Press interview with The Beatles • August 1966 for Music Life

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On July 2, 1966, 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.

On the afternoon of July 2, The Beatles met with journalist Hoshika Rumiko, who previously interviewed them in London in June 1965. The result was published in the August 1966 edition of the Japanese music magazine “Music Life”.

[…] I met the Beatles for the first time since their arrival in Japan on the afternoon of July 2. I was the only journalist to receive an official invitation to visit them in their presidential suite on the tenth floor of the Tokyo Hilton. There was a constant stream of people coming and going, and the atmosphere wasn’t at all conducive to a conventional interview. The band members hadn’t been given permission to leave the hotel, and were whiling away their time sketching doodles for fans and listening to the records of Japanese folk songs they had received from the tour’s sponsors. When I entered the room they were looking at cameras and other souvenirs that had been brought in for their perusal, including various kimono and obi. They seemed particularly interested in cameras, and I remember them asking Hasebe Hiroshi, my photographer, for advice on which were the best to buy.

John kept coming and going in and out of the room. Suddenly he picked up a glass of orange juice that had been sitting on top of a table, raised it high and shouted out something. I wasn’t sure, but it sounded to me like “The Beatles will fade out.” Everyone treated this as a joke and laughed it off, but Ringo who was next to me pointed over at Epstein and said “Brian. We’ve made all this money, but where can we spend it? We’re not allowed out of the hotel.” Later, Epstein came over to me and put his finger to his lips. “You mustn’t write anything about what John just said,” he told me. He was serious. […]
Rumi Hoshika – From When Beatlemania Came to Japan | Nippon.com, July 28, 2016