The Beatles live: Cavern Club, Liverpool (evening)

An eight-hour music marathon was staged at the Cavern on this Sunday night, titled “Rhythm And Blues Marathon”.

The Beatles topped a bill that also included The Fourmost, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes, The Hollies, The Merseybeats, The Roadrunners, Earl Preston and the TTs, and the Swinging Blue Jeans. ‘Swinging’ Cilla Black also took to the stage during Kingsize Taylor’s set.

The Mersey bands tended to be more raucous than the Manchester ones. They had a strong, macho, Teddy Boy type of image, whereas the Manchester bands were more glitzy. We wore white suits and that was aimed at the women. Club owners would tell us that if we got the women in, we would get the men and they would book us again.

They were calling The Hollies ‘Manchester’s answer to The Beatles’, which I never liked. You don’t like being compared to anyone, particularly a band as great as The Beatles. I didn’t sense the intercity rivalry much. There were a lot of great musicians and great bands in both cities.

Mike Hart [of The Roadrunners] had an amazingly strong voice and I didn’t know he was asthmatic until one day he was doing this song and really belting it out and he turned to one side, took out an inhaler and had a few whacks. If you don’t get your air out properly, you are going to sing flat or the note is going to drop, and to be able to sing like that with asthma is amazing.

This was The Beatles’ 276th known Cavern Club performance, and their 122nd evening show.

The precise number of their Cavern performances is not known, although The Beatles played at least 155 lunchtime and 125 evening shows. Their final performance at the underground venue took place on 3 August 1963.