The Great Pop Prom • Sunday, September 15, 1963

About

Standing up on those steps behind the Albert Hall in our new gear, the smart trousers, the rolled collar. Up there with the Rolling Stones we were thinking, “This is it – London! The Albert Hall! We felt like gods!

Paul McCartney

Another great memory was an Albert Hall gig we did with all the bands, and I remember this one golden morning; it was a Sunday, and we gathered by the top of the steps at the back of the Albert Hall — the steps that were used in the film The Ipcress File. It was a summer’s Sunday morning and we were all there: Mick, Keith, all The Beatles, The Yardbirds, Gerry And The Pacemakers — it was like a moment in time, and I always imagine it as golden. I can see it, a summer’s morning and we were all absolutely at our youthful peak. We were feeling really cool about ourselves and if you’d been in the clouds and seen that, it was a very golden moment. The gig was OK, the acoustics in the Albert Hall were terrible: hence the ‘mushrooms’ that they now grow along the ceiling, they never had them then and there was a horrendous echo. But just that moment before the gig is such a golden memory. It was all ‘us guys’: dressed great, button-down shirts, checking each other’s gear out… ‘Where d’you get that? ‘… ‘Cecil Gee’. It was very friendly, that was the other thing, there was no rivalry. It was really like… mates. And I just remember that as great.

Paul McCartney, in the 2003 Back To The World tour book – talking about his favourite gigs

Last updated on May 17, 2019