International Beatleweek Day Two
International Beatleweek Day Two - Sat 26th August 2023.
Day two starts with Finn making flatbread ‘pizzas’ in the kitchen for breakfast. Great culinary skills and an excellent way to start the day. Until Ted takes a shower in his room above the kitchen that is, and it exposes a massive leak in the ceiling as water pours through. Yep, our accommodation, the gift that keeps on giving.
No time to hang around though, we’re soon on the road to our first gig of 4 today. We’re playing a little set at St Peters Church Hall in Woolton, where John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met on 6th July 1957. We arrive at the hall in good time and are greeted by the lovely Donna, who manages the hall. She shows us where it’s best to set up. A few feet away from the marked area showing exactly the spot where John and Paul sat on that fateful day (they know this because several eyewitnesses to the event have shown them). There are coachloads of people coming this morning on Beatles tours and they are on a time limit, so we set up as quickly as we can. We’re ready to go when we look up and the first coach load of people are heading out across the road to see the grave of Eleanor Rigby. We’re on a time limit as well, so we must just start. It’s at this point that the hall fills up nicely with the second coachload of people. Fantastic. Great timing. We play a short set (to protect Rusty’s voice and save time), which goes down very well. Everyone is surprised to see a band playing, so they take to us very kindly. We pose for photographs on the spot where John and Paul met before packing up and heading off to gig number 2 of the day.
Gig 2 is at the inimitable Strawberry Field, just around the corner from St Peters Church Hall. As immortalised in the Beatles song “Strawberry Fields Forever” the former children’s home is now a thriving cultural venue. We arrive and are greeted by the lovely manager Allister, who says he’s not sure where it’s best for us to play. They have a purpose-built outdoor stage, but because of noise complaints, they are not allowed any more than 8 events on there per year. So, that’s out. He says we can play outside, but that would involve a seriously long walk to bring the equipment in. We settle on a semi-acoustic ‘skiffle’ set in the café. This is where most people will be milling around anyway. That suits us. When the time comes, we burst into our set with full aplomb. Being totally acoustic and wireless means Rusty and I can run around the café singing and playing to the entire audience. It’s great fun. There are a few people here who have followed us after seeing us at The Cavern yesterday, which is lovely to see. The whole café has enjoyed our performance immensely. Great stuff. We settle down to have something to eat before we head off to gig number 3. We’re in the middle of enjoying our food when Allister taps me on the shoulder and says “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s someone here who’d like to meet you” I turn around to see that it’s Julia Baird, John Lennon’s sister. She enjoyed our music and wanted to say hello. How lovely. We have a chat and pose for some photographs. It was wonderful to meet her.
Before long we’re back on the road to our third gig of the day. This time we’re playing the front stage at the Cavern Club. This is the stage that is a replica of the original Cavern with the arches, allegedly built with bricks from the original venue. It’s very iconic and the backdrop is amazing. It’s absolutely packed to the rafters when we arrive, so we fight our way to the stage and joke with compere Steve about how we’re early this time! We set up in record time (we’re getting good at this) and take on-stage selfies as this is such a cool experience. We then launch into our set. Some of our more ‘obscure’ tracks like “I’m Gonna Knock On Your Door” by The Pete Best Four go down great. In the crush to get off the stage afterwards, so many people tell us they’re enjoying hearing different songs from us. We also meet lots of other musicians from around the world. The place is literally buzzing. Hot and buzzing. It’s a whirlwind for us. We’re loving every second of it.
Next up, we head to the Casbah Club. I’m particularly looking forward to this gig. Everybody knows about the Cavern, but the Casbah is where it truly started all for the Beatles, the first place they ever played a gig under that name. They even helped decorate the club and it is still exactly as it was all those years ago. We are supporting former Beatles drummer Pete Best & his band. The club had been started by Pete Best’s mum Mona in 1959 and what makes it even more special for us is that not every band gets to play there. Best Fest only happens once a year.
We arrive and drive straight in, next to the entrance. We’re duly met by stage manager, the lovely Luna, who guides us to the area where we are to get ready to take the stage. There’s an acoustic duo on stage at the moment (the excellent Fab Twins) so we pop down the steps and have a little look while we’re getting ready. The venue is in the cellar of a large Victorian house, and it is absolutely heaving. This is going to be superb. Our time comes and we head down, squeeze through the crowd and set about setting up. It’s just a ‘plug in and go’ gig so Finn does his best to get everyone plugged in and heard, including our special guest, Scott Gosar. He’s from Reno, Nevada and has written a song called “By Kind Permission Of Mrs Best”, which I have played on my Lucky’s Lost Beatles radio show. He told me he was coming over to go Best Fest so I had suggested to him that The TR5’s would learn the song and play it with him at the Casbah Club. It is a song all about Pete Best’s mum Mona and very relevant to the venue we are playing in. Scott is overjoyed by this fact.
Having set up we get going straight into Scott’s song. It goes down really well, and Scott receives rapturous applause. Deservedly so, to play the song in the venue of the family it is written about is very special. Scott then vacates the stage, and we continue our normal set. The sweat is literally pouring off everybody in the place and the atmosphere is absolutely buzzing. We go down a storm and are joined by another friend Rory for the last few numbers playing harmonica. He’s pretty good at it. An honour for him to play with us and an honour for him to play at the Casbah Club. With our hour-long set whizzing by way too fast we depart the stage and head outside for some fresh air. We mingle with people from all over the world and, as this was our last gig of the day, we relax with drinks bought by Scott and plenty of banter. It’s been an awesome day 2 of our gigs at Beatleweek in Liverpool. However, the heavens open and we decide to depart before the end of the evening. Another long day is ahead of us tomorrow.
Lucky