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THE BEATLECONQUERE

THE WORL

NEARLY HA

CENTURY AG

THEIR LEGA

LIVES INLIVERPOO

BY ANA BAR



THE BEATLES

THE BEATLESGeorge Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and

Paul McCartney (from left)

ALKING THE COBBLESTONE ALLEYWAYS OF LIVERPOOL, I AM SEIZED BY THE NOTION THAT IF ENGLAND werethe old Soviet Union, Liverpool would be renamed Beatlegrad. Everywhere you look, there they are.Hanging in ramed photos on pub walls. Dashing through crowds o screaming girls in newsreelootage at a museum dedicated to them. Invisible, yet impossibly real to hordes o tourists on bustours that point out everything but where the lads might have once crushed out a cigarette.

The Beatles era is evoked even rommy hotel room, where a wall o windowsprovides a panoramic view o the Mersey

River. It might have been just anotherbody o water i Gerry and the Pacemakers,riends o the Beatles, hadn't solemnizedthe river in the haunting, "Ferry Cross theMersey."

I unpack and call a Liverpool am-ily, the Gauls, whose name I was given byriends o mine. We'll come over and bringyou back to the house or dinner, saysPauline, the mom. Within the hour, Pau-line's son, Simon, is knocking on my door.

He's a skinny man-boy in his early twentiessharply dressed in a white button-downshirt, black suspenders, and black trousers.

At the Gauls tidy two-story home in theWiral section, which is across the Mersey,Pauline prepares a chicken or dinner whileI sit at the kitchen table nursing an ale andlisten to her reminisce about the Beatlesand the Cavern. Like machine-gun re,words spray out o Pauline's mouth and Ionly catch the occasional phrase.

Everything she says, I learn in subse-quent days, is true. Established in 1957 asa jazz club, the Cavern didn't serve alcohol,

did require membership cards (easy to get),and was a dump. Located 18 worn stepsbeneath Mathew Street, its red-brick walls

ran with streams o condensation and thedense, smoky air in the small room thatheld roughly 300 patrons was sour with thestench rom surrounding produce ware-houses.

But the Cavern had something theother clubs didn't: the Beatles. They were ascruy bunch back then, all leather jacketstight black jeans, and bad attitude. Theyhad honed their skills in Hamburg, Germa-ny, and had come home to Liverpool where


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they vaulted to the top o the local scene. StuSutclie played bass in the band and PeteBest was on drums. Eventually, Sutclie letthe band to pursue a career in art and Ringoreplaced Best. Pauline was at the Cavernthe rst time Ringo played with the band."Everyone was shouting, 'We want Pete," she

remembers. "And John Lennon just looked atus and said, 'You can't have him.'"Simon sings in a Liverpool rock'n'roll

band that will be playing its rst gig onWednesday at the Cavern Club. Ater dinner,Simon's bandmates stop by the house andthe conversation turns to the Beatles legacy."It's a whole dierent generation and still theCavern means something because the Beatlesplayed there," says Simon. "We couldn't playa pub show or 50 people beore the Caverngig. Now, just people hearing about it, we'regetting phone calls."

HE NEXT NIGHT, A CHILLY AND DAMPMonday, I go hear Simon's band prac-tice. The band is called Get Rich!, agenerational chasm rom the bygone

I-dont-care-too-much-or-money/money-cant-buy-me-love spirit. They'verented space in a decrepit hovel that was oncea hotel. The band members, dressed in tee-shirts and old polo shirts, run through a setthat includes a ew originals and several covertunes, including some Beatles songs. Theband had numerous personnel changes overits three-year lietime and hasn't played a gigin months. They lack the coherence o tunesoten played by the same people. Still, theseguys in this place can't help but call to mindthe picture we all carry in our heads o thestruggling young rock band, and I close myeyes and imagine that the Beatles probablylooked a lot like this at the beginning.

Ater about an hour, I wander o to catcha band called the Bootleg Beatles playing ina circus tent across town. The Bootleg Beatlesare one o the most popular o a zillionBeatles cover bands making the rounds, romLiverpool to England, to Japan, to America.By the time I get to the show, the band, whose

perormers play the role o a particularBeatle, is attired in latter-day Beatleregalia and playing a spirited versiono "Helter Skelter." "John," dressedin a white suit, raises his ngers in thepeace sign and exhorts the crowd to dothe same. During "Get Back," "Paul"

arches his high eyebrows and givesthumbs-up signs. The mannerisms areair-brushed perect and the decidedlymiddle-aged throng o roughly 1,500people happily relive the glory days oLiverpool's storied past when they wereyoung and the Beatles were the most im-portant band in the world. "Hey Jude"is the set's nal song. When it ends, ahuge roar and stamping o eet swells uprom the crowd.

Ater the show, I ask a guy in hismid-50s why he came. "I identied with

them [real Beatles]," he answers. "Whatthey went through, I went through. Youmight say it's a nostalgia trip. But it'smore like you're living today." I nod, as

i I understand, but I dont.I grab a cab and head or the Cav-

ern Club, where the Beatles manager,Brian Epstien, rst saw them and whereBeatlemania was born. The Cavern hashad its ups and downs over the years.In 1991, Cavern Tours reopened andremains in daily operation.

E HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM

with live music in the city,Davey Jones, co-owner o

Cavern Tours, Inc., tellsme later. Everything

has to be packaged now. Theres noexperimentation.

Were sitting in one o the upstairsrooms, added by the new owners. Theadd-ons are plush living rooms o soasand over-stued chairs, a ar cry romthe shabby wreck o the bygone days.

A lot o the new musicians want

to bury the Beatles: Cant you put thataway? Jones continues. And a prob-lem or the Cavern is being so closelyassociated with the Beatles. We get a loto tourists. But were sustained by thelocal economy, and we have to give themwhat they want.

Outside, ramed in glass, is a his-tory o the Beatles relationship to theclub. Inside, cut-outs o the hometownboys playing their instruments areset onstage during the day, ambientnostalgia or tourists. And Cavern Tourswhich operates The Magical MysteryTour buses, concludes Beatles sight-seeing excursions with the come-on o aree rst drink at the Cavern Club.

Although artists including EricClapton, Muddy Waters, and the RollingStones have played there over the years,

the Cavern owes its continued existenceto the Beatles. Some people come tothe Vatican, says Pat Simmons, 27, atourist rom Spokane, Washington, whowas visiting the club one aternoon. Icome to Liverpool. Ive been listeningto the Beatles since I was 10 or 12. Themusic and culture associated with theBeatles broadened my worldview, and Iwanted to make the pilgrimage to Liver-pool to see where they grew up.

Given that he wasnt even bornwhen the Beatles came to America,

Simmons emotional connection to theBeatles surprises me. I pay closer at-tention to Beatles tourists and nd theyrange rom young children travellingwith their parents to teenagers, to themiddle-aged to senior citizens. Theyrealso at Strawberry Fields, a childrenshome where John Lennon, abandonedby his parents and raised by his AuntMimi, would come as a boy. They pileout o tourist buses at Penny Lane, theleay street in the middle-class neigh-borhood by the same name. And theylinger on the sidewalks in ront o thevarious Beatles boyhood homes: Ringosworking-class rowhouse, Georges two-story modest brick home, Pauls trimsuburban house, and Johns Aunt Mimishandsome and good-sized upper-middleclass home.

Davey Jones likens the appeal tothat o olk tales. The Beatles are stilla story, he says. Its not ended. Its

Everyone was shouting, We want Pete,Pauline remembers. And John Lennon justlooked at us and said, You cant have him.



THE BEATLES RISINGThe Beatles land in Liverpool

to promote the release ofA Hard Days Night in 1964.

THE BEATLES

N WEDNESDAY NIGHT, GET RICH!

takes the Cavern stage. Not theone in the tiny ront room wherethe Beatles perormed. Theyplay on the one in an adjoining

going to go on till they all die and go onater that. Theyre legend. The Beatlesare Robin Hood, theyre Billy the Kid.Theyre myth. And so their appeal tran-scends their music.

That enduring appeal has led to amakeover or Mathew Street, an approxi-

mately three-blockalleyway that was oncea rough-and-tumblerow o warehouses.The Cavern Club is atone end o Mathew. Atthe other is the WhiteStar Pub. In betweenis Grapes, a pub wherethe Beatles otendrank. There wasntmuch else on Mathewback then.

Nowadays, MathewStreet is a veritableBeatles World o shopsand restaurants knownas Cavern Walks thatschock ull o storeswith Beatles reerenc-es: Rubber Soul OysterBar, Lennons tavern,the Abbey Road Pub,the Cavern Pub, and the Beatles Shop,a store that sells nothing but Beatlesmemorabilia.

I go into Grapes. To my amazement,there is not a single nod to the Beatlesanywhere - no drink named ater one otheir songs, no pictures o them hang-ing rom the walls. Locals tell me itsbeen xed up over the years, which maybe true, but with cream-colored cementwalls, an entryway or milling, and abrass railing at the wood bar, it remainsan unpretentious drinking establish-ment. Although tourists with bags romthe Beatles Shop wander in and out, or

the most part the clientele is made up olocals drinking an ater-work pint or two.It eels like a place the Beatles might stilleel at home.

back room. It's a private party or publicemployees.

Still, it is the Cavern Club. Concretefoor, brick walls, low-slung ceiling, aurao history. Simon makes the most o themoment. At one point, his head aces downwhile he holds the microphone stand at

an angle away rom him with one handand holds alot his bottled water in theother, a classic arena-rock pose, a pose omodernity, as arena-rock didnt exist whenthe Beatles were starting out. Meanwhile,the band cranks out cover songs and a eworiginals. Their sound is a bit shiny, more

refective o today's gloss than yesterday'srawness. But they get an encore, and thesong they choose to play is "I Saw HerStanding There." For the rst time, thecrowd, including Simon's parents, Rod andPauline, swarm the dance foor.

The legacy is a mixed bag or Liver-pool musicians. "All o the bands in townplay Beatles songs and the Beatles areused as a standard o how good you are,"says 23-year-old guitarist David McDow-ell. "And a lot o times it's a case o, 'Whyshould I know the rest when I've known the

very best.' What people don't understand isthat there isn't going to be a next Beatles."

THE EARLY BEATLESTop: The Beatles in 1962

Right: George Harrison, Paul

McCartney, Pete Best and John

Lennon (from left) at the Cavern


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