A visit to Liverpool brings Beatles fans back to their roots
LIVERPOOL, England -- They were just another boy band, a gaggle of teenagers with too much energy. They'd meet in the basement of a friend's suburban home, horsing around and playing guitar. One mischievously began carving his name on a wood wall board -- J-O-H -- before being smacked in the head by the friend's mom. He'd finish later, adding the final "N."
Graffiti etched by John Lennon is but one of the curiosities you'll see on tours of the Casbah Coffee Club where the band that became the Beatles got its start in 1959. The friend was former Beatles drummer Pete Best and the mom their first manager, Mona Best, who opened the coffeehouse to give the boys a place to play
Paul McCartney painted the ceiling of one room in a rainbow of colors using cans of leftover paint, says Roag Best, Pete's much younger brother and a Casbah tour guide. It was here, in a space so tiny you can extend your arms and touch both walls, that they set up their equipment.
They were the Quarrymen then, and they weren't very good.
But when the boys returned from Hamburg, Germany, where they played for hours night after night, the band had changed. Customers at the Casbah didn't expect much, says Best. In fact, they were annoyed that such a mediocre band, now called the Beatles, had been booked. But they played their first song and the mood shifted. As word spread, crowds began pouring into the club's Spiderweb room where Lennon scratched more graffiti on its red ceiling: "John -- I'm back."
Casbah to the Cavern
The Beatles drew as many as 1,500 people to the Casbah, dangerously crowding the basement and spilling onto the lawn. Mona Best booked them into larger dance halls around Liverpool and finally convinced the owners of the Cavern Club, who preferred jazz over the new rock sound, to give them a chance.
The Cavern was a teenage hangout in the basement of an old fruit warehouse. It was here that Brian Epstein first heard the Beatles and took over as their manager, putting them on the road to stardom.
From 1961 to 1963, the Beatles performed at the Cavern 292 times, earning just 5 British pounds (about $8) at the beginning. Crowds generated so much heat in the humid basement, which had no air conditioning, that condensation ran down the walls, shorting out the equipment.
