The stuff of legend
THE curtain finally came down on the Odeon in Hall Gate earlier this month - but a new book records the three dates the Fab Four took the old Doncaster cinema by storm back in 1963 as Beatlemania was gripping Britain.
Legends On Tour - The Pop Package Tours Of The 1960s - features interviews with 21 pop stars of the period, including Helen Shapiro who topped the bill on the mop tops' first tour of Britain in that long and bitter winter of 1963.
Doncaster was the second date on that tour and it was a time of great excitement for the band. Their second single, Please Please Me, had been released on January 11 and was on its way to number one in several UK charts by the time The Beatles reached the Gaumont on Tuesday February 5.
Although young Helen, a veteran chart star by then, was topping the bill, The Beatles, with their unusual haircuts, were already getting plenty of attention.
Helen told Legends author Martin Creasy of how The Beatles led singalong sessions on the tour bus as they enjoyed the freedom of their first tour before all the craziness started.
"The Beatles would be strumming away and sometimes I would take the lead, with them harmonising, and sometimes other people would be singing. They used to sing all sorts.
"They introduced us to all that Motown stuff, but I remember them doing Beach Boys songs on the bus. They used to love the Beach Boys back then."
Helen confessed she had a crush on John, but like all the other Beatle obssessed teenage girls, she had no idea that he was already married! Helen clearly remembers John pulling faces at people out of the bus window.
On stage, the screaming hadn't really started yet.
"It sort of gradually built up really," said Helen. "After Please Please Me hit the charts, that's what started things. It wasn't out of hand yet - Beatlemania hadn't started. There was screaming for the Beatles, but they weren't screaming over them, during the songs. They would finish a number and that's when they screamed.
"I was still pulling in my fans and they were pulling in theirs."
The four songs the Beatles performed on that historic night were favourites from their Cavern set list. Three - Chains, A Taste Of Honey and Please Please Me - were songs from their debut album, and the fourth was Keep Your Hands Off My Baby, a song they only ever recorded for the radio.
Doncaster was quite privileged. There were only 14 dates on this tour and only Please Please Me survived to be a regular song in their performances after that.
Doncaster teens who missed that early show didn't have long to wait for another chance to see The Beatles. They were back at the Gaumont just a few weeks later, on Friday March 22, 1963, when they were touring with American stars Tommy Roe and Chris Montez.
The group's third single, From Me To You, would race up the charts in just a few weeks' time, but the reaction to Please Please Me had already shifted the spotlight away from Montez and Roe and squarely on to The Beatles, who closed the show in Doncaster.
By the time the Fabs made their third appearance on Tuesday December 10, 1963, She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand had blitzed all comers and Britain had well and truly succumbed to Beatle fever.
Elaborate decoy car routines were having to be deployed in order to smuggle The Beatles into and out of venues, but the screaming teens always seemed to be one step ahead.
In an interview in their Gaumont dressing room that night, the Fabs chatted with Dibbs Mather for a radio broadcast and George was understating things when he said that they had lost their privacy, but didn't mind too much. It was part of the territory now.
John, meanwhile, gave a sneak preview of one of his poems that was to make its way into his book In His Own Write.
After wowing the 2,000 kids at this show with 10 songs, including She Loves You, All My Loving and show-closer Twist and Shout, The Beatles stayed that night at the town's Regent Hotel.
Legends On Tour includes a chapter featuring all of the group's six UK tours and also features seven tours between 1965 and the end of 1967 of top British and American pop stars.
One of the tours is the 1967 package that put together The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens, Engelbert Humperdinck and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Mr Creasy said: "What a crazy tour that was. It could only happen in the 1960s! In fact, we will never see the like of these tours again when four or five chart acts would follow each other on to the stage of humble cinemas and small concert venues the length and breadth of Britain.
"The fans remember just how innocent it all was. If you got there early enough you might even get to chat with your favourite star before the show. And the outlay for all this - just a few shillings!"
* Legends On Tour, published by The History Press at 16.99, is available from all good book shops and widely on the internet.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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