The Beatles at Sydney Stadium, 1964

This newsreel features live footage of The Beatles and their fans during a concert in Sydney during their 1964 tour of Australia.

Concert footage of popular acts was still in its infancy in the 1960s. This professionally shot footage is the result of employing multiple cameras and stylish editing in post-production that effectively captures the phenomena known as 'Beatlemania'.

It's very effective in showing the band performing and perhaps more so in showing the reaction of the fans!

Parts of the clip appear to be sped-up because the frame rate has been adjusted by the filmmaker; whether or not this is deliberate is unknown. Studio recordings of several songs – which don't match the images – have been dubbed over the images, presumably because the sound that was captured live was predominantly screaming!

Despite this, it is an important recording of a significant era in popular culture. The scenes in this clip effectively serve to contextualise the pop culture phenomenon of Beatlemania.