The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
A Hard Day’s Night in 1963 for promoter Andi Lothian
It was the opposite of Beatlemania when Dundee music promoter Andi Lothian watched the Fab Four perform in front of “96 drunk young farmers and four women” at Bridge of Allan on this date in 1963.
Albert Bonici had signed The Beatles for their first tour of Scotland in 1963, due to begin with a gig in Keith on January 2 which was cancelled following a snowstorm.
The tour started at Bonici’s club The 2 Red Shoes in Elgin the next day and he employed Andi to look after the Bridge of Allan date on January 5.
Andi recalled: “We had lost money on the event.
“But for the last quarter of an hour, I went and sat up in the balcony.
“They announced they were going to play three numbers, all of which had been recorded and were likely to be their next releases.
“The music just hit me like no other music had.”
Having relished that performance, Andi knew The Beatles were going to be something special.
Bonici had negotiated a clause in the contract signed in late 1962 for first rights on any subsequent Scottish tours.
Andi said: “I phoned Albert Bonici (in Elgin) and said: “We have to get them back before any of these songs come out’.
“We turned up unannounced in Brian Epstein’s office in London.
“He told us: ‘ You can have them back, but it’s not your £30 a night. It’s £500 a night.’
“We booked them. We got three nights in October.
“I put the tickets on sale in June and we sold out in Glasgow in a morning.”
J im Strachan from Stirling was in the audience for the Bridge of Allan gig.
He said: “We didn’t know what to expect, but it was sensational.
“John Lennon was the mysterious one.
“He didn’ t really say much, he was very intense.
“But Paul Mccartney was laughing and joking and
enjoying himself.”
While the Fab Four have been immortalised in music history, it’s easy to forget that they had to pay their dues as youngsters, of ten in front of tiny audiences who had still to be convinced these lads were the future of pop.
All manner of little gigs were played in small communities to which Lennon and Mccartney, with their friend, George Harrison, travelled in a basic camper van.
Richard Houghton has delved into their world, both before and after they became famous, and amassed the anecdotes of more than 400 people who encountered the Mersey group on their journey from the skiffle days as The Quarrymen, through to their thrilling early
appearances at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, and thereaf ter on to their emergence as global behemoths.
He has unearthed plenty of evidence they were met with derision and incomprehension in some places and elicited a frosty response in the north of Scotland at the start of 1963 when they were billed as the “Love Me Do Boys”.
They were often the third or fourth names on the concert posters, and were paid with £10 here, £15 there, offset against petrol and lodgings in basic B&BS.
He said: “Some people think they just went into the studio and started recording hits. But nothing could be further from the truth. They actually spent years on the road, learning their trade, and playing to
all d i ff e r e n t audience.”
On January 3 1963, they performed a gig in Elgin, which wasn’t a sell-out.
Yet Adeline Reid will never forget the experience, nor her mee ting with Lennon at his cheekiest.
She said: “I was a student nurse, training at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin. I lived in a boarding house not far from the Two Red Shoes Ballroom.
“Next door was another boarding house whose owners were friends of Albert Bonici, the owner of the Two Red Shoes.
“Al l the artists who appeared at the ballroom stayed there and it was an exciting time.
“My friend Joan and I were unable to get tickets, which were 4/6 – about 23p in modern money. kinds of
“However, when I was about to go to hospital for work the next day, The Beatles were hanging out of the window next door. I could have reached out and touched them.
“Their personalities were cheeky and outrageous and not what we were used to at all.
“John Lennon asked me to take his pulse and my face went the colour of a tomato.
“At the house door, our landlady suddenly appeared, who proceeded to reprimand them for their cheek. She did not approve of them talking to her girls in such a shocking manner!”
Fraser Gow was just 18 when he saw the band at the Town Hall in Dingwall on January 4 1963.
He said: “I reckon there were about 20 of us there in total. It was pretty empty.
“They were quite a loud band and in a big empty hall, it was probably making it worse. There was more echo than anything else. They were a bit of a rock band and we said: ‘Och no, we c a n’ t be bothered with this’.
“I think they cut their losses and stopped playing. The people behind us got their money back. And then, a few weeks later, they were the ‘in thing’.”
The Beatles attracted an altogether more rapturous reception when they played at the Caird Ha l l in Dundee towards the end of 1964.
They were superstars by this stage and created enduring memories with a collection of songs which are now indelibly etched in the music chronicles.
Jim Scott, a retired art t e a c h e r, was in the crowd and has never forgotten the concert. He said: “They had this incredible raw energy and they whipped up a huge storm.
“You could tell that they had developed their own identity and the harmonies b e tw e e n Lennon and Mccartney sent shivers up your spine.
“It was like nothing we had ever heard before. And we were blown away.”