Japan was the Asian destination chosen for his promotional tour of the album “Stir” 1966. At that time, the filmic record of the arrival of Paul MCCARTNEY, John Lennon, George Harrison Y Ringo Starr It was the subject of a long legal battle in the Japanese country for decades. The silent film, in black and white, with a duration of 35 minutes, was recently released in Youtube through a court decision.
In the images of the only tour of the “Fab Four“Made in the Land of the Rising Sun, the four musicians can be seen beaming off the plane, dressed in kimonos, before playing in front of a youthful crowd at the stadium Nippon Budokan in tokyo. The unusual part of the record is not found in the artists but in the faces of the people who appear in the film.
All the faces in the film, except for the artists, were blurred due to a legal issue of image rights. Later, the image rights were a conflict between the Japanese followers of the band, the defenders of the right to information, and the local police responsible for the filming.
Finally, fans appealed to the Japanese Supreme Court to authorize an uncensored version, claiming that it was a historical audiovisual document. In 2018, however, the judiciary ruled that the film record could be released by social networks but remaining with the faces erased.
the Beatles was on the crest of international fame in the mid-1960s. The release of the Revolver album, coupled with the fallout from his second film “Help!” directed by RichardLester, positioned the band Liverpool as the emissaries of rock and youth. This led to the British heading to exotic and remote destinations for their live performances. The visual fragment of their Asian tour forms a rarity in the legacy of the mythical musical group.
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