Sweet Dream (Baby)

I consider myself quite lucky when it comes to being a musician. I’ve gotten to actually play in some of the venues I’ve read about as a Beatle fan. The first time I played at a Beatle convention, it was in Liverpool, with the first venue being The Blue Angel club. I’d read about it in Allan Williams’ book, The Man Who Gave the Beatles Away. More on that in a bit, but first some background on the Convention itself. When I played at this particular gathering, it hadn’t got too big yet; it wasn’t too corporate – in short it was a REAL gathering of people who loved all aspects of the Beatles. People who were happy just chatting in groups late into the night in the hotel bars, whilst others provided unplanned, off the cuff acoustic sessions as everyone basked in a Beatle glow in Liverpool.
What could be better than that?
When our band arrived at the convention, we were lucky enough to be able to rehearse in the Cavern for two afternoons on the trot! That just wouldn’t happen now as there would be groups playing wall to wall and noon till midnight in there! I have some great home movies from those sessions and I still can’t quite believe we did that as generally, rehearsals are off limits to the paying public, for obvious reasons! For example, we might be just running through some songs or goofing around on stuff we’d never play and hey, that is what rehearsals are for. But, we kept wondering why all these people kept turning up, sitting down, having a quick drink and heading off! Of course, unbeknownst to us, the Cavern had slapped a poster outside saying “TODAY, LIVE ENTERTAINMENT ALL AFTERNOON”!!!! Talk about taking a free slug whilst you’re not looking! I always tended to think that the people who were watching those rehearsals must have thought that we were just rubbish, because we kept on playing the same song over and over again! But, looking back, it was off the cuff, relaxed and, like any band, we tended to raise our game a bit when people came in, so in some ways, it actually helped our cause. We were rehearsing because they were our first gigs, both in front of a Beatle crowd and in Liverpool, so we were keen to make the right impression. For us, what made it special was the fact that we were going to play in some of the original venues that the boys had played in, so we didn’t quite know what to expect, but one thing’s for sure, it was a mixture of excitement and straightforward fear to put it politely!

Another thing about that first time was that we had been assigned a crew of roadies and our own transport. We had brought all of our own equipment so that we did need transport to get around town. What we didn’t bargain on was that some of that gear would get used elsewhere…like the morning I woke up after a late night, bleary eyed, hearing the live sounds of Get Back full on LIVE and blaring down the street being played on the balcony of the hotel RIGHT next to our bedrooms! I went to check on my guitar and noticed that not only were our amps were missing, but so were our crew! The penny dropped of course when one of them came in to wake us all up and said “have you heard this band -they’re great!” I said, “Where are the amps?” He just laughed and headed back to the balcony! Putting two and two together I went out to see the band from behind the “stage” – sure enough there were our amps being used to blow half of Liverpool down!
Anyway, back to the Blue Angel…we got in to this dark, cold and grimy and cellar and couldn’t believe that this was where the Beatles had done that audition for Larry Parnes and here we were about to play similar kinds of songs on the very same stage! That was a big WOW for us and trust me, it is a memory which will live with me until I pop my clogs, I promise you. As the crowds began to come in, some unexpected guests arrived. I just couldn’t believe it – none other than Allan Williams himself with his mate Tony Jackson of the Searchers…Now we’re beginning to get nervous…of course we channelled this into the performance, which went like a DREAM. The crowd were really enthusiastic and were out to have a great time. This just fed the band which in turn fed the crowd – yada, yada, yada! At the end of the first half we were astonished that both Tony and Allan had come up on stage with us…For the record, Allan told a few rude stories about the Beatles whilst Tony did Sweets For My Sweet…we were really made up! For myself, I had gone from reading Allan’s book and being totally inspired by it as a kid, to standing on stage with him. It still amazes me that. Yes, no doubt about it, the big fan gatherings of today just can’t compete with that type of thing in my opinion. As I said, this was a fairly small, concentrated amount of people all into the same thing and all wanting to have the time of their lives – which, incidentally it seemed to me - they did! Today some of these festivals are SO out of control because there are so many people and something is lost because of it. It’s like a victim of its own success, not in fact unlike the subject they choose to have a convention about. The convention I am talking about had no more than a few thousand people throughout the week…which granted sounds does like a lot, but it didn’t seem that way, because they weren’t all there at the same time! In later years it’s not been unknown for up to 250, 000 (and beyond) to have turned up at some of these giant street gatherings which in my opinion have long diluted the whole point of the Beatles convention in Liverpool. I’ve played both the huge ones and the small ones. There can be no doubt in my mind that the smaller, concentrated, slightly quieter fan gatherings are best. I’m still in contact today with some of the people I met then, which gives an indication of the fairly intimate nature of the gatherings of the hard core fans who stayed in the same hotels as the bands who were there to entertain them. Some of those later festivals just seemed faceless to me, plastic and official, with all of the oomph taken out of it. I’ve only scratched the surface of that convention here and at some point I’ll probably come back to it because it truly was life changing stuff and my memory of it can only continue to bring a warm and contented glow every time it comes to my mind.