Visits to Liverpool and Hamburg | Page 3 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I don't think Nowhere Boy was filmed in John's home, no. I'd imagine they'd have reconstructed it on a film set. The upheaval would have been enormous, and the house probably isn't big enough to accomodate a full crew anyway.

Snowy, apparently. All flights were cancelled, so I'm still in the UK. Will rearrange for next year.

The big freeze is predicted (by some) to last into the new year, so there's no point booking for a few days' time. Also I need to give my employer enough notice that I'll be taking time off – I can't just drop everything and fly to Germany whenever, much as I'd like to!

It's OK. December is expensive enough without taking an extra holiday. I'll get there, I'll get there in the end. Yes I will, I'll get there in the end, oh yeah, oh yeah…

It’s taken me a while to go through these. Here are photos from my trip to Hamburg a couple of weeks ago. I hope you enjoy them.

I went with my dad. We were supposed to go late last year, but our flight was grounded by snow. Turns out that was a blessing in disguise, because had we made it traipsing around the city in the snow would have been hard work.

The Reeperbahn is the main street which comes alive after dark. If you’ve ever been to Amsterdam you’ll know what to expect: sex shops, live shows, head shops etc. Grosse Freiheit runs just off it at the western end.

At the junction of the Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit is Beatleplatz (‘Beatle square’ ). They’re quite easy to miss, but there are monuments to The Beatles there.

This is Grosse Freiheit (‘great freedom’ ), the street on which the Kaiserkeller, Indra and the site of the Star-Club can all be found. It’s a pretty garish mixture of bars, strip clubs and music venues. I’m sure it’s changed a lot since The Beatles were here, but after dark it’s easy to imagine the sort of seedy atmosphere it once had.

A little way up Grosse Freiheit is the site of the Star-Club, where The Beatles did three residencies in 1962. It was destroyed by fire in 1983 and the ruins were demolished three years later, with a plaque now marking the site.

Elsewhere in Hamburg is a museum of St Pauli, the district where the Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit are. I didn’t go in the museum, but in the window outside I saw this cash register from the Star-Club. Apologies for the bad pic.

Back down to Beatleplatz is the Beatlemania museum. This is really very good, far better than the Beatles Story one in Liverpool. The best thing is the number of autographs, contracts, memorabilia, artworks etc that you can’t see anywhere else.

Astrid Kirchherr and her manager Ulf Kruger were, I believe, involved in putting it together, and there’s some amazing stuff in there. The fifth pic is a portrait of Astrid by Stuart Sutcliffe. There’s also one of John Lennon that I didn’t get a good pic of.

As with the Liverpool museum, it loses focus a bit after it’s dealt with The Beatles’ time in the city. Still, the rest of it’s done quite well. There was also an Andy Warhol section when I was there, presumably a temporary thing, which had quite a few of his images of The Beatles and Lennon (all reproductions).

The fourth pic below is Klaus Voormann’s original artwork sketch for George Harrison ‘s single When We Was Fab. There were also Sgt Pepper costumes (reproductions), and a mockup of the cover where they encourage visitors to stand and pose (I didn’t). Apparently this is the only part of the museum where people are allowed to take pics, but I asked on the door and the guy said I could use a camera anywhere.

The Top Ten Club was back on the Reeperbahn, just round the corner from Grosse Freiheit. It’s the pink building with the green doorway, which happened to be open when we were there.

Finally, some random thoughts. Hamburg is a brilliant city, though not quite up there with Berlin IMO. Good for wandering around, and plenty of nice neighbourhoods to explore (there’s a huge lake around which all the city’s millionaires live in mansions – quite different from the Reeperbahn). The people are really friendly too, and forgiving of stupid English people who don’t speak a great deal of German.

Oddly, though, they don’t make a big deal of the Beatles connection – you have to go looking for it rather than having it thrust in your face at every turn (Liverpool, I’m looking at you*). It’s surprising there were no leaflets/maps showing the various parts of Grosse Freiheit and the Reeperbahn where they played and stayed, or any kind of acknowledgement at the Jagerpassage of the Rock ‘N’ Roll connection.

A useful book is Ulf Kruger’s Beatles In Hamburg guide. There does seem to be a dearth of decent books about The Beatles’ time in the city, and detailed maps seem to be non-existent. I also looked out for an anthology of Astrid’s work but couldn’t find one anyway. Someone’s missing a trick.

I bought some books though. Baby’s In Black is a graphic novel telling the story of Astrid and Stuart. My copy has the Germans speaking German and The Beatles speaking English (with a translation of the latter at the back). It’s easy enough to follow the German dialogue if you’ve seen Backbeat or know the tale, but I think there’s an all-English translation available.

I also bought a book called Das Neue, So Merkwurdig, which is presented as an interview between the young John Lennon and the German composer Hanns Eisler (1898-1962), in English and German. I got about half way through, thinking it was a great previously-undiscovered interview, before realising it was all invented by the author, Thomas Freitag. Very strange.

Lastly, vinyl! There are quite a few proper record shops dotted around Hamburg, which was nice to see (they don’t really do the big chain stores as much as we do in the UK). I picked up the Concert for Bangla Desh set, the Live at the Star-Club double album, a German version of A Hard Day’s Night , and an interview flexi-disc containing an interview from, I think, their Germany tour in 1966. I haven’t listened to that properly.

*I love Liverpool, but the Rubber Soul Bar, Lennon’s Bar, Hard Day’s Night hotel etc gets a bit much after a while. The authentic stuff is great, but I don’t care for the cash-in places at all. Still, unemployment’s high there and I can’t really blame them.

PS sorry for the picture quality. I didn’t have time to crop anything, and I’m not a great photographer. Click for bigger versions.

The final pic is of me in the doorway.