George Harrison's first guitarThursday 15 January – THE BEATLES
It was 20 years ago today… Actually it wasn’t twenty years ago, but rather 2 nights ago – I was in Liverpool. There’s a Beatles’ exhibition, which took me a bit to find, and in fact I found the gift shop at the end of the exhibition before I found the exhibition itself. But I did get some Beatle-y memorabilia – some stickers which are now attached to the laptop, a badge and a gift bag.
The exhibition was a bit disappointing to be honest. It didn’t really give me any new insight to the Fab Four or their music. It just rehashed their story and didn’t really put it into any kind of context, either of the time or of Liverpool. There was an audio guide that you listened to as you went around, but they kept playing music within the exhibition so that half the time you couldn’t hear the guide. In the end I just gave up.
The best bit was at the end when they dedicated one corner of a big room to each of the Beatles. Paul’s corner was like a movie theatre, and a video display played excerpts of interviews with him talking about his involvement with writing for film, composing classical works and his patronage of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.
John’s corner was set up like a bed where the video display focussed on his activism.
In Ringo’s corner you sat on drum stools and the video was about his work in films and Thomas the Tank Engine.
But George’s was the best (anyway – he’s my favourite Beatle by a million miles). You sat on cushions and the video display played “My Sweet Lord” while there was a still of George on the screen, then it played a skit he did for Eric Idle (Monty Python) on his show Rutland Weekend Television – singing about how he wants to be a pirate. You should check it out on YouTube!
In the afternoon I did a very touristy, very tacky thing, which I still can’t believe I did – I went on a bus trip called a “Magical Mystery Tour” that spent 2 hours driving around Liverpool looking at all the famous Beatle sites – the houses where they lived, the sign that says “Penny Lane”, the gates to Strawberry Field etc. Very tacky, but also…very good. The tour guide was brilliant – he had met Paul McCartney a number of times, he had played John Lennon in a film about Lennon’s early life, and he knew so much about the Beatles (like how John wanted Ringo in the band, not just because of his drumming skills – which I will defend until the day I die – but also because he saw how good Ringo was with the ladies and figured that if they let Ringo in the band then they’d get more girls too…).
It was a bit stalker-y but well worth it!
So there you go. I’m even more obsessed than when I began (if that’s possible)!
It was 20 years ago today… Actually it wasn’t twenty years ago, but rather 2 nights ago – I was in Liverpool. There’s a Beatles’ exhibition, which took me a bit to find, and in fact I found the gift shop at the end of the exhibition before I found the exhibition itself. But I did get some Beatle-y memorabilia – some stickers which are now attached to the laptop, a badge and a gift bag.
The exhibition was a bit disappointing to be honest. It didn’t really give me any new insight to the Fab Four or their music. It just rehashed their story and didn’t really put it into any kind of context, either of the time or of Liverpool. There was an audio guide that you listened to as you went around, but they kept playing music within the exhibition so that half the time you couldn’t hear the guide. In the end I just gave up.
The best bit was at the end when they dedicated one corner of a big room to each of the Beatles. Paul’s corner was like a movie theatre, and a video display played excerpts of interviews with him talking about his involvement with writing for film, composing classical works and his patronage of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.
John’s corner was set up like a bed where the video display focussed on his activism.
In Ringo’s corner you sat on drum stools and the video was about his work in films and Thomas the Tank Engine.
But George’s was the best (anyway – he’s my favourite Beatle by a million miles). You sat on cushions and the video display played “My Sweet Lord” while there was a still of George on the screen, then it played a skit he did for Eric Idle (Monty Python) on his show Rutland Weekend Television – singing about how he wants to be a pirate. You should check it out on YouTube!
In the afternoon I did a very touristy, very tacky thing, which I still can’t believe I did – I went on a bus trip called a “Magical Mystery Tour” that spent 2 hours driving around Liverpool looking at all the famous Beatle sites – the houses where they lived, the sign that says “Penny Lane”, the gates to Strawberry Field etc. Very tacky, but also…very good. The tour guide was brilliant – he had met Paul McCartney a number of times, he had played John Lennon in a film about Lennon’s early life, and he knew so much about the Beatles (like how John wanted Ringo in the band, not just because of his drumming skills – which I will defend until the day I die – but also because he saw how good Ringo was with the ladies and figured that if they let Ringo in the band then they’d get more girls too…).
It was a bit stalker-y but well worth it!
So there you go. I’m even more obsessed than when I began (if that’s possible)!
The house where John Lennon grew up with his aunt Mimi
Yours truly by Penny Lane
The house where Ringo Starr grew up
Strawberry Field
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