Back to the Cavern - 6 July 1999

     Apart from a brief appearance at the Cavern's 40th birthday in Jan 1997, John Lennon's Original Quarrymen were back at the Cavern for the first time since 1957!
     As well as playing the Rock and Skiffle numbers from their 1957 repertoire the band regaled their audience with a feast of anecdotes about their early days in the Liverpool of the fifties. Rock journalist and Beatlefan Ian Forsyth who was in the audience said "The group has the original line up, minus one, the banter is very Liverpool and very funny and the 20 odd song set is totally authentic. What more do you want?"
     The numbers ranged from "Mean Woman Blues" to "Maggie May", from "In spite of all the Danger" to "Come go with me", with the incorrect "penitentiary" chorus being slipped in at the end, much to the delight of the audience!
     The concert was a prelude to the Quarrymen's visit to the USA which was due to take place towards the end of August. The reception from the audience was so great that the band can't wait to come back to Liverpool for another gig, maybe during the 2000 Beatle Convention!
     It seems that Sir Paul might have heard about the Quarrymen’s appearance, because not long afterwards Paul made his own return to the Cavern to great acclaim.

The Quarrymen in 1999:

New York, Boston & Orlando Beatlefest - Aug 1999

  Thanks to Kevin McCarthy, Mets Stadium General Manager, on Mon 22 Aug the Quarrymen were guests of honour at the famed baseball ground in New York, Shea Stadium. There had been plans for the group to play a few numbers before the game in front of the baseball crowd but a change in policy sadly ruled this out, however maybe another time! The Mets gave the band a huge welcome as they were featured on the giant video screen as their CD was played over the PA. The match ended with a nail biting finish, the Mets beating the Houston Astros by a home run on the last ball! Billy J Kramer, himself a big Mets fan, was there wearing his special Mets shirt with his name emblazoned on the back and we have some great photos with him!

Boston
   After New York, where they strolled in Strawberry Fields in Central Park and rode the Staten Island Ferry, they drove up the coast to Boston. Arriving on the Wednesday they spent the evening strolling round the Harvard Square area, visiting the original House of Blues and sampling the local Guinness! On the Thursday they went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology - to their college radio station (which is very big in Boston!) and took part in a one hour interview with phoned in questions from the listeners.
   Thursday evening found them at Johnny D's, one of Boston's top music venues, where they played to an enthusiastic audience, many of whom were not died in the wool Beatle fans, but who told the group afterwards how much they had enjoyed the insight into the the origins of the group and the stories about Liverpool! Rod Davis even managed a verse of the Quarry Bank School Song, "Quarrymen old before our birth", with the assistance of Tony Lee, another ex Quarry Bank student who was in the audience!

Orlando
   Despite concerns about hurricanes and flight delays the group arrived in Orlando just in time to spend fifteen minutes on stage with Martin Lewis as he and Mark Lapidos welcomed them to the Orlando Beatlefest! The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying the atmosphere (and the steamy Florida summer heat!), meeting the Beatle fans and performing on stage. It is always a pleasure to meet old friends from previous Beatlefests and once again the "after hours" sessions in the bar were a major feature of the weekend, there were some fantastic musicians and singers who really showed the Pharmaceutical Conventioneers in the hotel how to party!. Drummer Colin Hanton, not wearing his usual tie (Mrs Hanton please note!) was last seen standing on a bar stool during Rod Davis's rendition of the English music hall song "The Hole in the Elephant's Bottom". Whatever happened to culture! A clearly outraged barman politely asked "Sir" if  he wouldn't mind coming down off the bar stool!
   Thanks go to Mark and Carol Lapidos, to Martin Lewis for being himself, to Sue who helped with the CD sales and all those great Beatle fans!
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Mons Beatle Day, Belgium - Oct 1999

   On Saturday, 9 October 1999 the Quarrymen appeared at the Beatles Day, in Mons, Belgium. Also on the bill were "Lenny Pane" from Sweden and "Soul Day" from Belgium. Jean-Louis Polard, the man who translated "The Day John met Paul" into French interviewed the Quarrymen on stage and interpreted their comments for the mainly French speaking crowd.
   The Quarrymen were without Pete Shotton, who was ill and could not make the trip. This was a major disappointment for the hundreds of washboard aficionados who had flown and driven from all the corners of Europe to watch the legendary "Thimblemeister" performing. Their loss was also a bad day for the Belgian Brewing Industry, as the Quarrymen, down to four players only, were unable to make their usual dent in the local beer supply, but believe me, they tried, oh how they tried. Colin and Len, who had got there first, claimed that they had each drunk a glass of "dodgy tapwater" before retiring for the night on Friday, which accounted for their very relaxed demeanour on the Saturday. You'd think at their age they would know better!
   All in all it was a very enjoyable trip, with our grateful thanks to Alain Cardon and the rest of his team in Mons for a well organised event and their very generous and overwhelming hospitality!

Las Vegas & Vancouver - Jan 1999

Quarrymen get lit up in Las Vegas
As a direct result of their 1998 US tour the Quarrymen were invited to play at the Palace Station Casino in Las Vegas! After being chauffeured from the airport in a white stretch limo (what a change from the back of a lorry in Woolton!) along the fabulous Las Vegas strip, the Quarrymen arrived at the Palace Station Casino to find their name up in lights on the biggest illuminated sign in the whole of Nevada!

Next morning it was TV time and the band appeared on the Noon News, just before the hurricane warnings.That evening in the Casino's Trax Night club the Quarrymen played two one-hour concerts to an enthusiastic audience of Beatles fans and Vegas gamblers!

Quarryman flies to Canada to get tooth fixed!
The Saturday morning say the guys off early to catch the plane north to Canada, changing at Vancouver to a little 18 seater propellor machine for the trip up the spectacular snow-covered west coast to Campbell River on Vancouver Island.

They were welcomed at the airport by Bettyanne Hampton of Buster Productions who was putting on the show. Len was by this time suffering terribly from a chipped tooth, so Bettyanne managed to find him a friendly moose doctor who soon sorted him out!

The Tidemark Theatre in Campbell River was a converted cinema, a bit Art Deco on the outside with an auditorium seating over 400, quite a surprise for an admittedly small town. The audience gave the Quarrymen a very warm reception and seemed to relish their music and in particular their sense of humour. Indeed quite a few members of the audience were English and they had come to brush up their nostalgia, one had even worked with Rod Davis when he was teaching in Speke in the mid-sixties.

Quarrymen clear theatre!
Although the show went very well, the Quarrymen were surprised to find the audience sprinting for the exits at the end of the show, however it turned out that they were simply rushing to catch the last ferry home!

Cultural Ambassadors ???
Next day it was back to Vancouver and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre - known locally as "The Cultch" which the Rogue Folk Club of Vancouver used for staging concerts. The front rows of the stalls were dangerously near the band, who insisted that only audience members with a particularly bad aim should be allowed to sit.

Quarrymen get "Hands-on experience"
Before the show all the band members received (underwent??) a Shiatsu massage from one of the club members, Bonnie, which put them in an even more relaxed mood than usual. (They have decided that this should now be written in to the contract for every gig instead of the unlimited supplies of Guinness......)

Once again the Liverpool "sensayuma" was appreciated by the crowd, as were the anecdotes and stories of the band about their early days. Figures from the past continued to appear in the shape of two girls from Woolton whom Eric and Rod had known when they were teenagers! 

The band finished the evening in the company of Steve, Phil and Bruce from the Rogue, at an extremely authentic Chinese restaurant, so authentic that the waiter was completely unintelligible. The words "Fried Rice" are evidently not universally understood! 

Monday morning saw the Quarrymen making an appearance on the Vicki Gabereau Show, a one hour TV chat show which specialises in interesting guests.....Ah well, they can't get everything right!

 Pete Shotton admits he knows words of school song
Vicki herself was charming and proved a very persuasive interviewer, managing to get Pete Shotton to sing a verse of the Quarry Bank School Song for the first time in 40 years! (Maybe even the first time ever!)"Quarrymen old before our birth, straining each muscle and sinew... " Pete pointed out that Lennon and he had never strained a muscle or even a sinew during their entire career at Quarry Bank, which was the reason it was such a good name for the band.

Drummer seen not wearing tie!!!!!!
Colin Hanton, the only well-dressed member of the band, bitterly disappointed his many fans by completely abandoning his customary standards of elegance and APPEARED ON TELEVISION NOT WEARING A TIE! (Mrs Hanton please note!)

Liverpool lads attempt to drink Canada Dry!
On their last night in Canada the band spent the evening at the Irish Heather pub (not the White Heather Club!) listening to and joining in occasionally with the excellent Irish music in between concerted attempts to reduce Canada's Guinness surplus. (Apparently they saw an advert saying "Drink Canada Dry" so they did their best - there’s nothing like a good old joke, and that wasn’t a good old joke!)

John Lennon’s
Original Quarrymen