The Beatle Who Got Away

On August 17, 1960, five young Britons were approaching the stage of a small night club in Hamburg, about to play music in that city for the first time. To reach the stage, they had come an almost unimaginable distance. From their home, in Liverpool, they had driven in a cream-and-green minibus to the port of Harwich. The bus, teetering under the weight of amplifiers and instruments, had been lifted onto a ferry by a crane. At first, the stevedores had refused to handle such a precarious load; a photograph captured the moment just after they changed their minds, with the sixties hanging in the balance.

The Beatles beginning their takeoff, August 16, 1960; at far left, a bespectacled John Lennon.Photograph by Barry Chang

The musicians slept on benches as the ferry churned across the North Sea toward the Hook of Holland. From there, they drove to the West German border, where they told officials that they were students, bringing their guitars for “sing-songs” with friends. They were young enough to encourage the ruse—during the long ride, their manager had recited “The Wind in the Willows” to entertain them. Four of the five were teen-agers: John Lennon, nineteen; Paul McCartney and Pete Best, eighteen; George Harrison, seventeen. The fifth, Stuart Sutcliffe, was twenty, barely.

But they were growing up fast, and the road offered its own form of instruction. Entering a roundabout, they turned in the wrong direction, and found a gigantic truck bearing down on them. When the bus’s tires became caught in streetcar tracks, its passengers avoided colliding with a tram, but only at the last second. Finally, as they pulled into Hamburg, they rammed into a car.

Eventually, the minibus found its way to the Reeperbahn, the main avenue of Hamburg’s sin district, then turned into Grosse Freiheit, a small street named after the “great freedom” offered by a local count, around 1610, when he established a set of economic and religious reforms. The band set up their gear in a tiny club, at No. 64, that offered a “daily international program” with lingerie shows. Its marquee included a name, Indra, that came from a Hindu deity, a friend to weary travellers and poets. That seemed appropriate. John Lennon took out a pen and crossed out the word “Silver” from the band’s name. From now on, they were simply Beatles.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/ZeJuj5t