Live Performance - February 2, 1963
From BeatlesWiki
| Event | |
| Date | February 2, 1963 |
| Short description | Performance at Gaumont Cinema. |
| Location | Yorks |
Opening night of the band's first nationwide tour. They were at the bottom of a six-act bill, with Helen Shapiro being top, a sixteen-year-old singer from London who was voted Best British Female singer in 1961 and 1962. Because of this, she had more priveleges and better dressing rooms. As Ringo recalled, "Helen was definitely the star. She had a telly in her room and we didn’t have one. We had to ask her if we could watch hers. I was the new boy, but the togetherness of this tour helped a lot. At first I was worried about who I was going to share with at the hotels, but mostly it was me in with Paul, and John and George sharing another room." Shapiro had first had a hit in 1961 with "Don't Treat Me Like A Child," recorded when she was only fourteen. She later said "I had a special feeling for John. He probably realised I had a crush on him. He called me ‘Helly’ and was incredibly protective. I was mad on him, really mad. I had the biggest crush on him any sixteen-year-old could have on a guy… On the coach once, I picked up a copy of the Melody Maker and opened it up to the headline: ‘Is Helen a has-been at sixteen?’ John was sitting right behind me then, reading over my shoulder. I was really upset, but it was he who comforted me. ‘Don’t let the swines get you down,’ he said to me." John later said "Touring was a relief, just to get out of Liverpool and break new ground. We were beginning to feel stale and cramped." Kenny Lynch, another act of the tour, remembers seeing them planning another act after the show. "They were thinking of running up to the microphone together and shaking their heads and singing, ‘Whoooo!’ So, I said, ‘You can’t do that. They’ll think you’re a bunch of poofs!’ John said: We didn’t know anything about things like make-up, because we’d never done proper stage shows before. It was a long time before we had a go at it. I think it was after watching Frank Ifield… his eyes looked amazing. We thought we’d try it ourselves, and pranced on like Red Indians, covered in the stuff." On this night, The Beatles played Chains, Keep Your Hands Off My Baby, A Taste Of Honey, and Please Please Me. Two other songs, Love Me Do, and Beautiful Dreamer were alternatives for this tour, although they are not believed to have been played on this date. By the end of the tour in March, Please Please Me was a number one single in the UK, making The Beatles the most anticipated act. Kenny Lynch recalls, "Arthur Howes came to me and said, ‘Look, you’d better go on just before the Beatles. You’re the only one who doesn’t care how badly you go down.’ I introduced them every night. I’d only got to mention ‘the lads’ and a cheer went up. I’d say, ‘I’m not bringing them on until you’re quiet’, and the kids would rush the stage. For a virtually unknown group, it was incredible. One of the prescient journo’s noticed that owning the Beatles is rather like sitting on a bomb, which will soon go off in a mushroom of money."
[edit] Source
- LEWISOHN M., 1992, The Complete Beatles Chronicle, Hamlyn -- Buy it on Amazon.com
