This week marks what would have been the 80th birthday of Beatles legend John Lennon.
The late singer-songwriter visited Carlisle on two occasions during 1963, the year before Beatlemania went into full swing across Britain with his famous bandmates Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
The band played the Carlisle ABC cinema stage, which was a venue more suited perhaps to showing films such as that year’s ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ starring Peter O’Toole.
The Fab Four, in fact, were second on the bill behind Helen Shapiro for their first performance on Cumbrian soil in February 1963 with their first single ‘Love Me Do’ having reached only number 17 on the charts the previous year. In the next year, the Beatles would achieve the first of 17 number one singles in the UK, making sales and cultural history in the process. Lennon’s group were so low-profile they were reportedly asked to leave a dance at Carlisle hotel on account of being inappropriately dressed later during their visit!
Between the two gigs they would play at the Royal Variety performance following the release of their debut album ‘Please Please Me’ which included classic numbers ‘Twist and Shout’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’.
They triumphantly returned to Carlisle later that year as chart-toppers to play the ABC cinema once again, which has been since demolished. Such had their fame grew that they had to be smuggled out of the cinema in a post office van by a local sergeant dressed as a postman.
The Liverpudlian four-piece are pictured in this collection alongside souvenirs from the performance such as signed pictures, programmes and even a recording of the historic moment the young group took to the stage in Carlisle.
These pictures show the part Carlisle had to play in the ascent of a band to world-wide stardom. The next year, they would play the Ed Sullivan show in America to an estimated audience of 63 million people. When they were turfed out of the Crown and Mitre Hotel in February on account of Ringo’s appearance, they could have never imagined what was to come.
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