London • 6:45pm show

NEIL ASPINALL, ROAD MANAGER TO FOUR SUPERMEN, CONTINUES HIS STORY ABOUT THEM (WHICH SUPERMEN? JOHN, PAUL, GEORGE AND RINGO, OF COURSE!)

AFTER The Beatles’ most recent U.K. concert tour, last December, we came into London to play at two of the largest cinemas in Britain — the Hammersmith Odeon and the Finsbury Park Astoria.

Hammersmith was just about the wildest of the lot! Nearly three and a half thousand fans packed the theatre. As soon as The Beatles went on stage the entire audience stood. In next to no time they were climbing on to each others’ shoulders and thirty London policemen linked arms all the way across the front of the auditorium in an attempt to keep the girls from storming the stage!

We had all driven down to London from Birmingham the previous night, so John and Ringo could see their wives for the first time in ten days. Ringo was in the process of moving home around that time so he had plenty of things to take care of before coming to Hammersmith. George and John, living down in Surrey at Esher and Weybridge respectively, were in no hurry to travel into town from their pleasant countryside homes. So Paul was the first arrival at Hammersmith Odeon.

When he gets the chance, there’s nothing Paul enjoys more than an impromptu drumming session.

That Friday evening at Hammersmith, he went on stage before the first show started and sat in on drums with The Paramounts, one of the supporting groups on the tour.

For The Paramounts this started out as a regular “warming-up” session. Once Paul got going, it turned into one of the hottest warm-up shindigs on record!

When any concert tour plays a London date, other show-business personalities take the opportunity of dropping in for a chat. There were plenty of star visitors in The Beatles’ dressing room. Liverpool comedian, Jimmy Tarbuck, an old friend of the boys, was amongst the first to look in. Then there were The Walker Brothers and many others, including P. J. Proby.

By about nine o’clock it was only just possible to squeeze in through the doorway of the dressing room.

John, Paul and Jim Proby were singing their heads off with John playing some fantastic guitar and imitating all sorts of people from Barry McGuire to P. J. Proby!

Since I began giving you my day-to-day tour diary, I’ve had letters asking how The Beatles remember what songs to do in their act, whether they vary the list from night to night and whether they plan the complete programme of titles in advance or not. Have you ever watched very closely between numbers? If so, you may have noticed John, George or Paul glancing down at his guitar. And he’s not just having a look to see if the strings are still there! On the top side of each guitar is a scrap of paper listing in order the ten or eleven numbers for that night’s show.

The boys do vary their programme from night to night and Mal and I always make sure the scribbled lists are altered accordingly before they’re ready to go on. There isn’t room to show every title in full so the writing on the paper will begin with something like DIZZY/FINE which reminds the boys that their opening number is Dizzy Miss Lizzy leading into I Feel Fine.

For Hammersmith, the rest of the list read like this (and I’ll leave you to work out the full title of each number): WOMAN/NEEDED, SOMEONE/ACT/NOWHERE/BLACK/HELP/WORK/TRIPPER/DOWN.

Ringo doesn’t bother with a list. He’s got a particularly good memory and, in any case, all he has to do is listen to what’s being announced and take his cue from there.

From Fabulous208 – August 20, 1966