Unseen Beatles Film Discovered In A Sydney Flea Market

22 June 2024 | 11:45 am | Mary Varvaris

The tape finds The Beatles in their "formative stage where they were really good live."

The Beatles in Melbourne

The Beatles in Melbourne (Source: Supplied)

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60 years after climbing a mountain in his hometown of Picton, New Zealand, to try and hear The Beatles play live, Greg Perano found an unseen film of the band playing in Australia at a Sydney flea market.

Recalling his attempt to hear the band play all those years ago, Perano recently discovered a gem that took him back to his childhood, telling A Current Affair: “I went, ‘Oh, look, there's a whole box of eight-millimetre film here, and it's $11.’”

Believing that he’d stumbled on something “really interesting,” Perano bought the film, opened it, and saw that it had “The Beatles” written on it.

The box had 14 rolls of film inside it, and upon watching the one labelled The Beatles, Perano realised quickly that he’d stumbled on footage of the band performing at Sydney Stadium in 1964. The film has no sound, but it still thrilled Perano.

“It's really good, beautiful black and white, eight-millimetre quality,” he remarked, “it just brought back all those memories because it's not like a big band now playing up to the cameras.”

He continued, “It's a band who look like they're in a small club really enjoying playing. You see a band in its formative stage where they were really good live.”

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You can watch Perano on A Current Affair here.

In 2023, The Beatles released their final songNow And Then, with an accompanying music video directed by Peter Jackson (of The Lord Of The Rings fame).

Jackson had previously directed the three-part Disney+ documentary The Beatles: Get Back and aided in the recent release of the restored 1970 documentary Let It Be.

Earlier this year, it was reported that the Beatles' story would be told in four MCU-style movies. You can find out about the rumoured cast to portray the Fab Four here.