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By OCB
#1884475
I guess most have seen that Peter Jackson, the cinematic genius behind “Meet the Feebles”, and some other more obscure Tolkienish and remastered WWI stuff is releasing some content based on 60 hours of filmed time with the Beatles, that was locked away in a vault for about 50 years as they put together their last album.

They are a generation before my time - and TBH neither my parents or myself are/were huge Beatles fans - but when I hear the likes of Paul Gambaccini get so excited about this film, I sit up and listen.

I’d be curious to hear from those who were there BITD what they thought of the whole Beatles thing, and also - once you get the chance to watch the film, how much of it feels like a “long forgotten/distant place”?
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1884488
OCB wrote:I guess most have seen that Peter Jackson, the cinematic genius behind “Meet the Feebles”, and some other more obscure Tolkienish and remastered WWI stuff is releasing some content based on 60 hours of filmed time with the Beatles, that was locked away in a vault for about 50 years as they put together their last album.

They are a generation before my time - and TBH neither my parents or myself are/were huge Beatles fans - but when I hear the likes of Paul Gambaccini get so excited about this film, I sit up and listen.

I’d be curious to hear from those who were there BITD what they thought of the whole Beatles thing, and also - once you get the chance to watch the film, how much of it feels like a “long forgotten/distant place”?


I was (still am) a massive Beatles fan: they were exactly my generation:

I remember belting home from school on my bike when the rumour went out that this odd mop-haired lot from Liverpool were going to appear on Blue Peter .

I queued around the block with my girlfriend (now my wife of 53 years) for concert tickets at the Regent in Cambridge in 1963, though we could hear bugger-all above the screaming. IIRC Either Gene Pitney or Jackie de Shannon were support act.

I bought every single 6/8d 45 the day they came out and every LP (vinyl).
Though some LPs have been lost, a couple of years ago I dug out my Hacker GP15 record player and had a nostalgic crackly afternoon of Beatles: Yep I'd say I'm a fan.
Image
Looking forward to seeing some of the Jackson stuff.
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#1884497
It certainly does feel like a distant place.
It's hard now to realise truly just how good the Beatles were, and how new and fresh. At the time "She Loves You" was stupendous. I still have various early 45s. Must dig them out.
But a lot of the singles are still played so much that they are just present in your mind. So we don't remember them in context, which is a shame.
The way to get a bit of an understanding of how great they were is to listen to the LPs in their entirety (no cherry picking the tracks!) in order one after the other and consider that they were made over a period of less than ten years or thereabouts.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1884502
Sergeant Pepper vinyl on Hacker GP15 (21st birthday present-you do the math) in mono with a large glass of something red is a seriously nostalgic moment.
( yep I’ve got ‘em all on CD / stereo/remastered but it’s just not the same)

Softy or what?

Yeah :lol:
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By PeteSpencer
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#1884514
lobstaboy wrote:The way to get a bit of an understanding of how great they were is to listen to the LPs in their entirety (no cherry picking the tracks!) in order one after the other and consider that they were made over a period of less than ten years or thereabouts.
.

It’s interesting that both Ed Sheeran has noted on his CD ‘Equals’ and Adele ( who has actually got Spotify to disable‘shuffle’ for her CD ‘30’ ) that both feel that the ease of ‘shuffling’ now on iStuff (other gadgets are available) has actually interfered with the authors' desire that punters should follow the ‘story ‘ of their works in time order . :wink:
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#1884515
There are a few groups/performers whose longevity out lives most of their competitors. Even after they stop performing their creations remain popular. The Beatles are one such group, probably near the top. I often wonder how many of today’s younger generations hear tunes written by Lennon/McCartney played instrumentally, often by classical orchestras, and recognise their source. Yesterday is a very good example.

You didn’t have to be alive during their heyday to enjoy their amazing output today. It is still all around us. That is pretty special.

PW

Edited for typo to avoid Bill claiming royalties to which he isn’t entitled. :lol:
Last edited by Propwash on Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
#1884526
Jim Jones wrote:I was just too young to go to the original Cavern, but they were big in Liverpool first.


Regrettably I wasn't too young. Actually I was, I think you were supposed to be 16+, but the screening wasn't too rigorous. Remember, The Cavern wasn't licenced so the age limit was more about what we'd now call child protection, than legality. It was harder for underage girls to get in*, but depending on who was on the door all things were possible. There were three key venues back then, The Cavern, The Iron Door and The Peppermint Lounge. I always preferred The Iron Door, they seemed to get better groups. But the Cavern's lunchtime sessions could be attended from school, blazer in your duffel bag, plastic 'leather' jacket worn instead. The all nighters at The Cavern weren't as good as we told anyone who hadn't been there, wishing they could get out at 3:30am. The doors were locked, nobody out until 6am. What fire precautions?

The Beatles were big in Liverpool, but by no means acknowledged as the biggest. There were factions for most of the local bands. For myself I always held that the Mojos were streets ahead of anyone else (What became of them?) A couple of The Fourmost attended my school. And besides which, the music in the clubs was pretty secondary, it was just the soundtrack to getting off with as many 'judies' as possible. The Beatles were OK, but not really seen as anything special.

But as their national and international star rose we very soon switched to being fervent Beatles fans, as suddenly it was Liverpool against the world, and leading the world.

Before then there was Cliff, and there was Adam, and there was Tommy Steele. Real pop music came from the US and Britain was second rate. All Liverpool boasted was a crooner called Frankie Vaughan.

Then Beatlemania started and we hardly saw the Beatles again, the odd gig at The Empire is all I can recall. But the whole Merseybeat thing took off and the down-at-heel city's pride knew no bounds. What made it even better was that arch-enemy, Manchester, could only manage Freddie & The Dreamers and Herman's Hermits. Oh how we laughed! :lol:

If you have ever seen the film The Boat That Rocked it really was exactly as portrayed. Before The Mersey Sound the whole of life in Britain was a dreary monochrome. Then suddenly, first with the Mersey Sound and later with psychedelia which the Beatles blazed a trail for, everything was brilliant colour.

I went to an ATC camp at Swinderby just as Please Please Me and Twist and Shout were dominating the hit parade (Then-speak for the music charts). We went to a dance in Lincoln. Girls down one side of the lifeless dance hall, swede bashers down the other side. The word soon spread that the small (outnumbered) group of lads were from Liverpool. The girls were the first to take an interest. Of course we all knew the Beatles, they were round our house all the times, Jimmy Gaunt had helped Paul McCartney master the guitar and taught him all he knew ... etc etc..

The Swede bashers took an interest later and we had to leg it into the town pursued by a vengeful mob. They hadn't liked us monopolising the girls they had been lusting after from the opposite wall. As we were heading for the bus to take us back to camp we stumbled across a couple of the Lincoln lads who had become separated. It wasn't pretty.

It was a truly great time to be a scouser. Like most years :wink:

Rob P

*Well it wasn't, but that's probably better glossed over; some of the doormen are probably still around and Operation Yewtree ...
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1884550
Along with others they changed the face of popular music, but they also changed radically themselves and influenced others for good or ill.....Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds for example relates to LSD and its use....and the drug scene certainly grew in 1960s and 70s....

We used to use George Harrison's house at Henley as a VRP for White Waltham too :-)
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1884551
seanxair wrote:One or two catchy tunes that stick in the mind but thought they were pretty overrated generally. :)


Fortunately not everyone agreed with you !
Wiki gives ten out of the 15 top selling albums of 1960s as Beatles albums……. :wink:

Sgt Pepper was top seller for many years till Thriller came along and knocked it off its perch :roll:
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By BobD
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1884561
It was a truly great time to be a scouser. Like most years :wink:


I was 15 in 1966, a truly momentus year on both a national and personal level. Both my wife and my sister were a couple of years older than me, and therefore more involved in the local club scene than me , and were frequent visitors to the Cavern. I only went there a couple of times, and couldn't understand why it was so popular, it was dark, smelly, and the condensation
ran down the walls to fom puddles on the floor ! Once I started Clubbing, it was to the more sophisticated (!) Babalou, Beachcomber or Uglys :lol:
All of us Scousers though were aware of the music revolution occurring on our doorstep. I remember my sisters excitement when the Beatles made one of their first TV appearances on Granada TV, which we watched on our grainny set in our terraced house in Everton, knocked down in the following year to become the park. 66 was the year of my first flight in a Hastings whilst at annual ATC camp at RAF Lyndholme, soon to be followed by fantastic gliding experiences at RAF Sealand, and powered flights in Chippes at other camps.

I am so grateful to have been a teenager in the 60's, the best decade the world has known, which gave us the best music, from the greatest city on Earth. 8)
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#1884566
@BobD

Ah... The Beachie :thumleft:

You and I must have rubbed shoulders many times.

Rob P

Let's not forget the Yoruba Social Club on Upper Parliament St. Often we were the only white faces there, and yet totally welcomed.
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