The opening night of The Beatles’ only British tour of 1964 took place at the Gaumont Cinema, Bradford.
The group performed two shows on each day throughout the tour, for which they earned £850. Their repertoire was ‘Twist And Shout’, ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘Things We Said Today’, ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’, ‘I Should Have Known Better’, ‘If I Fell’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’.
The support acts on the tour were The Rustiks, Sounds Incorporated, Michael Haslam, The Remo Four, Tommy Quickly and Mary Wells, and the compère was Bob Bain.
The Beatles were delayed by heavy traffic on the A1 on their way from London to Bradford, and were flagged down by police who requested autographs. They arrived in Bradford two hours behind schedule, but it didn’t affect the performance times. The first concert began at 6.15pm, and the second at 8.40pm.
9 October 1964 was also John Lennon’s 24th birthday.
I’m keen to learn whether there’s any audio and/or video from this tour, as several songs from the “Hard Day’s Night” LP that never again made it onto a Beatles setlist were apparently performed.
The Beatles stayed the night of 9th October 1964 at Holdsworth House Hotel in Halifax, which was then known as The Cavalier Country Club, after playing at the Gaumont Theatre. The police created a diversion after the show, which sent the fans in another direction completely – much to the appreciation of the hotel owners who feared the gardens would be trampled by hundreds of screaming fans. Gail Moss who was the daughter of the hotel owners at the time remembers The Beatles staying, as she and her sister had to vacate their rooms to accommodate them.
I’d never known they had actually performed ” I’m happy just to dance with you” on stage, except for “A hard day’s night”, of course, I’m happy I’ve learned that today.