Earliest recording of UK show by The Beatles found
nme.comThe Beatles playing a live show in the UK has been found almost exactly 60 years after it was made.As BBC News reports, the hour-long quarter-inch tape recording was created by John Bloomfield at Stowe boarding school in Buckinghamshire on April 4, 1963 when the Fab Four performed there.Bloomfield, who is now 75 years old, was only 15 at the time.
He revealed the existence of the tape when journalist Samira Ahmed visited Stowe to make a special programme for Radio 4’s Front Row to mark the gig’s 60th anniversary.“It was a unique Beatles gig, performed in front of an almost entirely male audience,” Ahmed wrote of the discovery. “And crucially, despite loud cheers and some screaming, the tape is not drowned out by the audience reaction.”The setlist was made up of songs from The Beatles’ debut album ‘Please Please Me’, which had been released on March 22, 1963, as well as some of the legendary group’s R&B cover versions.A live rendition of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ kicked off the performance before the band transitioned into their take on Chuck Berry‘s 1956 single ‘Too Much Monkey Business’.
They’re also heard taking requests from students, and joking amongst themselves in between tracks.Part of the historic recording was played on last night’s edition of Front Row (April 3) – you can tune in here via BBC Sounds.Ahmed and Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn are the only people to have heard the full recording after Bloomfield agreed to play it for the first time since it was made six decades ago.“The opportunity that this tape presents, which is completely out of the blue, is fantastic because we hear [The Beatles] just on the cusp of the breakthrough into complete world fame,” Lewisohn told the BBC.
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