This was the opening night of The Beatles’ lengthiest residency in Hamburg, during which they played a total of 92 nights at the Top Ten Club.
The club was owned by Peter Eckhorn, who paid each of The Beatles 35DM (£3) per day. They were required to play from 7pm until 2am each weekday, and from 8pm until 4am on weekends, with a 15-minute break in each hour.
The performances at the Top Ten were so successful that Eckhorn twice extended The Beatles’ contract. They eventually left Germany following their final show at the club on 1 July 1961, having performed on stage for 503 hours during their stay.
Also on this day...
- 2015: Cynthia Lennon dies
- 1973: John Lennon and Yoko Ono write the Declaration of Nutopia
- 1970: Recording: Across The Universe, The Long And Winding Road, I Me Mine
- 1969: Television: John Lennon and Yoko Ono interviewed on Today
- 1967: Recording, mixing: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
- 1966: John Lennon buys Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience
- 1965: Brian Epstein takes over the Saville Theatre, London
- 1965: Filming: Help!
- 1964: John Lennon is reunited with his father Alf
- 1964: Filming: A Hard Day’s Night
- 1963: Radio: Side By Side
- 1962: Live: Casbah Coffee Club, Liverpool
Want more? Visit the Beatles history section.
Is it true that Lennon farted on the last show and shouted:
That’s it, no more wurst and sauerkraut for me, I’m going home
Here’s some trivia: photographs taken at one of the gigs during the Top Ten Club residency reveals that Paul had already acquired his customized left-handed Höfner 500/1 bass and the fact that there were photos published with both him and Stuart on their respective left-handed and right-handed Höfner basses makes it hard to pin down who was actually The Beatles’ usual bassist at the time – this page shows a photograph with both of them on their basses.
It’s often been widely stated that Paul didn’t have a guitar with him at this point in time, but I have seen a photograph of George taken by Jurgen Vollmer and he is posing with John’s Rickenbacker, his own Resonet Futurama and Paul’s Rosetti Model 7, which disintegrated beyond repair after Paul accidentally dropped it, and Paul himself acknowledges that it was a very, very cheap guitar.