Discovering The Beatles in Liverpool
Phil Vinter travels to Liverpool and discovers The Beatles still dominate this fine northern city.
As my pen bobbled over the roughly textured brick I felt a pang of jealousy...
Liverpool in the early 1960s – boy I’d love to have been a teenager then. What a buzz. The epicentre of a new brand of rock and roll music which was about to set the world on fire. The spark was lit in a small, unremarkable looking club on a dim, cobbled street in the heart of the city.
Now one of the most iconic venues on the planet, five decades ago the Cavern Club in Matthew Street bubbled with excitement as a gaggle of young upstarts began their quest to revolutionise music.
But one band was causing more of a stir than the others. A college drop-out, a former choir boy, a ferry worker and an apprentice electrician were going down a storm. Young girls were queuing round the block to revel in the catchy, guitar-based, fresh sound being served up by John, Paul, Ringo and George, or, as they called themselves – The Beatles.
As we all know, The Fab Four went on to become the biggest band on the planet, but walking into the downstairs cellar club where the Beatles buzz began felt like I’d stepped back into 1960s Merseyside. Dog-eared promo posters of gig nights for Cilla Black and Jerry and the Pacemakers adorned the walls.
Excited teenagers filled the dance floor, and the music that put the city on the map pulsed through the chipped brickwork. A procession of proud Liverpudlians adopted iconic Beatles looks as they took it in turns to blast out their instantly recognisable hits.
It may be four decades since the Beatles last performed together, but the city is rightly proud of its four favourite sons and their impact is still visible everywhere.
I hopped on to the appropriately flowery Magical Mystery Tour bus and journeyed back in time to see the places that inspired the most famous music writing partnership in the world.
It was fascinating to wind my way past the modest homes where the band members grew up – Number 9 Madryn Street where Ringo was born in 1940, Aunt Mimi’s home on Menlove Avenue where John spent most of his childhood following his mother’s death, George’s small two-up-two-down family home in Arnold Grove and Paul’s home from 1955 where he wrote more than 100 songs in the front room.
As the bus arrived at the places we all know from the songs, the familiar soundtracks kicked in through the bus’s speaker system – ‘Let me take you down... ‘cause I’m going to...Strawberry Fields’.
Big red gates next to a sign for Strawberry Field still mark the entrance to this former Salvation Army Children’s Home where John used to play as a child.
As the bus turned another corner the music started again – ‘Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes, there beneath the blue suburban skies...’
The famous sign has been stolen so many times that it is now painted on to the wall, but the bank and the barber’s shop mentioned in the song can still be seen.
The brilliant two-hour tour provided the perfect warm-up for the equally impressive Beatles Story exhibition.
Here I spent more than three hours soaking up the hundreds of informative and entertaining display cabinets which took me on a journey from their childhood through to their time in Germany, their desperate attempts to get a record contract, Beatlemania, conquering America, the movies, the iconic albums and the break up.
The free audio guide brilliantly complemented the written information. It is one of the best exhibition I have been to.
