Too cool for school

On Friday 19 June 1964 I had what we Australians so charmingly call a 'sickie'. The truth is, I wasn't sick. I was too excited by the prospect of my first pop concert that very night to go to school. I have always been a little partial to excitement but seeing my favourite group at the Sydney Stadium must have been more than I could bear.

I was very fortunate to have a mother who recognised the state I was in and how the Beatles were affecting me. Some months before the concert was even a possibility, she had her dressmaker run up an emerald-green velvet Beatle suit – a cropped jacket with round neck and a straight skirt – which I wore with fetching lace stockings.

My first-ever and most cherished albums were Please, Please Me and It's a Hard Day's Night, which were on high rotation. As was the favourite Beatle debate. Our mother gave my sister and me a weekly 'reading' allowance at the local newsagency and by 1964 I had graduated from an English comic to Fabulous, which had the advantage of at least one Beatles pin-up in every issue for two years. Needless to say, those posters were all over my bedroom walls. I could spend hours in my oasis eating jelly babies.

With a daughter my age, my godparents also understood the significance of a Beatles concert. They took their mentoring role seriously and not only had the foresight to buy the tickets, they took us. We drove from our country town to Kings Cross, where my godfather swung by the Chevron Hotel so we could glimpse where the fab four were staying.

Showing the kind of wisdom that only comes with age, they booked rooms for the night at the Ruschcutters Bay Travelodge, within walking distance of the Stadium. And they sat right there beside us – surrounded by screaming girls two rows from the front.

Paul turned 22 the day before and Ringo had passed out drunk at 3am after all their partying. And in good rock 'n' roll style, they got up and did it all again.

Getting in early, this week the Powerhouse Museum opens an exhibition to celebrate the Beatles' 1964 Australian tour. Be there or be square.