The Beatles on The Reeperbahn
Hard to imagine looking back at the group of fresh faced, suited, smiling clean-cut young men, making their first appearance on the BBC’s 625 show, that just a few months prior this was a band cutting it’s teeth in one of Europe wildest and most dangerous districts. The Beatles arrived in Hamburg as five teenagers from Liverpool barely ever having been abroad, into a port town infamous throughout Europe for it’s vice and criminality.
Hamburg in the 1960’s was a city in flux. Once the third largest port in the world, heavy bombing raids during WW2 had left large parts of the city in ruins. What rose out of the rubble was a raw, energetic and wild vibrancy, concentrated mainly in the bohemian St Pauli district. What the five young lads from Liverpool wouldn’t know flying out of Liverpool airport, hotel accommodation would be luxury beyond their means. Within their price-range however, was one unheated room behind a cinema screen, next door to the ladies toilet.
At the time The Beatles line-up numbered five, with Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe accompanying John, Paul and George. Their first gig was at the Indra Club, a dingy strip bar on The Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s red-light district. However, it was at the Top Ten Club where the band really made their name, playing shows on 98 consecutive nights.
In was in this time that Lennon’s behaviour started to reflect his wild and lawless surroundings. Moving to a new venue – the Kaiserkeller, The Beatles were asked to ‘put on a show’. Lennon duly obliged, once turning out on stage in just his underpants and a toilet seat around his neck. He would often addressed the crowd with “Heil Hitler”, the kind of showmanship the Sex Pistols would have admire and was the sort of dirty, squalid rock ‘n’ roll chic that countless generations of bands would go on to actively seek out.
The Beatles would go on to play 281 shows in Hamburg and certainly left their mark on the city. “It was our apprenticeship” said George Harrison, recalling their time on the Reeperbahn. The band would go on to make their first recording in the city, “My Bonnie”. This demo would be the song that brought them to the attention of Brian Epstein, their future manager. The Beatles were soon back in the relative comfort of Liverpool city centre hotels cutting their first record deal. Leaving behind, what George Harrison described as “the naughtiest city in the world”. They had sewed their wild oats and were ready to suit up, brush their teeth and play nice for the cameras. For a couple years, anyway.
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