Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

The Beatles: How a schoolboy made the band's earliest known UK concert recording

The Beatles: How a schoolboy made the band's earliest known UK concert recording

The earliest known full recording of The Beatles playing a live concert in the UK, at the point they were becoming the biggest band in the nation, has been revealed by BBC Radio 4's Front Row, almost exactly 60 years after it was made.

The hour-long quarter-inch tape recording was made by 15-year-old John Bloomfield at Stowe boarding school in Buckinghamshire on 4 April 1963 when the band played a concert at the school's theatre.

They had been booked by fellow pupil David Moores, who had written to manager Brian Epstein.

Epstein, perhaps recognising the connection to an important Liverpool family - the Moores family owned the Littlewoods football pools and retail business - agreed to the booking for a fee of £100, and Moores raised the funds by selling tickets to schoolmates.

Bloomfield was a self-confessed tech geek keen to try out a new reel-to-reel tape recorder. Now in his 70s, he revealed the existence of the tape when I went to Stowe to make a Front Row special about the 60th anniversary of the concert.


On the cusp of fame


It was a unique Beatles gig, performed in front of an almost entirely male audience. And crucially, despite loud cheers and some screaming, the tape is not drowned out by the audience reaction.

It captures the appeal of The Beatles' tightly-honed live act, with a mixture of their club repertoire of R&B covers and the start of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership, with tracks off their debut album Please Please Me, which had been released barely two weeks earlier, on 22 March.

They kicked off with the album's opening track I Saw Her Standing There and then segued into Chuck Berry's Too Much Monkey Business.

Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn and I are the only people to have heard the full recording after Bloomfield agreed to play it for the first time since the recording was made. Part of it was played on Front Row on Monday (3 April).

Speaking about its significance, Lewisohn said: "The opportunity that this tape presents, which is completely out of the blue, is fantastic because we hear them just on the cusp of the breakthrough into complete world fame. And at that point, all audience recordings become blanketed in screams.

"So here is an opportunity to hear them in the UK, in an environment where they could be heard and where the tape actually does capture them properly, at a time when they can have banter with the audience as well.

"I think it's an incredibly important recording, and I hope something good and constructive and creative eventually happens to it.

"I didn't even know this tape existed until you told me about it, and I think I had to pick myself up off the floor."


'From a different planet'
L-R: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, pictured in 1963


The band arrived late from a recording at the BBC Paris Studios and, used to playing two half-hour sets, rattled through more than 22 songs in an hour.

Remarkably, they are heard taking requests from the schoolboys, who shouted out the names of songs that had been released just two weeks earlier. The banter between the band and audience reveals John Lennon doing joke voices, the huge popularity of Ringo Starr, and the fact that George Harrison had lost his voice and was unable to sing.

Bloomfield said the show made a big impact on him. "I would say I grew up at that very instant," he said. "It sounds a bit of an exaggeration, but I realised this was something from a different planet."

Although Stowe was a boys' school at the time, some girls were watching the Fab Four from the back. "It wasn't until they started playing that we heard the screaming, and we realised we were in the middle of Beatlemania," Bloomfield said. "It was just something we'd never even vaguely experienced."


Tuck shop tour


Afterwards, the band were taken for a meal in the tuck shop and were shown Bloomfield's typically spartan dorm room.

In 2020, when the school put up a blue plaque to celebrate the Beatles' visit, Sir Paul McCartney recalled how shocked they'd been. "Good old working class boys like us had never visited an establishment like Stowe and we were shocked to see the stark living conditions," he said.

Bloomfield has kept the recording for all these years, but had never publicly revealed its existence until now.

Visiting the school theatre again, he said he was embarrassed to have made the tape, but seeing the Beatles had changed his life and he found it emotional listening to it again, 60 years on.

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
Wave of Complaints Against Apple Over iPhone 17 Pro’s Scratch Sensitivity
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Trump Says Ukraine Can Fully Restore Borders with NATO Backing
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
×