The Beatles’ first tour abroad: Why Sweden and not Denmark?

Brian Epstein at Kastrup airport, Copenhagen 1963(?).

In the Danish book “Music til salg 1903-2003” by Morten Hein (Peoples Press, 2003) about EMI Denmark’s 100th anniversary, there is a photo of Brian Epstein at Kastrup airport. The photo is stated to have been taken in 1963, but it could also have been taken in June 1964 when Brian came to Denmark with The Beatles to play a concert. We are going with 1963, since that is what is stated in the book. (UPDATE: In the comments section of this blog post, Beatles biographer Mark Lewisohn informs us that the photo is from another visit in 1966).

The book with the Epstein photo

Arno Guzek from the Danish fan club “Beatles Again” has done some research on this, and asked the now deceased EMI director EMI Kurt Hviid Mikkelsen (1932-2019) about the photo. Mikkelsen replied that the photo was taken at Kastrup Airport, at the time when you walked straight out of the plane and onto the tarmac. Mikkelsen, as well as EMI Denmark’s then director (on loan from England), Steve Gottlieb and some others received special permission from the airport police to go out to the plane and welcome Epstein.

Brian Epstein came to Copenhagen in 1963 to try to get someone to arrange a concert with The Beatles, Mikkelsen continues. Mikkelsen naturally contacted those who were concert organisers at the time. Among others, Niels Wenkens (1942-2009), who was trying to establish himself as a concert organiser in those days, was offered a whole week with the band for 20 000 Danish kroner. But Wenkens couldn’t afford it. In fact, none of the other Danish concert organisers were interested either, so Mikkelsen had to go to the fairground establishment in Copenhagen, “Tivoli” gardens with Brian, where they consoled themselves with a nice dinner at one of the restaurants there.

Tivoli gardens, Copenhagen

It seems that Epstein wanted to test the Beatles abroad, “off Broadway” to see if they could be successful there. Some time after Epstein had returned to England, Eckert Lundin, manager of Chinavarietén (The China Variety) in Stockholm, received a telegram from the promoter Grade’s Organisation in England asking if they were interested in booking the Beatles, they had five days available in October. Niels Wenkens believes that it was he who tipped Brian off to contact Lundin, after having had to turn them down himself.

Lundin could not take up the offer either, but passed the information on to Bengt-Åke Bengtsson from the concert agency Telstar, who had long wanted the Beatles after Bengtsson had seen them at the Star-Club in Hamburg. He booked the band for a small tour of Sweden, with a radio concert and TV program in addition.

Kurt Hviid Mikkelsen (with glasses), here with another supergroup.

About six months later, Niels Wenkens was in London and then he realised that The Beatles was something very special and therefore called his partners. He made an agreement with Epstein and Brian felt that he owed Wenkens something after the failed Copenhagen tour, so the Dane was offered two concerts on June 4, 1964. It was in this way that the group’s only concert visit to Denmark was agreed upon, at the very beginning of the world tour in June 1964, then with Jimmie Nicol as a substitute on drums.

The concert in 1964. Photo: Knud Ørsted

Kurt Hviid Mikkelsen has also told a little about that visit, June 4, 1964:

On the plane, which was a regular BEA (now British Airways) passenger plane, there were BEAtles in large letters on the sides of the plane… Ringo was ill and since Jimmy Nicol was not a real Beatle we did not think he should be in the photograph. By the way, we drove in a motorcade to the Royal Hotel where they were staying. There were people standing there wanting to catch a glimpse of the long-haired boys, all the way into the hotel. When we held a press conference in the afternoon on the hotel’s second floor, Hammerichsgade below our windows was black with people shouting and screaming.

Chaos outside the hotel. Photo: Knud Ørsted

We had set up a table for the Beatles where they sat as if in a panel and answered questions. John Lennon suddenly gets up and walks over to the window. I say something to him like “You’d rather not go there” which of course he just did and there was an immediate wild commotion down on the street. The police were in control of the people and only very slowly did a little calm fall over the camp.

Lennon tries to read the Danish newspaper Ekstrabladet.

Sources:
The article is stitched together from Arno Guzek’s article in Danish in Beatles Again 206 based on correspondence with Kurt Hviid Mikkelsen, Bengt-Åke Bengtsson’s account in the Swedish anniversary book “Så gikk det till när The Beatles kom til Sverige”, (we published excerpts in English here) and the information that Niels Wenkens was offered the Beatles for a week for 20.000 DKK and that he had to refuse – but that he tipped Epstein about a concert organiser in Sweden was from the website DK MusikNYT on June 4, 2014. Knud Ørsted’s photos and stories from the Beatles’ in Copenhagen June 4th, 1964 are available in book form, “Beatles i København 4.6.64” published in 2014 by Strandberg Publishing , ISBN 9 0788792 894793.

Knud Ørsted’s book