Darny
May 21, 2003, 08:19 AM
http://www.expatica.com/germany.asp?pad=190,205,&item_id=31423
HAMBURG - Paul McCartney was back Wednesday to the place where it all began for the Beatles - recalling "wonderful memories" of the group's legendary time in Hamburg in the early 1960s.
"I have a lot of fond memories of Hamburg," said McCartney who was in the northern German port city as part of his "Back In The World" tour.
"But I also remember how much we froze, how we played all night long, how we lived at the back of an old cinema next to the toilets - and you could smell those. ... the women's toilet was our bathroom," he told the local Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper.
McCartney's concert Wednesday evening at the modern multi-purpose AOL Arena was a far cry from the seedy red-light district clubs he and the band from Liverpool played in more than 40 years ago.
McCartney, now 60 and knighted, recalled how the Beatles moved from initially playing in a dingy, empty club to another venue, the Kaiserkeller, "which was great because it had a dancefloor".
He added: "According to the contract we had to play six hours alternating with another band. That was 12 hours a day. Hamburg opened our eyes," he said.
Originally the group comprised McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best on drums. Ringo Starr, who had been playing with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes as the Kaiserkeller's other resident band, was to replace Best, while Sutcliffe later quit the group.
"We went to Hamburg as children and came back as adults," McCartney said.
It was after returning to Liverpool after a first spell in Hamburg in 1960 that the Beatles began to earn wider notice, thanks in no small part to the new leather look they had acquired in Germany.
"In Hamburg there was great leather gear," McCartney said. "We returned to Liverpool and wore black clothes from Hamburg."
The group had been billed as "from Hamburg", and everybody thought they were German. "Even in Liverpool people didn't know we were from Liverpool. People thought we were from Hamburg and said 'your English is really good'," McCartney said.
Former Star Club manager Horst Fascher, who was to hire the Beatles for his club, recalled in an open letter to McCartney in Die Welt's Hamburg edition how he first set eyes on the Beatles, "on the 16th of August 1960 through the windows of an old Ford Transit".
The next evening Fascher said he and the group met over chicken soup following a concert by rocker Tony Sheridan, who was later to use the Beatles as a back-up band.
"A lot of water has flown down the Elbe since then," Fascher wrote, adding that "together we made musical history".
Seeing McCartney again on stage in Hamburg "will be one of the highlights of my life", he said.
Meanwhile a local Hamburg political faction has called for an area in the centre of the Reeperbahn district to be named Beatles Square. The idea by the opposition Social Democrats has won approval in principle from the ruling conservative coalition.
HAMBURG - Paul McCartney was back Wednesday to the place where it all began for the Beatles - recalling "wonderful memories" of the group's legendary time in Hamburg in the early 1960s.
"I have a lot of fond memories of Hamburg," said McCartney who was in the northern German port city as part of his "Back In The World" tour.
"But I also remember how much we froze, how we played all night long, how we lived at the back of an old cinema next to the toilets - and you could smell those. ... the women's toilet was our bathroom," he told the local Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper.
McCartney's concert Wednesday evening at the modern multi-purpose AOL Arena was a far cry from the seedy red-light district clubs he and the band from Liverpool played in more than 40 years ago.
McCartney, now 60 and knighted, recalled how the Beatles moved from initially playing in a dingy, empty club to another venue, the Kaiserkeller, "which was great because it had a dancefloor".
He added: "According to the contract we had to play six hours alternating with another band. That was 12 hours a day. Hamburg opened our eyes," he said.
Originally the group comprised McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best on drums. Ringo Starr, who had been playing with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes as the Kaiserkeller's other resident band, was to replace Best, while Sutcliffe later quit the group.
"We went to Hamburg as children and came back as adults," McCartney said.
It was after returning to Liverpool after a first spell in Hamburg in 1960 that the Beatles began to earn wider notice, thanks in no small part to the new leather look they had acquired in Germany.
"In Hamburg there was great leather gear," McCartney said. "We returned to Liverpool and wore black clothes from Hamburg."
The group had been billed as "from Hamburg", and everybody thought they were German. "Even in Liverpool people didn't know we were from Liverpool. People thought we were from Hamburg and said 'your English is really good'," McCartney said.
Former Star Club manager Horst Fascher, who was to hire the Beatles for his club, recalled in an open letter to McCartney in Die Welt's Hamburg edition how he first set eyes on the Beatles, "on the 16th of August 1960 through the windows of an old Ford Transit".
The next evening Fascher said he and the group met over chicken soup following a concert by rocker Tony Sheridan, who was later to use the Beatles as a back-up band.
"A lot of water has flown down the Elbe since then," Fascher wrote, adding that "together we made musical history".
Seeing McCartney again on stage in Hamburg "will be one of the highlights of my life", he said.
Meanwhile a local Hamburg political faction has called for an area in the centre of the Reeperbahn district to be named Beatles Square. The idea by the opposition Social Democrats has won approval in principle from the ruling conservative coalition.