Sarah: Liverpool, England - Beatlemania!
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2007
1
67
80
Trip End
Dec 28, 2008
Liverpool,
England,
United Kingdom
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
It was really funny trying to understand the strong accent of Liverpudlian English - or Scouse, as they call it. There'd be people talking behind you on a bus or on a cell phone in a shop, and at first it sounded like a different language, but you'd catch the odd word and realise it was English they were speaking. Sometimes people would say something to us and we'd have to say, pardon? We love all the different regional accents around England, makes it more interesting! And (yes, Dad) the number of times we've both been called "lov." As in - can I get you a drink lov? Are you using this chair lov? How can I help lov? There you go lov. Very cute.
The next day was National Beatles' Day so we headed into town, me wearing Ray's Beatles wig that he had bought the day before but didn't want to wear. We expected to find the whole town going crazy, but there wasn't actually much on to our disappointment. There were a few groups of young guys busking to Beatles' covers, the front page of the local paper, The Liverpool Echo, was devoted to the Fab Four, and there were some tourists wearing the silly black wigs, but other than that, things were pretty quiet.
We went down to Matthew Street, home of The Cavern, where the Beatles were "discovered" by Brian Epstein, and they had a bit of a programme on for the day. The band played almost 300 gigs there before they got too famous for it. So we went down into the Cavern (how exciting!) - it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon and it was packed (this was a Thursday). There was guy playing Beatles' songs, and other classics, and it was just a great feeling, to be in this famous little bar, where the biggest rock n roll band of all time basically started. The Cavern (as its name suggests) is underground. It was an old storage warehouse, so it's totally bricked, with arches dividing the three "rooms." Man it was hot - no windows of course. Apparently, one time the Beatles were playing it was so packed and so hot, that the condensation from the walls dripped down and short-circuited their equipment! You could see how. We spent a couple of hours there, enjoying a drink and the songs and the atmosphere. There were people from aged 18 to 80 (no seriously, there were some really OLD birds), but everyone was just getting in to it, pretty cool. You wouldn't believe the acts that have played there over the years, OTHER than The Beatles, which you think would be good enough for anyone: The Who, The Rolling Stones, Queen, and, although he doesn't rate in the same stratosphere, Mr Rachael Hunter.
From there, we had to get across to the brand new Echo Arena for "Imagine - The Concert." It was a charity event with famous local bands, past and present, and all in honour of, yep, The Beatles. When you bought a ticket you got a wig with it, so 80% of the audience had the same hair style. There were people dressed up - two different groups of guys had obviously been to the same costume hire, and between them they made up the full Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band quartet. I was outside the tuck shop when they met up, and they were like - Hey! Don't we look great?! We should hang out together! Where are your seats? Oh bummer, other side of the stadium. Oh well, we do look good together don't we? See ya. Enjoy the show.
It was a great venue and it was packed. The show opened with The Dominoes, who were introduced as "the first rock'n'roll band in Liverpool." They began playing in pubs here in 1957. They rocked the house with Roll Over Beethoven. After their act, the MC said, "well, there's a whole bloody lot of bus passes here tonight ain't there?!" Yes, it was a bit of a Grey Power event! Still, it didn't matter that most of the bands got there either on bus passes or zimmerframes, it was cool to feel like you were touching a little bit of music history. By that I mean that they had The Quarrymen, the band that Paul McCartney and John Lennon first played in together at high school, The Searchers and The Swingin Blue Jeans (whom I'd never heard of, but they're on that great documentary series, The History of Rock'n'Roll, which we watched later). And there was Gerry and his Pacemaker, whom I HAD heard of, as he/they sang one of my all-time favourite songs - You'll Never Walk Alone. The song has become the anthem of the Liverpool football team, and so when they played that in The Cavern between sets, the whole pub joined in. Pretty special.
The concert also had several local young soloists, and they sang their own songs - some great talents and beautiful voices. One female pianist played and sang Blackbird, which I really love, and has recently been covered beautifully by Sarah McLachlan. So the night was a great mixture of old and young, old and new. It's pretty neat to be in stadium full of people singing Let It Be - what an amazing feeling. Or raising the roof with the finale, Hey Jude. A very cool night. Oh I nearly forgot! There was one old guy who came on to join the backing band in a maroon suit. He looked like that cool old geezer from Waking Ned Devine (no he didn't come in naked on a motorbike). The MC introduced him by saying he was the oldest person he knew who could still do the splits. I thought, nice story. OK. So he starts singing, and soon enough he's literally throwing his legs up in the air doing all this Kung Fu shit and then he jumps up and falls into the splits. I could feel the pain from the back row! We're like - geez, please, get up! What a dude. He probably had the least hair, the fewest teeth, and the most energy of anyone on stage that night. But I couldn't tell you what he sang!
So Beatles Day started off a bit lame but turned out to be extremely cool.
