Express Staff Reporter: Adelaide, Friday
The Beatles' first concert in Australia ended in a near riot at Adelaide's Centennial Hall tonight when police had to stop the show as weeping, hysterical teenage girls started to storm the stage.
They welcomed us like liberators - George Harrison.
Ridiculous, wonderful, fantastic, and so on. We've had massive receptions all over the world, but never one like this. In numbers and spontaneous warmth it exceeds anything we ever dreamed of. A unique feature of the crowd was its gaiety. I've seen films of de Gaulle re-entering Paris after the recapture of France and the Allies marching up to Italy. Without wanting to draw comparisons, the expressions on the faces today were similar to the faces of people freed from captivity. The Australians are magnificent Beatle fans, and the great thing is that each State is a separate unit - which means that when Ringo rejoins us in Melbourne tomorrow the whole thing should happen again. This is the most exciting week of my life and we're all very proud.
Two dozen police formed a wall in front of the stage and after battling for several minutes managed to check the frenzied fans. It happened as the second of two sessions drew to a close. As the Beatles started their third encore - "Twist and Shout" - frenzied girls clambered over chairs and scrambled towards the stage.
Earlier a shrieking crowd of 25,000 broke through barriers and formed a screaming, waving mob round the Beatles' car when they arrived by air from Sydney. Two girls were trampled underfoot, and a 60-year-old woman collapsed as yelling teenagers surged round the car on it's way to the town hall. Police horses began to kick out in fear, and police beating teenagers off had to use their elbows and shoulders to clear a circle round one of the trampled girls as she screamed on the ground. Tears streamed down the faces of black-stockinged girls, and one of them ran round in circles screaming: "Beatles, Beatles - they're here."
Nearly 100,000 people are estimated to have lined the 10-mile route from the airport to the city. John Lennon took photographs of the crowd from the town hall balcony. More than 200 girls at the grammar school staged a 45-minute sit-down strike in the school yard because they were not allowed to listen to a broadcast of the arrival.
• Ringo Starr, recovered from illness, flew from London yesterday to join the rest of the group in Melbourne. He forgot his passport, but was allowed to go anyway. "A Beatle's a Beatle the world over," an airline official conceded.
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