Rehearsals for the 1965 UK Tour

LIFE WITH THE BEATLES

NEIL ASPINALL, ROAD MANAGER TO THE BEATLES, CONTINUES HIS STORY OF LIFE WITH THE FOUR BOYS WHO ARE THE BIGGEST NEWS IN BUSINESS. BEATLES PEOPLE WANT TO BE WHERE THE BEATLES ARE – THAT’S WHY THEIR TOURS ARE ALWAYS A BIT FANTASTIC….

WHEN THE BEATLES go out on the road for a concert tour, there are always plenty of news reports in the papers and magazine stories about the shows. They can tell you everything there is to know about the actual performances, the wild reaction of the fans, the lines of policemen controlling the crowds outside and so forth. But there’s much more to a tour than that and lots of people ask me to tell them what a typical Beatles tour looks like from the INSIDE.

The most recent time The Beatles toured was at the end of last year (December ’65) when they went out for eighteen concerts all over the U.K. The show opened up in Scotland with two performances in Glasgow. Then, over the next nine days, we worked our way down through England to London and on to Wales for the final shows at Cardiff. Each night—mostly it was early morning!—before I went to sleep, I filled up a diary of the day’s events specially for FABULOUS.

I plan to go back through my tour diary and give you a day-by-day account of just about everything that happened when The Beatles Show took to the road. As I have said, the tour began in Scotland. But our story begins the day before, on:

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2nd

December weather conditions are not in our favour. Up north there is plenty of snow. Many roads between England and Scotland are closed because of heavy drifting. The Beatles could have covered the four hundred miles between London and Glasgow in an hour by air, but they dislike using plane travel unless it is absolutely essential.

We are planning to use the group’s own Austin Princess throughout this tour. It will be driven by Alf Bicknell who joined Mal and me as part of The Beatles’ permanent party a month or two before last August’s American tour.

The Princess has been modified to the boys’ special requirements. It has dark-tinted windows and an extra armchair with headrest has been fitted at the back so that all four Beatles can be as comfortable as possible on long runs.

Mal Evans set off this morning so that he could take it easy with his van. It’s laden with amplifiers and all the other bulky equipment which won’t fit in the boot of the Princess. The tour bus left London this morning with the rest of the cast on board.

The Beatles prefer not to use the bus because it has to wait ages to load up after every show and it sets out early for each new town because the stage director and his helpers need to arrive in good time to set up the lighting and other production details.

Today the boys were up much earlier than usual for a final rehearsal session at my flat. Alf collected John and George from their homes in Surrey, picked up Ringo and Paul from their London flats. My place is in a tiny mews, not far from Baker Street and Marble Arch.

It’s uncanny how quickly the fans find out where they’re likely to see the boys. There has been a steadily increasing crowd of girls in the mews all day.

The boys dressed casually and comfortably. George arrived in his favourite pair of well-faded jeans, a black sweater and side-zipped boots. John, George and I have identical boots but the boys often wear slip-on shoes these days and Ringo has some lace-up pairs as well. John favours suede jackets, sweaters and denim gear. They always wear black socks and (if they’re wearing shirts at all) black ties.

Paul has just bought from Harrods an enormous floral-pattern tie about four times the average size. It must be at least ten or twelve inches wide. The others gagged about it at today’s rehearsal.

“You can use it as an extra blanket if it’s really cold in Scotland,” suggested John.

“Can you get us some car rugs like Paul has got?” cracked George to me.

For this tour, the boys are working out stage routines for numbers they’ve never done in previous concerts.

Paul is going to accompany himself on electric organ for Yesterday; they’re doing Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out — the two sides of the new single — plus Nowhere Man and George’s If I Needed Someone from the new album.

After nearly five hours of practice all four boys felt hungry.

From Fabulous208 – June 4, 1966

THAT BEATLE TOUR

There are no strikes in The Beatle camp, everyone works hard — specially when the boys are starting off on a nationwide tour.

I’LL continue with my day-to-day diary: — This is Wednesday, December 1st, 1965, and The Beatles are starting off tomorrow on a tour of the U.K. They’d been rehearsing hard for nearly five hours and they felt hungry. “How’s your kitchen then, Neil?” hinted George.

While they got on with We Can Work It Out, I started cooking a lot of eggs and bacon. The idea was to get together eight eggs, plenty of bacon and some chips. I’m no expert when it comes to being chef and I had to start shoving stuff in the oven to keep warm while I tackled the next part of the meal.

Then things got out of hand. “I’ll just take a couple of eggs from the oven,” said Paul, grabbing a plate and helping himself. Ringo popped his head round the door and followed Paul’s example. In no time at all the eggs were disappearing faster than I could fry them.

I was trying to do twenty thousand things at once. Buttering bread – boiling water for the tea – peeling more potatoes for the chips… breaking extra eggs into the pan. It was chaos! Suddenly, just as I thought everyone had been satisfied, Paul came into the kitchen.

“Where’s my nosh, then? Don’t I get anything to eat?”

“But I thought…”

“No, I didn’t get any.”

George joined in: “I’ve only had three eggs. Where are the chips, Nel?”

For the next two hours, I just kept on cooking more and more food until there was nothing left. Each plate was emptied as fast as I filled it!

At seven thirty the boys stopped work to watch themselves on television’s Top Of The Pops. It was an insert they’d filmed for the programme a week earlier. During the Day Tripper sequence, Ringo had grabbed a saw and started breaking up the studio scenery. When this bit came on, all four boys fell about with laughter!

“It’s time we got on the road,” I declared as soon as Top Of The Pops finished. “No more chips?” asked John.

“When we get to Scotland,” I replied.

The rehearsal instruments were loaded into the boot of the Princess which wouldn’t close properly because of all the baggage. Just for the record I’ll list all the stuff we’re taking to Scotland — including the equipment which Mal took with him. George has three guitars, including his 12-stringer. John and Paul are taking two each. We’re taking six complete sets of suits with extra pairs of pants. There are six amplifiers and six huge loudspeakers, including spares of each. We’ve got a total of forty shirts, two dozen sets of square drumsticks, Ringo’s drum-kit with complete accessory store which has spare stands, skins, pedals and so on. There’s the special “ching-ring” tambourine fitting which Ringo had made up yesterday — he’ll need that for one number only and that is Day Tripper. For the first time on a British tour we’ve got an electric organ for Paul’s Yesterday. John uses it on I’m Down and We Can Work It Out.

Incidentally, the very first time the boys ever used an organ in concert was at Shea Stadium in New York last August. Because of snow warnings, Alf has got a set of chains for the Princess. Also an assortment of picks, shovels and ropes.

Every time we go on the road I load an electric kettle, a toaster and a hairdryer. We’ve yet to use them, because food is laid on at all the theatres!

We drove straight up England through the night, heading for Berwick-on-Tweed — less than a hundred miles from Glasgow to complete the last lap of the journey tomorrow.

During any long car journey, the boys try to stay awake. They hate falling asleep only to feel worse when they open their eyes again a couple of hours later. Everyone is too tired for deep discussion — it is light small-talk conversation all the way. We keep the radio on until the last of the late-night stations goes off the air. The extra armchair fitted in the back of the Princess isn’t a total success. To make use of the arm rests you need to be a contortionist who likes to ride with one elbow stuck high in the air! In a final attempt to stay awake, they keep a dim light on in the back.

“I wish something exciting would happen,” mutters John.

“Yes, where’s all the snow they told us about?” asks Ringo.

“That would be great. I’d like to see a bit of snow,” agrees John.

“I think we’re missing it,” shouts Alf from behind the steering wheel. “I’ve tried the best route.”

Suddenly a big truck behind us starts flashing his lights like mad. Alf pulls up and gets out to see what’s wrong.

“Didn’t you hear it fall off?” yells the driver.

“What?” says Alf.

“One of them banjo things. It fell off the back of your car a couple of miles back.”

John, Paul and George look at each other.

“Hell!” says George. “I’ll bet it’s my 12-string.”

From Fabulous208 – June 11, 1966