The Beatles live: Adelphi Cinema, Slough – their tour with Roy Orbison begins

The Beatles’ third UK tour began at the Adelphi Cinema in Slough, Buckinghamshire. Also on the tour were Roy Orbison, Gerry and the Pacemakers, David Macbeth, Louise Cordet, Tony Marsh, Terry Young Six, Erkey Grant, and Ian Crawford.

We were selling records but we were still second on the bill, and one of our first big tours was second on the bill to Roy Orbison. It was pretty hard to keep up with that man. He really put on a show; well, they all did, but Orbison had that fantastic voice.

Although Orbison was at the top of the bill, he was soon demoted to second place due to the audience reaction to The Beatles.

We soon took over as top of the bill. We had to come on after Roy. They had a trick in those theatres where they would close some of the curtains on the stage so we could set up behind them while the other bloke was still out there doing his tunes. I can’t remember where his backing group was, but Roy would be out there every night and at the end he’d be singing, ‘She’s walking back to me, do do do do da do do-do…’ And the audience would go wild. We’d be waiting there and he’d do another big encore and we’d be thinking, ‘How are we going to follow this?’ It was really serious stuff.

The group’s repertoire during the tour was ‘Some Other Guy’, ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’, ‘Love Me Do’, ‘From Me To You’, ‘Please Please Me’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, and ‘Twist And Shout’. The tour continued until 9 June 1963, ending in Blackburn, Lancashire.

Also on this night an episode of Thank Your Lucky Stars featuring The Beatles was broadcast on the ITV network. The show had been recorded on 12 May, and on it they performed ‘From Me To You’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’.

The Beatles returned to the Adelphi Cinema in Slough on one other occasion, during their Autumn Tour later in the year on 5 November 1963.