The Beatles in Hamburg - 1960

 Pete  -  George  -  John  -  Paul  -  Stu

The period from August 1960 to December 1962 marked a significant period in the development of The Beatles.  Beginning on about August 17, 1960 The Beatles played at a series of Hamburg clubs including the Indra and the Kaiserkeller.  The group at this time was John, Paul, and George with Pete Best on Drums and Stu Sutcliffe on Bass.   Pete was auditioned and recruited the day before they left Liverpool!

Their schedule was intense.  The Beatles performed 7 days per week, often for 7 or 8 hours per night.  Living conditions were squalid, as Paul McCartney remembers... "We lived backstage in the Bambi Kino, next to the toilets, and you could always smell them. The room had been an old storeroom, and there were just concrete walls and nothing else. No heat, no wallpaper, not a lick of paint; and two sets of bunk beds, with not very much covers—Union Jack flags—we were frozen."  

These were the years that The Beatles gelled. Their skills were honed, their repertoire was expanded, and their reputation was begun.  The Beatles emerged from this period ready to be launched into the stardom that would follow.

 
Rock on!!  Rob; in Vancouver 

"In Hamburg we got very good as a band because we had to play eight hours a night and we started building a big repertoire of some of our own songs, but mainly we did all the old rock songs. In fact, we did everything." George Harrison