Eight Days a Week: The Beatles' Tour of New Zealand, 1964

by Graham Hutchins

For a memorable week in June 1964, the Beatles toured New Zealand, giving concerts in the four main centers and changing life as we knew it forever. For teenagers of the time, it was the most exciting week of their lives. Teachers were ignored and parents defied as thousands of young people devised ingenious ways of seeing their idols. For this book, Graham Hutchins has interviewed dozens of people who were directly affected by the visit, from fans who attended the concerts and people who accompanied the Beatles on tour, to contemporary musicians and John Lennon s Kiwi relations. The visit of the Fab Four is remembered through the reminiscences of these eyewitnesses, and through a mass of photographs and memorabilia that illustrate the text. The author also assesses the long-term impact the Beatles made on New Zealand music and on society at large. Full of memories and nostalgia, this is the ideal souvenir of one of the most remarkable weeks in New Zealand s history.

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Alan Wightman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Beatles toured NZ in 1964 and caused the country to go mad for a week. The details of the tour itself I found to be quite involving, being a resident of NZ myself. The little vignettes such as those of a schoolboy who won a contest to be flown from Timaru to meet the band, of John Lennon’s relatives who got to meet him, of Aunt Mimi’s tour to NZ at the same time, of the girls who were expelled for skipping school to see a Beatles parade in Auckland, were quite nice. Before and after the tour, however, there are a lot of pages of, not so much history, more like recollection. There were stories such as “my mate’s brother in Nelson used to have half his head in a Beatles haircut and half his head swept back like Elvis”. A few of these were fine. Too many quickly became too many, and I had to stop.