It's coming up to 60 years since a "little known" band from Liverpool called the Beatles first performed a gig in Nottingham. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr played at the Elizabethan Ballroom, above what used to be the Co-op in Upper Parliament Street.
It was Thursday, March 7, 1963, before the Fab Four went on to become the world's best-selling artists with record sales of more than 290 million. One man who was there to witness a moment in history was Bob White.
Bob bought the very first ticket to go on sale at a cost of 6/6d (35p) - and that included a buffet. "I'm not sure how many people attended but the venue was by no means full," said Bob, who was a civil servant at the Land Registry at the time. "Neither the audience nor musicians had any idea they were witnessing the birth of the Merseybeat phenomenon."
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"Most of the audience probably initially went along to the gig out of curiosity and with an awareness that Merseybeat had an exciting, fresh sound. For me, it was John Lennon’s haunting harmonica intro to Love Me Do and the Beatles’ distinctive harmonies that encouraged me to spend 6/6d on a ticket to find out just what the Liverpool beat scene was all about.
"Having convinced a work colleague, Alan Benjamin, that the Beatles might be a band worth seeing, I went along to Kent and Cooper’s music shop at the top of Market Street to buy a couple of tickets and was surprised to find that they were the first they had sold – and were numbered 1 and 2."
The 'rock 'n' dance concert dance' as it was billed was organised by a regional sales rep for Princes Foods, Bob Sturgeon. Bob White said: "He fancied himself as a bit of a promoter and when he first heard the Beatles’ Love Me Do, he decided to see if he could put the band on at the Elizabethan Ballroom.
"He had the gift of the gab and managed to get directly in touch with Brian Epstein, who surprisingly agreed a 50/50 split of the ticket money, providing he could also bring along three other Liverpool bands that he had just taken over - Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas and The Big Three."
Bob Wooler, the DJ at the iconic Cavern Club, is believed to have organised the package for Epstein and he also arranged for a coach load of fans from the Cavern, including the then unknown Priscilla White, aka Cilla Black to come down to Nottingham for support.
Selling advance tickets had been hard as many music fans were still unaware of the Mersey sound. Compere for the night was Keith Gordon, a teacher at Ellis School, who played in local bands. As a friend of Bob Sturgeon he agreed to do it as a favour.
Radio Nottingham’s gardening presenter, Stuart Dixon, who worked in the display department of the Co-op at the time, operated the lift that took the equipment up to the ballroom and the Beatles, although he had no idea who they were. Although they had reached number one with Please Please Me they were still unloading and setting up their own equipment.
All the acts appeared on a comparatively small 12-inch high platform stage, with no curtains or backdrop, and the artists were divided from the audience by only a single rope barrier. Fan club application forms were being handed out on the night and Keith Gordon managed to get all the members of the Beatles to sign their autographs on the back of one.
Bob, 79, of Mapperley, recalled: "All the acts got a polite, enthusiastic reception from the audience, with perhaps a more significant reaction for the Beatles, because they had their first single entry Love Me Do making its entry lower down the charts.
"I personally recall very little screaming except for the occasional female fan and you could certainly hear the songs very clearly." However, one girl in the audience was told "shut up you silly cow" by Lennon when she screamed. "An ironic comment, when you consider just how significant screaming would later become when Beatlemania really took hold," said Bob.
"No one at that time had any idea of just what a global musical phenomenon they were witnessing and that they would become legendary icons of popular music history. It was, of course, very early in the Beatles' rise to fame and the band themselves had publicly stated that they expected they might only last a couple of hit records if they were lucky."
Musicians from local bands went along that night. Richard 'Rocky' Wheatley (Tony and the Varitones), Alvin Lee (Jaybirds/Ten Years After) and Mick Franks (drummer with the Rocking Vulcans/Sons and Lovers) were there. Mick's ticket was numbered 1265 although there was nowhere near that number in the crowd. "The Elizabethan Ballroom had a capacity of around 300 but there were not that many at the gig because few people had heard of the band," said Bob.
Also in the audience were schoolgirls Mary Smith and her friend Ann Smith. They desperately wanted to go to the concert so Mary's mother used the event as an opportunity to try to convince her daughter to give up sugar. She bribed Mary with the offer of two tickets if she stopped eating as much sweet stuff.
Brian Stanley, who was in charge of the Co-op record department in the store's basement, remembered how vibrant the group scene was in Nottingham at that time. “There were bands appearing regularly at pubs and clubs all around the city with plenty of choice for a good night out and the opportunity to dance, so although the four Merseyside groups on the bill were obviously good, at the time they didn’t seem that special!” he said.
It was a different story a few months later after the Fab Four's meteoric rise to stardom. When they returned to Nottingham to play two gigs at the Odeon cinema in Angel Row on the Roy Orbison tour, police and security staff struggled to prevent screaming fans storming the stage.
Bob, who was head of corporate affairs and public relations at Nottingham City Council when he retired 23 years ago, kept his No. 1 ticket in a scrapbook for many years until the 1990s when he sold it to a dealer for £100. He believes it ended up in the USA. "The £100 helped towards a family holiday in Llandudno. I wonder how much it would be worth today?" he said.
* The March 7 gig features in a new book, with Bob putting the author in touch with people who had attended. The Beatles 1963: A Year in the Life by music journalist and author Dafydd Rees recounts not just at a pivotal year in the band's development but a diverse collection of memoirs and anecdotes from fans, musicians, policemen, security and hotel staff and members of the public from all walks of life.
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