It Was A Cess Pit, But We Loved It' – A Former Owner Remembers Liverpool's Cavern Club

We’ve all dreamt of being in The Cavern Club with The Beatles twisting, shouting and mop-wobbling the place into a Cilla-quivering frenzy, but only the more imaginative business studies student has ever dreamed of what it might be like to run the club after they’d graduated to Shea Stadium. Until now. A new book, 'Cavern Club: The Inside Story', tells the story of Debbie Greenberg, a Beatles-era Cavern regular whose family bought the legendary club in 1966, nursed it into a second golden era and who wants to set the record straight on why the original Cavern was demolished in 1973.

What was it like being at The Cavern in the ’50s?

“When I first started to go there, there was quite a bit of jazz being played, then it moved into a bit of skiffle and they very slowly started to introduce rock’n’roll, which the owners of the club were against at the time. But of course the kids went wild when they played rock’n’roll so gradually the rock’n’roll took over. It made for a very different vibe, it was vibrant and exciting. Every time, you got that tingle, your feet started to tap and you couldn’t wait to get down into the cellar and take part in it. It was addictive, we couldn’t get enough of it. It was smelly because they didn’t have any drains, it was just a cess pit, but once you were inside you forgot about it.”

Did you see the first Beatles gig there?

“Absolutely. It was exciting, a new group and we’d never heard them before and their music was amazing. We couldn’t wait to see them again, they were fabulous. About 1962, after The Beatles had come back from Hamburg the second time, that really changed everything because their whole appearance and the way they played, their whole vibe was infectious. The Beatles were raunchy and sexy and in black leather, they were different somehow, they were more professional when they came back from Hamburg. One of my favourites was ‘When I Saw Her Standing There’, that really got the joint jumping, and the normal ones like ‘Twist And Shout’ and ‘Boys’, that was another very popular one at the Cavern. We used to do the Cavern Stomp to it.”

That was the in-house dance move?

“I don’t know how it originated but everybody did it. It was like an inverted jive, a peculiar dance.”

What were the most memorable of The Beatles’ 292 performances at the Cavern?

“The one performance that stands out for me is their last performance in August of ’63, when they had ‘Please Please Me’ in the charts. The Cavern was absolutely packed, you couldn’t move, but the atmosphere was tremendous. But they were magical at every single performance, the minute you got down into the club the beats were pounding off the walls, you couldn’t wait to get in. The Beatles were polished, they were really excellent and of course Gerry & The Pacemakers were another very good group that often accompanied The Beatles – it didn’t matter who was on, they all had that Merseybeat sound, just some had the edge on others, and of course The Beatles did.”

When they stopped playing the Cavern, the Cavern closed just a few years later – had the buzz died?

“It changed slightly. All the Liverpool groups still appeared at the Cavern, the only ingredient missing was The Beatles, which to us at the time was the main ingredient. But we still frequented the club and went to see all the Liverpool groups, who were absolutely amazing. Of course we missed them, they were ours and they’d gone.”