Star-Club 3rd residency

About

From Wikipedia:

The Star-Club was a music club in Hamburg, Germany that opened Friday 13 April 1962 and was initially operated by Manfred Weissleder and Horst Fascher. In the 1960s, many of the giants of rock music played at the club. The club closed on 31 December 1969 and the building it occupied was destroyed by a fire in 1987. The address in Hamburg area St. Pauli was: Große Freiheit 39; Große Freiheit is a side street of the Reeperbahn.

The club achieved worldwide renown through the performances of The Beatles, who played there 13 April – 31 May, 1–14 November, and 18–31 December 1962. A performance or parts of several performances from the end of the latter stay was or were recorded on a home tape machine, and a remixed version was released in 1977 as Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962.

The Beatles’ first Hamburg Club performance was at the Indra Club (also in Große Freiheit) on 17 August 1960.

I was especially interested to report the Beatles’ return to Hamburg — for it was in that city that I first met them in the autumn of 1962. I was there for a week to report Little Richard’s appearance at the Star Club and the Beatles were on the same bill.

There were friendly arguments between John Lennon and Little Richard which always ended with Lennon exclaiming “Shuddup grandfather” at the older man. But one night I heard Richard remark to the club owner, Manfred Weisledder, “Those Beatles are so good — watch them Manfred, they could be the biggest thing in the whole world.”

Manfred attached no more importance to Little Richard’s words than I did but we both recalled them well enough when I visited the Star Club last Saturday night.

Manfred also remembered a business argument with Brian Epstein shortly before they began that last season at the Star Club. The Beatles manager was demanding £250 a week for his group — half as much again as they had received before.

Manfred had said it was too much. “Nonsense,” retorted Epstein. “These boys will soon be bigger than Elvis Presley”. Weisedder didn’t believe the argument — but he paid the money.

The tall, blond German had a flood of stories to relate about the Beatles. His earliest memory of them went back to some two years before even he first employed them: “One night I saw them going into a club opposite mine. They looked so strange I turned to a friend and said, ‘they must be visitors from another planet’”.

Manfred laughed at the memory of the night he says John went on the Star Club stage naked — apart from his guitar. Though John later told me he had on a pair of shorts (“and a toilet seat around me ’ead”).

And Weisiedder recalled the day he lent them a car to drive to the seaside.

“That night I had to interrupt them on stage to ask Paul — the only one who could drive — where the car was. He said ‘oh, the engine is broken so we left it there’. A practically new £2,000 car and they had dumped it by the seaside!”

Manfred showed me a copy of his latest “Star Club News”. On the cover was a picture of Gene Vincent signing an autograph for John Lennon. “They were great fans of all rock ‘n’ rollers,” he reflected.

Chris Hutchins – Reporter for New Musical Expres – From New Musical Express, July 1, 1966

Last updated on October 22, 2023

13 concerts • 1 country

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