A crowd gathers at Momona Airport as the Beatles arrive in Dunedin. Below from left: A police officer stands between excited fans and the stage at the Dunedin Town Hall; the Beatles perform on stage, separated from the town hall crowd by a thin line of blue; crowds mob the Beatles’ car outside the City Hotel. Photos: When We Was Fab, ODT and Evening Star archives The Beatles didn’t just tour New Zealand, they changed it, Andy Neill, one of the authors of a new book, tells Tom McKinlay.
A battered and bruised John Lennon barely made it inside Dunedin’s City Hotel, when the Beatles visited 60 years ago, such was the crush in Princes St outside. "By the time he arrived inside, John was being lifted over the top of the mob, who had surged into the lobby, and virtually dumped into the concertina lift, which had an inside metal door," a new book records — quoting the late Neil Collins, then early in his radio career. In protest, or simply out of a need to recuperate, Lennon was a no show at the scheduled Dunedin press conference — out of character for the relentlessly accommodating band, but understandable.
Thousands had gathered outside the Dunedin hotel that day to get a look at the four young musicians, whose trajectory towards unrivalled fame had taken off in earnest in the previous 12 months. Asked later that year, during an American tour, whether the band had ever feared for its safety, Lennon recalled the incident. "Once in New Zealand, it was a bit rough.
I though.
