International Beatleweek Day 4
International Beatleweek Day 4 - Mon 28th August 2023.
It’s our final day at Beatleweek today. We only have 3 gigs. We’ll be leaving late afternoon / early evening for the trip home.
The day starts with band members going for a walk along the river Mersey (our airbnb is very close) before we set off for our first gig of the day, vacating the accommodation altogether.
First up is the pub Ye Cracke, a pub that was John Lennon’s favourite drinking establishment when he was at art college. It’s another venue steeped in Beatles history. We arrive before the pub is open. I call the landlady, Zad, and she kindly lets us in. It’s a proper old-fashioned boozer which even has a mock blue plaque outside saying ‘John Lennon peed against this wall 47 times’. Love it! Zad shows us where to set up and we load in. It’ll be a little stand-up snare 'skiffle' set at this gig, no need for it to be too loud or full-on. We’re just gearing up for show time when, unfortunately, we realise something is wrong with the PA system. It’s only coming out in mono. We don’t have time to fix it though, the pub is filling up with punters. Many of whom we recognise. We decide to just go with it, it sounds fine and we can still put on a good show. We rock through a great set and the punters all love it, and so does the pub. We’ve filled their venue for them a couple of hours. Everyone’s happy. However, I’m getting a bit stressed though, the first time this weekend! The next gig we are due to play at The Grapes on Mathew Street have moved the goalposts of the time we were due to play. We pack up as quickly as we can to get over there and try to sort it out.
A short drive in the centre of the city and Richey and I walk down to The Grapes to try and ascertain what’s happening. The rest of the crew wait with the van. Richey and I arrive and try to speak to the landlady, her daughter says she will be down in a minute. We wait. We wait some more. Eventually, the landlady arrives. It appears she has double-booked us with a solo singer. It is a nice day so we were going to set up outside in the street but as the singer inside will be very loud (we have walked past a couple of times this weekend already) we soon realise that this just isn’t going to work. Reluctantly we decide to abandon this gig. It’s just not going to be practical. I call the crew in the van and everybody congregates outside the pub. We now have time to kill before our last gig of the weekend (the Cavern Pub) so we go for a nice band meal to relax.
After the meal we head to the Cavern Pub for our last gig of Beatleweek. The Cavern Pub is the sister venue of the Cavern Club, on the opposite side of the road on Mathew Street. It’s down a set of stairs again. We head in and again, the venue is packed. There’s a no-show from the band before though. Apparently, this rarely happens at Beatleweek so the soundman is a bit perplexed. It gives us a bit more time to set up though, so we get drinks in and do just that. When our time comes, we deliver another tight, energetic set and yet again, we spy many familiar faces in the crowd. It really has been an amazing 4 days. Great gigs, great people, great venues, great history. Just great! We head back to the van and ready ourselves for the long drive home.
Lucky