Video: 'The Beatles Live in Manila July 4 1966'

(Monday, July 4, 1966, 4:00 p.m. PHT) — The Beatles performed the first of two shows at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium in Manila, Philippines this afternoon on the second and last stop of the band’s Summer 1966 Asia Mini-Tour.

The Beatles played for a combined audience of 80,000 in attendance for the two shows (the second one at 8:30 p.m.), unmatched anywhere in the band’s touring history.

Five hours before this first show, however, The Beatles had missed a lunch organized by the Philippines’ First Lady, Imelda Marcos, for 300 sons and daughters of top army officers and businessmen at the Malacanang Palace to introduce them to band.

The group was still asleep after the previous night’s debacle when officials came looking for them.

The band’s manager Brian Epstein claimed to know nothing of the invitation and refused to allow any further indignities to be perpetrated upon them. Naturally this was taken as a grave insult, with potentially dangerous repercussions.

“At the end of the second concert, our police escort back to the hotel was withdrawn and gates were locked against our convoy,” Beatles press officer Tony Barrow later wrote in his book John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me. “This left our stationary limousines at the mercy of organised troublemakers, scores I would say rather than dozens, pressing menacingly against our windows, rocking the vehicles to and fro and yelling insults at The Beatles which none of us could understand.”