The Beatles At The Budokan – In Stereo – June 30, 1966

The Beatles performed five concerts over three days, one on June 30, and two on each of the two following days, July 1 and 2 at the Budokan Hall in Tokyo in 1966. Two of the concerts, the one from June 30 and the first from July 1, 1966, were videotaped by Nippon Television. The two shows were edited together and broadcast in the show “The Beatles Recital from Nippon Budokan, Tokyo”, which was screened on the NTV (Nippon Television Network Corporation) Channel 4 on 1 July, 1966 from 9pm. The June 30 concert (dark green suits) was shown in Japan three times: in 1977, 1980 and 1988. The July 1 concert (light striped suits) was only shown in Japan in 1966 and never reprised.

History (and most fans) consider the July 1 concert to be the better performance, but it was also sonically inferior to the previously taped show.  The video quality also presents a problem, as the equipment of the day was lacking, and, over the years, what we’re left with is even MORE deteriorated analog copies.

While it will never be prime material for screening in high-definition on a big screen… there were things that could be done to improve the audio quality and, at least, enhance the video quality to an acceptable level. And I’m surprised nobody has done this already.

Today I give you the June 30, 1966 show in stereo and 5.1 surround sound…. with enhanced, de-interlaced video that was taken from a Beta tape copy, officially released (not a bootleg like many have assumed) in 1984. There was, indeed, a laser disc release as well. However, the 1984 beta cassette release of the this concert is considered the best in quality, as the laser disc suffered from audio problems and artifacts from the video conversion. Unfortunately, the audio on the beta release was fairly deteriorated, so it was sourced for this project from a very clean FLAC source, stemmed into 6 tracks and remixed, and re-synced with the video using AI and Tempo-Loc.  The audio has been further cleaned and re-equalized prior to final mixing for each track.   ENJOY!

Stereo/5.1 Surround Video (720p)