The Beatles arrived in Hamburg, Germany in the early evening of 17 August 1960, for the first of 48 nights at the Indra Club on the Grosse Freiheit street.
The group performed at the venue for 48 nights, ending on 3 October 1960. The venue was owned by Bruno Koschmider, a local club owner who also owned the Kaiserkeller.
The group’s contract was to run for two months, from 17 August to 16 October. The Beatles were to receive 30DM (£2.50) per person each day, paid every Thursday. Koschmider also paid their manager Allan Williams a commission of £10 each week.
They were expected to perform for four and a half hours each weekday night, from 8-9.30pm, 10-11pm, 11.30pm-12.30am and 1-2am.
They also had to play for six hours on Saturdays, from 7-8.30pm, 9-10pm, 10.30-11.30pm, 12-1am, and 1.30-3am. Sunday hours were 5-6pm, 6.30-7.30pm, 8-9pm, 9.30-10.30pm, 11-12 midnight and 12.30-1.30am.
The Beatles at the Indra Club, Hamburg, 17 August 1960. L-R: John Lennon, George Harrison, Pete Best, Paul McCartney, Stuart Sutcliffe.
The tired and hungry Beatles played to just a handful of spectators on this first night, mainly sex workers and their clients. The band were also forced by Koschmider to turn down their amplifiers, following a complaint from the woman who lived above the venue.
Feeling cowed by their unfamiliar surroundings, on this opening night The Beatles played the entire four and a half hour show huddled together and stock still. Afterwards they slept in Bruno Koschmider’s flat. Compared to what followed, it was a positive luxury.
Of course, on the first night we got there there weren’t arrangements for anything. The club owner, Bruno Koschmider, drove us round to his house, and we ended up staying, all in the one bed. Bruno wasn’t with us, fortunately, he left us to stay in his flat for the first night and went somewhere else. Eventually he put us in the back of a little cinema, the Bambi Kino, at the very end of a street called the Grosse Freiheit.Bruno wasn’t some young rock’n’roll entrepreneur, he was an old guy who had been crippled in the war. He had a limp and didn’t seem to know much about music or anything. We only ever saw him once a week, when we’d try to get into his office for our wages.
The city of Hamburg was brilliant; a big lake, and then the dirty part. The Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit were the best thing we’d ever seen, clubs and neon lights everywhere and lots of restaurants and entertainment. It looked really good. There were seedy things about it, obviously, including some of the conditions we had to live in when we first got there.
Anthology
Also on this day...
- 2019: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Long Island Community Hospital Amphitheater, Farmingville
- 2016: Paul McCartney signs to Capitol Records
- 2016: Paul McCartney live: Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland
- 2009: Paul McCartney live: BOK Center, Tulsa
- 2003: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Mizner Amphitheater, Boca Raton
- 1973: Recording: Mind Games by John Lennon
- 1972: Wings live: De Doelen, Rotterdam
- 1969: Paul McCartney produces Mary Hopkin’s Que Sera, Sera
- 1968: George and Pattie Harrison fly to Greece
- 1966: The Beatles live: Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Canada
- 1965: The Beatles live: Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Canada
- 1963: The Beatles live: Odeon Cinema, Llandudno
- 1962: The Beatles live: Tower Ballroom, New Brighton, Wallasey
- 1962: The Beatles live: Majestic Ballroom, Birkenhead
- 1961: The Beatles live: St John’s Hall, Liverpool
Want more? Visit the Beatles history section.
Do you have the Kaiserkeller’s concerts schedule?
They also played 4 concerts per one night (Saturday – 5 concerts, Sunday – 6 concerts)?
That’s a bruising schedule – 90 minute sets with 30 minutes in between.
Yes that’s lots of performing time. The worst part is no days off. We played Bourbon Street New Orleans at Old Opera House with 250 songs. We worked noon – 8pm, 45 minutes on 15 minutes off – total 6 hours 5 days a week. When the night band didn’t show up we had to keep playing 9 – 11:15, 30 min break, 11:45 – 12:30am, 12:45 – 1:30am. Total 10 hours 30 minutes. A couple of times we worked 13 days in a row.
No days off is volunteered slavery.
I can’t get enough of the Beatles in Hamburg, especially this first trip. Just watched the early section of the Beatles Anthology again, an amazing story!
It much have been such an mind-blowing experience to be away from home for the first time, in this of all places. Learning to work an audience, figuring out how to mesh musically, meeting Astrid and the Exi’s … so many interesting things happened on this first trip. If I had a time machine, one place I’d definitely go is to see one of these shows at the Kaiserkeller.
Is there any recording or filmography from Beatles first performance in Germany?
Not to my knowledge, no.
New Years EVE 1961, where was Sir John Winston Lennon? At home, smoking a Players Navy Cut Cigarette, knocking down a Fullers London Pride while singing with his friends while noshing on Aunt Mimi’s Banger’s & Mash. Ok, so I like telling lies.
Sir John Winston Lennon had just crushed out his last cigarette and gazed out at the cold ruthless waters. His Bass player had played PYRO and set fire to the KaiserKeller and was deported back to England along with their Drummer. Lennon’s lead guitarist had been deported back to England as well for working underaged in Germany. And Stu? His true mate? He was all fuzzy whith that German Byrd he had hooked up with.
Just when you’d think things couldn’t get worse, Sir John Winston Lennon’s work application has previously been denied, meaning the penniless future Rock God would have to splange marks on the corner to eat & save money back to Aunt Mimis. It took weeks for Lennon to get back to the Island and another 2-3 days to hitch a ride back to LiverPool.
However, there was a bright side to this story. Sir John Winston Lennon was through with the Beatles and was searching the papers for a ‘PROPER JOB’. Lennon told Aunt Mimi ‘As GOD IS MY WITNESS, I WILL PUNCH OUT THAT YABBO SIR JAMES PAUL MCCARTNEY IF I EVEN SEE THAT PYRO’s FACE!!!” Aunt Mimi was beaming when she saw the NEW & IMPROVED ‘Johnny’. Finally away from that lot of ‘LOSERS’, her man was trying to make a new start in life and 1962 would be a year of great promise.
A WHOLE MONTH went by without Lennon even touching his harmonica or guitar and Aunt Mimi was SO PROUD OF HER LITTLE MAN…until one day, there was a knock on the door and that dreadful little man appeared with his guitar in hand. Aunt Mimi tried to through that TEDDY BOY OUT OF THE HOUSE but, it was no use….that evil SVENGALI with the baby’s face was no more in her house for 15 MINUTES then Lennon grabbed his guitar and left the house with the kid who had just left her Johnny stranded penniless in Hamberg, Germany. Dejected, poor Auni Mimi went up stairs and cried her eyes out…I say LET HISTORY JUDGE!!!
What?!?!? Wrong year, for one thing. New Year’s Eve 1961, John & the boys were pulling into London, because they had their audition at Decca the following day.
That’s a cool story, Dude
Hi all! Just another Beatles fan here… On my visit to Hamburg, I visited Grosse Freiheit where there is now a Beatles monument at the entrance in an area now known as Beatles-Platz. I made a 3-minute video of my visit there where I try to explain the Beatles’ story in Hamburg. My favourite part of the story is where John plays with a toilet seat over his head… Thanks for your time! youtu.be/arcQI2GRHfU
What songs were the Beatles performing in Hamburg.?. c 1960 anyone know? Please
I was a cooks mate when I stayed in hamburg and seen the fab 4 in the star club
There I met them all but what stood out was that paul was to young to get served alcohol so he sat there drinking a coke.. Then in 1964 I emigrated to the USA and the 4 lads where there too only in 1st. Class, It’s a small world
Incredible story. Did you pop up to the front of the plane to say “hi”? What do rememgber about them in ’61?
These stories are blowing my mind
I did not become a Beatles crazy fan until after they broke up….I was too young (although apparently I saw them in Sydney Australia when they arrived in 1964)….on my dads shoulders as they drove past us in a motorcade!! I was 18 months old!
The Beatles are classic along with Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. They broke ground in the music industry