Then & Now: Australia SalutesThen & Now: Australia SalutesDescription: Celebrating the biggest musical group tour to hit Australia in the history of our nation; 50 years since The Beatles came to Australia and impacted our music and culture forever! This compilation sees some of Australia's finest artists covering classic Beatles songs. No single instance of Beatlemania throughout the globe ever came close to the intensity and sheer magnitude of the social upheaval which occurred beneath the southern cross. No street crowds in New York or London or Liverpool ever eclipsed the antipodean hordes which at times comprised a third of the entire population of a city. Not since the VE and VJ days which marked the end of WWII had the streets been filled with such celebration and abandon. No royal tour could match the displayed devotion - 350000 in the streets of Adelaide alone compared to 10000 at Kennedy Airport in New York 4 months before. As tour press officer Derek Taylor once declared: It was clear that many of eleven million people in Australia viewed the Beatles in a messianic light - Glenn A Baker.
