Can anyone get their head around the fact that just 13 months after playing to a small club of drunken Germans in Hamburg's red-light district, this group would then be playing to "a record busting" number of 70+ million Americans on live television. 13 months!
Three handsome guys, all around the same height and around the same age from the same neighborhood, each with a different-sounding voice from the others and capable of three-part harmony and talent up the yin-yang, too. What are the odds, man? Timothy Leary had it right, "The Beatles are mutants."
Roadrunner (Soundcheck) 1:03 The Hippy Hippy Shake 1:53 Shelia 3:55 Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey! 6:32 Shimmy Like Kate 9:01 Reminiscing 12:15 Red Sails In The Sunset 14:50 Sweet Little Sixteen 17:20 Roll Over Beethoven 21:13 A Taste of Honey 24:08 I Remember You 26:42 Ask Me Why 28:15 Bésame Mucho 30:34 Mr Moonlight 33:24 Falling In Love Again 35:45 I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You) 37:50 Long Tall Sally 39:36 Nothin’ Shakin’ 41:25 I Saw Her Standing There (Seventeen) 43:55 To Know Her Is To Love Her 47:27 Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby 51:03 Till There Was You 54:26 Where Have You Been All My Life? 57:06 Lend Me Your Comb 1:00:29 Your Feets Too Big 1:02:53 I’m Talking About You 1:05:21 A Taste of Honey (Second Performance) 1:08:18 Matchbox 1:11:20 Little Queenie 1:14:39 Be Bop a Lula 1:18:44 I Saw Her Standing There (Seventeen) (Second Performance) 1:21:42 Hallelujah, I Love Her So 1:25:16 Red Hot 1:27:50 I’m Talking About You (Second Performance) 1:29:17 Twist and Shout 1:31:18 A Taste of Honey (Third Performance) 1:33:24
6:37 Kansas city 9:01 Shimmy like kate 14:50 Red snails in the sunset 17:22 Sweet Little Sixteen 21:14 Roll over beethoven 24:10 A taste of honey 1:14:40 little qeeunie
John had such a phenomenal, perfect voice for rock n roll, esp in these early years. Just listen to when he sings! No disrespect towards Paul who could also scream like a motherfucker, there was just something to John, that undefinable "grain" or "grit" that just naturally came to his singing voice, sounds so great, it's very noticeable when it's John, and not John, and of course both Paul and George were good singers, well Paul was great, but NO ONE sounds like John used to...
Thanks for putting this together Stan. This is a great piece of music history. Interesting that you have pointed out the John and George guitar breaks. You can just tell that these lads were going to be massive. I just wish l was sitting at one of those tables with a scotch and coke watching them. Isn’t that a great early version of ‘ l Saw Her Standing There’. The early genius of McCartney is there for all to hear on this. Fabulous bass playing, with great vocals. For Beatles historians out there, this recording is over one year since Brian Epstein had become their manager in Nov1961. According to all the books written by Beatles’ experts,, Brian signed them, cleaned them up, put them in suits,, got them to stop swearing on stage and all the rest. This recording is one year later in Dec 1962. We can all hear John offering to fight with a mouthy member of the audience , Paul is also recorded saying f--off during one of his songs. Perhaps Epstein didn’t travel to Germany with them to keep an eye on things ? Go figure! Just found a letter that George Harrison sent home to Liverpool from Germany. Doesn’t look like he was enjoying The Beatles festive stint at The Star Club: “ Thanks for your letter, which l received just before Christmas. I hope you had a good one, or at least better than ours...We only have three more days to go , and then will be away from this place for good( l hope) “. 28 December 1962.
I like reading the reports from the Cavern faithful when they came back after the Star Club sojourns. Goes something like. "Shit they've really improved!"
@@wrekabyte I think you probably mean The Kaiserkeller. The Beatles did 3 stints in Hamburg: 1960 - The Indra & The Kaiserkeller, 1961 - The Top Ten & 1962 - The Star Club. By the time they played The Star Club they were a polished, well rehearsed & 'a professional act' who had a recording contract.
That's cos they didn't really want to be there, particularly George, who, as it turns out hated touring. They had a 'contractual obligation' to fulfill with The Star Club. The Beatles had already played there from April - June 1962, this was their third stint in Hamburg in as many years and they were probably "over it", if you know what I mean. Besides, by that time they were already signed to Parlophone and had released "Love Me Do" so were hankoring to promote that and do more recordings.
John: "You lost the war but seem to be having a good time". Hahahahahaaaa, Lennon! During Matchbox (John singing) "I ain't got no knickers but I got a long way to go". John was the driving force behind the Beatles ability to be confident on stage and ultimately with the media.
@@spockboy Yep, and he has more than one type of drumfill... can't believe people used to say he was riding on the coattails of the Beatles. He did put the "Beat" in Beatles
Just a few things to remember: Stewart Sutcliffe had died 8-months prior to this recording and Ringo joined the band 4-months prior to this recording. Even though these are wonderful photographs, it's a little misleading because this is the classic Beatles lineup John, Paul, George and Ringo
A labour of love. Thank you for doing all that hard work for us Stan. Even putting down the correct words/lyrics they sung, e.g. ''her naval drives me insane.'' Absolutely brilliant!
Little did these guys know that soon they were going to be the most famous people on earth. I was reading the wiki about this gig and seems the guy who recorded it got permission from John to do so in exchange for some beer.
In John's intro to "Where have you been all my life?" (56:48) I don't think he says "freeloader" and "covered". I do believe he was using words that, well, would be considered politically incorrect today. Just John being John. Listen carefully.
Thank you so much for taking the time to put this all together. I've heard these recordings many times, but never before have I felt like i was there, sitting in the audience that night. Your transcripts help to bring the show to life and give a great idea of how much The Beatles on stage and the audience were interacting and enjoying themselves.... Brilliant
Thanks, Stan. Just magnificent. John certainly wasn't kidding when he said that their best work was in Hamburg. Its also quite amazing to think that less than two decades earlier, the American and British Armies were liberating Europe and Germany from the yolk of Nazi horrors.
This is absolutely wonderful. Your work is a labor of love, and illuminates these recordings in a way I never imagined. Thank you so much. If only we had hundreds of photos from December 1962, when these tapes were made. But your selections are just great, regardless. Thank you again.
You don't know how grateful I am for all the work you did to make this video. My English is not very good (and I hardly know German) and I always wanted to know what the boys were chatting with the audience between songs. And thank you also for having put the lyrics of the songs!
CORRECTION for the caption "Prost (Cheers) the Star Club @ 1:10:10 John Lennon is softly singing to someone off of the mic, the words, "Everybody but me." Then Lennon kindly asks, "Alright?" to whomever he was singing it. Paul then says, "Prost, Mr. Sutcliffe." / George: Who? Who was it? (Prost means "Cheers") The song, "Everybody But Me" (written by Dave Burgess) was among Stuart's handwritten notes as carefully preserved with the song's lyrics by his sister in one of her books about Stuart Sutcliffe... a song The Beatles used to perform when there were five Beatles. It is most likely that Stuart sang lead on it, considering Paul's nod to Stuart after John sang it, possibly to Astrid and Kraus who would have been there for their final Hamburg appearance. (This section is heard more clearly on the cassette version of The Star Club Tapes which is where I first discovered what was being sung... and then said afterward.)
It's silly to say early Beatles was punk punk rock was just an immigration indeed a parody of rock n roll it had all beenndone before I remember my mum laughing when she saw the first punks in our area and saying when the Beatles grew their hair one inch over their collar it was a million times more radical than the arty trendy punk kids who had nothing original about them as by then society in the big cities where the punks were had become very open and accepting of difference all thanks to the Beatles generation to call the Beatles punk is an insult to their creativity
the first rock band of the world . And the greatest rock band of the world . the number one forever. the masters for every rock and punk and heavy style .
1:10:53--The photos by Astrid of Stuart, followed by of John: haunting. They segue into my absolute favorite track, Matchbox, done down and dirty. Not the highly polished studio album version done later. THIS is the Beatles that Lennon later lamented of selling out, this rocking blues wearing black leather jackets in Hamburg. Where would the lads be had they never met Astrid Kircherr, who piqued Stuart Sutcliffe's fancy? Alot less interesting, for sure. Her contribution to what made the Beatles what they were, will never be forgotten.
There are so many "had they never met" in the Beatle story that it seems magical and pre-ordained. Just think 'what would have happened' if they passed that Decca audition in January 1962? I'm glad I read your comment, it makes me remember those days.
I’ve been searching for the best audio version of the Beatles’ Star Club tapes, and I’ve found it here. The photos and transcript is the icing on the cake. Thank you Stan!
An enormous amount of work! Thank you. One can quibble here and there, but you nail 99% of this stuff--including a lot I'd never been able to understand (not speaking German definitely hurts in that respect). Really appreciated!
You can see where they got there magic from when they began writing. They had already performed these lovely songs which have really neat chord structures. All great composers played all sorts of music before they begin writing.
Without a doubt it’s Ringo vs Pete Best. Pete never got aggressive playing plus he always played with a straight loud bass drum kick on every downbeat.
Interesting to hear Mr. Moonlight here. They ended up digging that one back up for Beatles For Sale because they didn't have enough material of their own to fill out the album.
What An Emotionally And Hot Live It Is 😎 👍 I Know This Live Album 😁 I Knew This Live In 1982, Few Years Later I Bought This Live Album What It Was CD 😁 But Its CD's Track Listings Were All Shuffled🙄🤔 The Reason Was Unknown 🤔 Thanks To Upload 😀 Thank You So Much 🙇
i have the original vinyl release of 1977, for which they did a tremendous job of cleaning the bad quality recordings... but the strong ECHO, which was part of the Bass notes (low frequencies), still remained... ... and the sound was still rather messy... But THIS NEW remaster has been cleaned up at a much higher level, purified at last of that awful echo, and every instrument was re-equalized separately, so it seems... Is this a new CD available on the market? How can we get it? Thanks.
It’s a shame they had to be tamed in order to make it big. They were such a rockin and rollin band. But I guess Brian knew best since without him we never would have had the BEATLES!!
I think "tamed" is a bit excessive. All Brian did was change their attire and stop them from eating, smoking and swearing on stage. In every other way they remained as they were. The suits were actually a stroke of genius because they were not business suits, they were Mod suits, which was the breaking trend in European youth at time. Their snazzy suits were every bit as cutting edge as their Mod Parisian haircuts.
This is magnificent listening history! Thanks! I take it that all recording was from the Star-Club-which was their 3rd Hamburg club. First was India Club and 2nd was Top Ten Club. Love your Stewart S pics, but he died early April, ‘62 right before they arrived for their Star-Club gig. Your photos span all their Hamburg gigs not just the Star-Club; but in any case... they’re great.
Good stuff! However, it's a little misleading to be showing pictures of the older line up, no? This is McCartney, Lennon, Harrison & Starkey - and they are on FIRE!!!!
This season at the Star Club was a commitment made by Brian Epstein 1 year or so before. With the Beatles single Please Please Me topping the English charts he could have bought out the contract but felt it essential that they honor it to reassure future promotors.
Sehr interessant und durchaus geeignet für realistische Erinnerungen an Auftritte der Beatles im Hamburger Star-Club. Ich war zu der Zeit 17 - 18 Jahre alt. Hier zeigt sich dass auch die Beatles neben eigenen Songs viel gecovert hatten, aber auch sehr schnell dazu gelernt hatten.
george’s sheila number is too cute :) and those hecklers omg- john going back and forth w that one drunk was funny asl though + kansas city goes so fucking hard
1:28:50 To me, it sounds like "She's got a figure like Brian Epstein". For years, records had only part of the song Red Hot- it would end before this line, since it was initially claimed that the recordings were made before the Beatles' contract with EMI.
You are truly lucky - and good on you for getting the ticket and going! Too often we think we will see a band the next time round and sometimes that chance never comes. What do you remember most about the concert? I was born too late to see them unfortunately. Hope all well
LOL, I've read through all the comments and not ONE person has mentioned Stu "The Bod" Sutcliffe's modelling portfolio at 1:08:45. Part of me wonders why I'm seeing those for the first time and that those shots has never made into any documentary about the Beatle's early days. But then again I'm reminded of the bit from Anthology where Ringo talks about the Two Virgins cover and he goes "I said "Hey, you got the newspaper in the shot" and not "Hey, your dick is hanging out."" 😝
By this time the Beatles had released Love Me Do and were experiencing their first # 1 with Please Please Me. So this was a throwback for them, and must have been a constant party.
The raw, leather Beatles. This period was the crucible when the Beatles perfected their harmonies and playing - hours upon hours. Hanging out with Stu Sutcliffe, Astrid and Klaus. Pete Best trying his best (!), and the boys becoming real rock n rollers.