Beatles News
It was one of the most famous gigs Belfast has ever staged.
Now, half-a-century on, memories have been stirred of the day The Beatles came to town.
A collection of previously unseen images shows the group playing to a packed King's Hall.
The photographs have been released by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.
They show the band playing one of two sell-out concerts on the same night in November 1964.
Around 16,000 adoring fans thronged the venue, many paying less than £1 to see their idols.
The man who brought the group to Belfast was promoter Trevor Kane.
He described it as the biggest coup of his career.
"It is the one that stands out - The Beatles were the biggest attraction in the world at the time," Mr Kane told the Belfast Telegraph.
It wasn’t festival favourite Mick (he’s a mascara man). Or headliner Jay Z (he could have borrowed Beyonce’s). No, it was Paul McCartney – but, reveals the man behind rock’s wildest weekend, he had a pretty good excuse...
By day, as a successful music business agent, John Giddings steers the live careers of Madonna, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and U2. He also represents clients as diverse as Iggy Pop and Barbra Streisand. His ‘other gig’ is as owner, booker-in-chief and co-ordinator of the Isle of Wight festival. As part-time jobs go, it’s right up there. But it can be demanding. Giddings is the unflappable chap who sorts out nervous breakdown-inducing pre-show problems for the Stones, co-ordinates late-minute choppers for Bob Geldof, ensures Bowie’s backstage buffet is suitably nutritious and arranges emergency fingernail technicians for former Beatles. This year, proving Giddings packs more power than the national grid, his Isle of Wight headline acts will include Pharrell Williams, Fleetwood Mac and Blur. ‘I invite the groups I love,’ says Giddings, 61. ‘I pay them millions of pounds to play in a field, and have my mates come and watch them.’ It all sounds so simple but, since reigniting the legendary festival in 2001, Giddings’ outdoor calling has been no stroll in the park.
In 1964, the Beatles initiated a pop music renaissance and music became important to young baby boomers in a way it had never been for previous generations. Children, some not yet in double digits, were immersed in Top 40 radio, often listening under the covers long after our parents thought we were asleep.
With earnest curiosity, we engaged with lyrics that were becoming increasingly complex, even for our older brothers and sisters. By '65, we heard the simplicity of "Gee, I really love you," give way to "the twisted reach of crazy sorrow." And fresh new sounds and rhythms from British and American groups made it hard to keep still. Not yet burdened with the self-consciousness of puberty, we danced.
Take a close look at the photo above. See how “File Under: the Beatles” and “T 2553″ are partially obscured? Spotting that little line is like striking gold in a record store, because it suggests that you may have stumbled upon one of the holy grails of record collecting: The Beatles’ notorious “butcher cover.”
Back in 1966, there was no band bigger than the Beatles. The Fab Four could do no wrong: 10 American albums, 10 American hits. With tracks like “Yesterday,” “Day Tripper,” and “Drive My Car,” their release that year, Yesterday and Today, was another guaranteed chart-topper.
Then they stepped into their second controversy, the first happening just three months prior when John Lennon made his now famous “more popular than Jesus” comment.
The Beatles legend is still nimble as a ballerina and is as fit and healthy as ever - but what's his secret?
Nimble as a ballerina, with the skin of a particularly soft baby thanks to his wife’s moisturiser, Sir Paul McCartney is 72 going on 27.
He’s a father of five and grandfather of eight and has five decades in the business behind him. But this icon of rock royalty feels as fit and healthy as ever.
As well as dumping the dope he famously smoked for years, he has also adopted a punishing daily gym regime.
And so it is that a pair of denim-clad legs and a Beatle bottom are wobbling precariously before me.
One of the planet’s most famous men is demonstrating his headstand technique – “my secret claim to fame” – in the backstage dressing room before his triumphant homecoming show in Liverpool.
It is quite possibly the most surreal moment of my career. Like Macca circa 1967, I think I might even be hallucinating.
How John Lennon's "creative accident" became one of rock 'n' roll's greatest innovations.
The Beatles’ unprecedented sonic experimentation on their 1966 album Revolver make it one rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest albums. But ironically, one of the album’s greatest innovations happened on a B-side that came out before the final album.
Backward guitar and sitar solos appear throughout Revolver, which is credited as the first popularized use of “backmasking”, the intentional recording of a track in reverse. But songs like “Love You To” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” were not the first songs the band recorded backward.
The day the Woodstock festival opened was an epoch-defining moment in pop. Yet an even more extraordinary event was taking place less than 100 miles away on Friday, 15 August, 1969.
In a journey every bit as unlikely as that of the tin can that had taken men to the Moon less than a month earlier, Bob Dylan and his family were boarding the QE2 in New York to sail to a little island off the south coast of England, snubbing the festival that had been set up in Dylan’s backyard in order to tempt him out of three years’ retirement. In one of the greatest coups, naïve but earnest youngsters were unwittingly stealing the planet’s biggest rock star from the most famous festival in rock history.
Deep Beatles’ look at the Decca audition concludes with another early John Lennon/Paul McCartney original, “Love of the Loved.” Primarily a McCartney composition, “Love of the Loved” features a slight Latin rhythm and a vocal performance that demonstrates the singer had worked on refining his range and phrasing. The Beatles never officially released the song, although it was later covered by a fellow Liverpudlian.
According to Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In, McCartney first penned the track in 1959 while walking home, either from a date or John Lennon’s house. His then-girlfriend Dot Rhone later claimed he had written the lyrics with her in mind, but Paul McCartney never publicly commented on this assertion.
Famous Beatles venue to go back to its beginnings with vinyl shop and coffee bar.
Iconic Liverpool venue The Jacaranda is to go back to its roots with a new coffee shop and vinyl record emporium on its first floor.
The historic Liverpool bar reopened its doors back in November.
Now the team are planning a vinyl store and cafe above the famous bar.
It will feature self-contained booths with a vinyl deck set in the table where music fans can listen to their favourite discs whilst they have a coffee.
Ahead of Macca's gig at the Echo Arena we highlight some of the smaller city centre venues that hosted the Fab Four.
This week sees a welcome return to his hometown for Sir Paul McCartney.
The Beatles legend will be bringing his Out There tour to Liverpool on Thursday.
He’ll be playing at the ECHO arena, on the site of the old King’s Dock, where he performed another triumphant Liverpool show back in 2003.
As he takes to the stage in front of 11,000 fans, Paul might pause to reflect he's come a long way from the tiny city centre clubs frequented by the Beatles in the early 1960s.
