Newcastle upon Tyne • 6:30pm show

Police will put cordon around the Beatles

Beatle fans advancing on Northumberland Road, Newcastle, tonight in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the “yeah, yeah” boys from Liverpool will be stopped by the “no, no” boys from Newcastle police. Hours before the group appear on the stage of the City Hall for the first time in two years, policemen will be blocking the street.

“I would warn people that it’s no good at all coming along to see the sight tonight if they don’t have tickets,” Supt. John Martin said today. “They won’t get into Northumberland Road. We think that if any trouble is caused it will be by people hanging around outside the City Hall hoping to see the Beatles arriving or leaving. So we’re making sure this time there won’t be any.”

Fifty policemen will be on duty outside the hall during the two concerts tonight. Supt. Martin does not expect any serious trouble.

“There were none last time the Beatles were here. I appeal to the public to behave in the same sensible way they did in 1963.”

In preparation for tonight’s concert, the Beatles were having a “long lie” in Glasgow’s Central Hotel today before travelling to Newcastle.

At 4.30 p.m. the barriers were to go up. Policemen will then take their posts at the end of Northumberland Road.

At their last Newcastle concert, the Beatles were forced to make a fast getaway in a taxi, leaving behind hundreds of pounds’ worth of equipment.

Evening Chronicle – December 4, 1965

Neil Aspinall, continues his daily diary of The Beatles’ U.K. tour.

SATURDAY, 4th DEC.

Snow was falling fast in Glasgow this morning, so I woke the boys an hour earlier than planned so that we could make an early start for Newcastle.

The boys can’t stand bright and cheerful waiters first thing in the morning. It takes them at least an hour to make friends with the world once they’ve opened their eyes. The worst start to their day is when a waiter breezes into their bedroom and flings open the curtains. I always arrange for the breakfast trays to be left outside each room-in the lounge when we have a suite. Then I go round telling them that the food has arrived and they crawl out of bed to get it in their own time. For breakfast they like orange juice and cereal followed by boiled eggs. Or scrambled eggs on toast.

I’ll never forget the occasion in Chicago last August when John decided to join Paul and try a pair of fried eggs. He lifted the lid off the dish and there was a ghastly-looking embryo chicken in one of the eggs. Seeing this, Paul was nearly sick. In his usual placid and poker-faced way, John turned to him: “It’s not Easter or anything, is it?” But it will take a bit of persuasion to make John or Paul order eggs in Chicago again!

Newcastle City Hall is one of those open-platform places without proper stage lighting or curtains. The balconies are directly over the stage at each side so that the kids up there can just spill bags of jelly-babies over the boys without any effort.

The Moody Blues, who are the main supporting attraction on “The Beatles Show,” got their own share of the jellybaby barrage tonight. They used a tambourine to bat the sweets back into the crowd!

Tonight the press have been complaining about the difficulty they had penetrating the cordons of police outside the City Hall. One journalist claims he was frogmarched all the way down the street when he tried to get in to see the boys.

From Fabulous208 – June 25, 1966

ALAN SMITH goes on tour with THE BEATLES!

[…] NEWCASTLE. On Saturday morning they slept in late and then set off in the Princess (“everybody calls it John’s Rolls,” said John. “I don’t know why”), bound for Newcastle.

Here they booked in at the city’s Turks Head Hotel — Albert Finney and Sir Laurence Olivier were fellow guests, although they didn’t meet — before going on to the City Hall late in the afternoon. There are no curtains at this venue, so the show had to be re-arranged slightly.

I thought that throwing jelly babies at the Beatles was a bit old-hat these days, but the Newcastle fans have other ideas. There seemed to be thousands of the things pouring on to the stage as the group went through their act.

Before they went on, the Beatles’ quietly watched television, in a darkened room next to their dressing room. Programme they saw were “Thank Your Lucky Stars,” in which they made a filmed appearance, “The Avengers,” “Lost In Space,” and the play “The Paraffin Man.“

Beatle-cum-TV fans might like to know that they switched off “Thunderbirds” because they didn’t like it, and they weren’t too happy about the film of themselves in “Lucky Stars.“

Said John: “We did it at the same studios as we made our Help! film. We had great ideas for it — we thought it was going to be an outdoor thing, and with more of a visual appeal. I’m not really happy the way it’s turned out, but it hasn’t put me off this kind of idea for the future. I’ve no objections to filming TV appearances. For a start, it means we can film them all in one day instead of traveling round the country to do different programmes.”

Comments like that could get the Beatles accused of laziness – but it was all manager Brian Epstein’s idea, and the group told me they always intend to stick to his advice through thick and thin.

A heavy meal was laid on for the Beatles after the first house spot, and then, they returned to watching TV. I didn’t see an alcoholic drink in sight. […]

From New Musical Express – December 10, 1965