“The next morning we were woken up by bangs on the door of the hotel, and there was a lot of panic going on outside. Somebody came into the room and said, ‘Come on! You’re supposed to be at the palace.’ We said, 'What are you talking about? We’re not going to any palace.’ - 'You’re supposed to be at the palace! Turn on the television.’
“We did, and there it was, live from the palace. There was a huge line of people either side of the long marble corridor, with kids in their best clothing, and the TV commentator saying, 'And they’re still not here yet. The Beatles are supposed to be here.’
“We sat there in amazement. We couldn’t believe it, and we just had to watch ourselves not arriving at the presidential palace. […]
“Again, we had a big problem with the concert. Brian Epstein had made a contract for a stadium of so many thousand people, but when we got there it was like the Monterey Pop Festival. There were about 200,000 people on the site, and we were thinking, 'Well, the promoter is probably making a bit on the side out of this.’ We went back to the hotel really tired and jet-lagged and pretty cheesed off. I don’t recall much of what happened after that, until the newspapers arrived and we saw the TV news.”
[George, Anthology]
The Beatles perform at Rizal Memorial Football Stadium, Manila, The Philippines on the 4th July, 1966.
Pics: Robert Whitaker.
