There were puddles of water, a short circuit tripped the plugs and the power went out. The crowd almost didn't let the musicians in and one girl pulled John Lennon so hard that she even tore his jacket.
Although the fame of The Beatles had already been spreading for a couple of years in the United Kingdom and in some European countries, by August 1963 Liverpool was still their home. And within that home, there was a special place: The Cavern, a venue where the English band played hundreds of times since they first did so in February 1961.
There were exactly 291 performances until August 3, 60 years ago, when The Beatles' last show at The Cavern was. And that concert number 292 was special not only because it went down in history as the last one they offered there but also because that farewell turned out to be a night to forget, in which the power even went out.
It was not the only setback, although it was possibly the one that most influenced the show in a setting that at that time was still popularizing The Beatles. Soon it would be the other way around: that stage would become famous and popular because once, on its boards, the Fab Four played.
The Cavern was, almost literally, a cave. A basement that had been inaugurated in January 1957, when rock and roll in England had not yet aroused passions. Jazz was still being heard and skiffle was beginning to take over, an acoustic rhythm that had arrived from the United States and was all the rage in English youth bands, such as The Quarrymen, which John Lennon had founded with school friends a year earlier and to which Paul McCartney only joined in July of that 1957.
Four years passed in which The Cavern established itself as a place to go and listen to new music bands until on February 9, 1961, The Beatles debuted. Skiffle had evolved into beat music and Liverpool was the capital. In this context, The Beatles were increasing their popularity, which grew strongly after the publication of their first single album (“Love me do”) and exploded in March 1963, with the release of “Please, please, me”, the first album.
By August, The Cavern was small and Brian Epstein, representative of The Beatles, was already thinking about landing in the United States, which would finally happen in February 1964. And that night of August 3, 1963 would, then, be the farewell to The Cavern because, furthermore, the four Beatles were no longer happy about the possibility of playing there again.
Because? Because everything turned out to be an overflow. From the time the musicians entered the venue, even with the help of Paddy Delaney, The Cavern's doorman, they had to stumble past the enormous line of fans who were waiting to enter as well, and they were pulled so hard that they even tore their jacket. John Lennon.
Two weeks before, the show had been announced and tickets were put on sale, which sold out in half an hour. Several bands played before The Beatles, who closed the show a few minutes before midnight in forgettable conditions.
You could hardly breathe because the club was packed with people, some fainted, the winter cold of the streets of Liverpool had transformed into an unbearable heat inside the club, the condensation made the walls sweat and humidity began to form. puddles.
Miraculously, no one was electrocuted, although it was inevitable that when The Beatles' instruments and amplifiers were plugged in and turned on, a short circuit caused the plugs in The Cavern to explode and the power went out.
Without power, practically in the dark in a basement and with an audience that couldn't stop screaming for them, John, Paul, George and Ringo improvised an acoustic version of "When I'm Sixty-Four", the song McCartney had written thinking about his old age and inspired by his father and which was recently released on the album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
