests.

The group was in Japan from June 29 to July 3. It was their first and last tour in Japan as a band.

It shows police meetings to discuss security measures and officers at checkpoints set up around Haneda Airport in the capital for the arrival of the four-member group.

The footage also captures a vehicle displaying a banner that read “Demoralizing Beatles must be driven out” heading in the direction of the cameraman.

Source: asahi.com

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Saturday, July 2, 1966

Tokyo • 2pm show

Concert • By The Beatles • Part of the 1966 Japan and Philippines Tour

Last updated on November 4, 2023

• Country: Japan
• City: Tokyo

Location: Nippon Budokan

Concert Jul 01, 1966 • Japan • Tokyo • 6:30pm show

Interview July 1966 • The Beatles interview for Flip Teen Magazine

Concert Jul 02, 1966 • Japan • Tokyo • 2pm show

Concert Jul 02, 1966 • Japan • Tokyo • 6:30pm show

Article Jul 03, 1966 • The Beatles travel from Japan to the Philippines

More from year 1966

Band members

Paul McCartney

Ringo Starr

John Lennon

George Harrison

Related articles

The Beatles create an abstract collaborating painting during their stay in Tokyo

June 30 - July 2, 1966

On this day, The Beatles performed their two last shows at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, the first one at 2 pm, and the second one at 6:30 pm . Those were the fourth and fifth of five concerts they played at this venue during their 1966 Japan tour.

Throughout their stay at The Tokyo Hilton from June 30 to July 2 , The Beatles welcomed a variety of visitors — journalists, merchants, and others — in their suite. They also had enough to create a collaborative abstract painting.

They had the seating exactly arranged in all the cars. Amazing efficiency, that we’d never seen the like of in Britain. When we went to the gig they had the fans organised with police patrols on each corner, so there weren’t any fans haphazardly waving along the streets. They had been gathered up and herded into a place where they were allowed to wave, so we’d go along the street and there’d be a little ‘eeeeek!’ and then we’d go a few more hundred yards and there’d be another ‘eeeeek!’ At the Budokan we were shown the old Samurai warriors’ costumes, which we marvelled at dutifully in a touristy kind of way: ‘Very good! Very old!’ We were more amazed to see the women leaping up out of the seats for the promoter, because we’d never seen that in the West. The subservience of the women was amazing. They’d say, ‘Oh God, I’m sorry – was I in your seat?’ I remember us getting back to Britain and saying to our wives and girlfriends, ‘I wouldn’t want you to do that, but maybe it’s a direction worth considering?’ Promptly rejected. We got into our yellow shirts and natty bottle green suits. The thing about suits was that they always made us feel part of a team. When we arrived we were in our civvies, but once we put those on we were The Beatles! – the four-headed monster. It was good for me that we all wore the same, in that I really felt part of a unit. Peeping from behind the stage to watch the place fill up, we saw police walk in from either side and fill the whole of the front row, upstairs and downstairs. After them, the crowd was allowed to come in. They were very well behaved compared to what we’d seen of Western crowds, but they seemed to enjoy it. There was a funny local group on stage before us. This was in the days when the Japanese didn’t really know how to do rock’n’roll, although they’ve now got the hang of it pretty well. They sang a song that went, ‘Hello Beatles! Welcome Beatles!’ – something pretty naff in rock’n’roll terms, but it was very nice of them to do it. Our show went down quite well. Paul McCartney – From “ The Beatles Anthology ” book, 2000

The audience were reserved, but they were up on their feet – or they tried to be, but there were police all around the stadium with cameras with telephoto lenses, and anybody who stood up and looked like they were going to run toward the stage was photographed. The people were very restricted as to what they could do and how they could respond to us. It was a warm reception – but a bit clinical, as Japan is. George Harrison – From “ The Beatles Anthology ” book, 2000

George’s version of what the security people got up to in the Budokan was blissfully naïve, to say the least… Those guys were hoping to spot potential snipers in the audience and if they had done so the cameras could have been exchanged for firearms in a split second. At the same time Paul told the Anthology how efficiently the guards along our two-mile route from the Tokyo Hilton to the Budokan collected up the fans and grouped them neatly at street corners and on bridges rather than letting them wander around haphazardly. The truth is that the authorities feared the studios might have placed terrorist gunmen along the route and by herding the fans into well-contained little groups they were clearing their own field of fire and reducing the risk of stray bullets hitting fans. Tony Barrow – From The Beatles Bible

Paul McCartney played the Budokan again in 2015 as part of his “Out There” tour and in 2017 as part of his “One On One” tour .

What was the most memorable thing about playing the Budokan concert [with The Beatles] and why did you decide to return to the venue [in 2015]? The most memorable thing about the concert was the fans, who were sensational. But what struck us as being just as memorable were the security arrangements that were put in place. The whole front row of the balcony was police, and we saw them all walking in. And as we were going to the show, all the fans were corralled on each street corner and guarded by police. So as we went by they went, ‘Eeeeeeehh!!’ And then there’s nothing for the next block or two. And then ‘Eeeeeeehhh!!’ It was zany because we’d come from England and the US where it had been mayhem. So when I think of the Budokan show I think of the fans first, and then security second. Why go back and play there again? Just because it was such a special venue to play and I have a particularly special feeling about it. So when someone said there was a possibility of playing there again I jumped at the chance for old times’ sake.” Paul McCartney – From  paulmccartney.com , March 28, 2015

Nippon Budokan

This was the 4th concert played at Nippon Budokan.

A total of 8 concerts have been played there • 1966 • Jun 30th • Jul 1st (2pm show) • Jul 1st (6:30pm show) • Jul 2nd (2pm show) • Jul 2nd (6:30pm show) • 2015 • Apr 28th • 2017 • Apr 24th • Apr 25th

Setlist for the concert

Rock And Roll Music

Written by Chuck Berry

She's A Woman

Written by Lennon - McCartney

If I Needed Someone

Written by George Harrison

Day Tripper

Baby's in Black

I Feel Fine

I Wanna Be Your Man

Nowhere Man

Paperback Writer

See song statistics for “1966 Japan and Philippines Tour”

Going further

If we modestly consider the Paul McCartney Project to be the premier online resource for all things Paul McCartney, it is undeniable that The Beatles Bible stands as the definitive online site dedicated to the Beatles. While there is some overlap in content between the two sites, they differ significantly in their approach.

Read more on The Beatles Bible

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