The Beatles Sydney Stadium Plaque, Rushcutters Bay

The Beatles plaque in Sydney sits in the footpath of Neild Avenue, Rushcutters Bay, outside the gates of Weigall Playing Grounds. Woollahra Council unveiled it on 16 June 2021 to mark Sydney Stadium, the demolished hall where the Beatles played six concerts between 18 and 20 June 1964.

Six shows in the old tin shed

The Beatles landed at Mascot on 11 June 1964 and took over the top floor of the Sheraton Hotel on Macleay Street, Potts Point. Ringo Starr had missed the start of the tour with tonsillitis and rejoined in Melbourne, so the Sydney concerts on 18, 19 and 20 June were the full line-up: six shows at Sydney Stadium, two a night at 6pm and 8pm, each reported to hold about 12,000 people. Tickets cost from 15s 6d to £1 17s 6d.

Each show followed the same pattern. Alan Field compèred, the Phantoms, Johnny Devlin, Johnny Chester and Sounds Incorporated filled the first half, and the Beatles played a ten-song set of about half an hour after the interval. The first two concerts, on Thursday 18 June, were only about three-quarters full; promoter Kenn Brodziak thought the Sydney papers' hysterical coverage had frightened parents. Once nobody was hurt, the remaining four sold out, and the Saturday shows were the first of the tour with house-full signs up before the band came on. The National Film and Sound Archive holds a three-minute newsreel shot at one of these concerts.

Hugh D McIntosh had put the stadium up in 1908 for the world heavyweight fight between Tommy Burns and Jack Johnson. It was roofed and enlarged in 1912 as an octagonal hall designed by T.P. Sampson with raked wooden seats for up to 15,000. Its stage revolved, turned by hand, so that a crowd seated all the way round could see the performers. Terry Smith, the Sydney Morning Herald's boxing writer, covered the first night and later wrote the stadium's history, The Old Tin Shed; he recorded a sound expert's claim that the screaming under the tin roof was louder than a Boeing 707 in full flight. A Sydney Grammar School match at Weigall was moved that week because of the expected crowds.

From boxing hall to railway viaduct

The stadium closed in 1970 and was pulled down for the Eastern Suburbs Railway. Published dates for the demolition differ: 1970 in some accounts, 1973 in the Dictionary of Sydney. The line runs underground from Kings Cross, comes out onto a concrete viaduct across Rushcutters Bay and goes back underground at Edgecliff. The Rushcutters Bay Viaduct was finished in 1974 after five years of phased building, but trains did not run until the line opened on 23 June 1979. The playing fields beside the old site are Weigall, used by Sydney Grammar School and its Edgecliff Preparatory School.

A plaque in the footpath

Woollahra Council added the concerts to its plaque scheme, which records notable people and events in the local government area. Mayor Susan Wynne unveiled the plaque on 16 June 2021, two days short of the 57th anniversary of the first show, with councillors Anthony Marano and Peter Kavanagh, guest speaker Dr Janis Lander and broadcaster Bob Rogers OAM, who had travelled with the band in 1964. The tribute band Beatle Magic played.

The council lists the plaque at the corner of Neild Avenue and New South Head Road, Paddington. It lies flat in the Neild Avenue footpath outside the Weigall Playing Grounds gates, so look down rather than at the walls. Its text reads "The Beatles Concerts at the Sydney Stadium (demolished)", with the dates June 18 to 20 1964 and the scheme's line "Celebrating Our History" under the council's name. The same scheme has a separate plaque for the 1908 Burns and Johnson title fight that opened the stadium.