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The Beatles Play Sheffield


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Guest Milling_Radio

 

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Hey there,

I'm trying to find information for a music documentary project I'm working on, about The Beatles gigs in Sheffield. If anyone has any info on, or more importantly, attended any of these gigs or knows anyone who did, please could you contact me.

Particular interest in the following:

Azema Ballroom, White Lane, Gleadless on 12th February 1963

(Peter Stringfellow booked the Fab Four to play this venue, for £85. The Azena normally held 500 people, but Stringfellow sold 2,000 tickets and it's estimated another 1,000 showed up on the night. Tickets were four shillings (20p) rising to five shillings (25p) when demand took off.)

or:

Gaumont Cinema, Barkers Pool on 8th December 1965

(Compering the Gaumont show was a local lad, Jerry Stevens of Seagrave Avenue, Gleadless.)

Or any gigs The Beatles played in Sheffield in the 60's. If anyone has any information or contacts that could help me in my research, it would be most appreciated.

Please, please do not hesitate to get in touch - I need stories and memories of these memorable events. Just reply to this message on here or email me on - milling.radio@hotmail.co.uk

Thank you for your time,

Mike Milling

Free-lance radio programme producer/researcher

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Funnily enough I discussed this with my Aunt at the weekend who informed me she saw them in Sheffield having been dragged along by a friend - she said it was rubbish as she couldn't hear the music & singing because of the screaming and she wasn't bothered as they were a bit "rough" anyway!

Hey there,

I'm trying to find information for a music documentary project I'm working on, about The Beatles gigs in Sheffield. If anyone has any info on, or more importantly, attended any of these gigs or knows anyone who did, please could you contact me.

Particular interest in the following:

Azema Ballroom, White Lane, Gleadless on 12th February 1963

(Peter Stringfellow booked the Fab Four to play this venue, for £85. The Azena normally held 500 people, but Stringfellow sold 2,000 tickets and it's estimated another 1,000 showed up on the night. Tickets were four shillings (20p) rising to five shillings (25p) when demand took off.)

or:

Gaumont Cinema, Barkers Pool on 8th December 1965

(Compering the Gaumont show was a local lad, Jerry Stevens of Seagrave Avenue, Gleadless.)

Or any gigs The Beatles played in Sheffield in the 60's. If anyone has any information or contacts that could help me in my research, it would be most appreciated.

Please, please do not hesitate to get in touch - I need stories and memories of these memorable events. Just reply to this message on here or email me on - milling.radio@hotmail.co.uk

Thank you for your time,

Mike Milling

Free-lance radio programme producer/researcher

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Hey there,

I'm trying to find information for a music documentary project I'm working on, about The Beatles gigs in Sheffield. If anyone has any info on, or more importantly, attended any of these gigs or knows anyone who did, please could you contact me.

Particular interest in the following:

Azema Ballroom, White Lane, Gleadless on 12th February 1963

(Peter Stringfellow booked the Fab Four to play this venue, for £85. The Azena normally held 500 people, but Stringfellow sold 2,000 tickets and it's estimated another 1,000 showed up on the night. Tickets were four shillings (20p) rising to five shillings (25p) when demand took off.)

or:

Gaumont Cinema, Barkers Pool on 8th December 1965

(Compering the Gaumont show was a local lad, Jerry Stevens of Seagrave Avenue, Gleadless.)

Or any gigs The Beatles played in Sheffield in the 60's. If anyone has any information or contacts that could help me in my research, it would be most appreciated.

Please, please do not hesitate to get in touch - I need stories and memories of these memorable events. Just reply to this message on here or email me on - milling.radio@hotmail.co.uk

Thank you for your time,

Mike Milling

Free-lance radio programme producer/researcher

Welcome to Sheffield History Mike Milling

I have mentioned all the Beatles appearances in Sheffield in other topics on this site (Those Gleadless Pictures, Azena Ballroom, They appeared At The City Hall to name 3) although I never saw them at any.

Rather than "link fairy" these posts to here as they are fairly widely distributed across the site it may be easier to type "Beatles" into the site search facility to find these posts.

I take it that "Please, please do not hesitate to get in touch" was deliberately a Beatlesque reference as the repeated use of the word "Please" appeared in several early Beatle hits and was of course in the title of one of their singles and one of their albums.

If you are asking for our help you could have avoided using "Please, please" and gone instead for something like, -

"Help me if you can"

Or, you could have put the 2 together, -

"Won't you please, please Help me"

lol

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Funnily enough I discussed this with my Aunt at the weekend who informed me she saw them in Sheffield having been dragged along by a friend - she said it was rubbish as she couldn't hear the music & singing because of the screaming and she wasn't bothered as they were a bit "rough" anyway!

..and funnily enough dunsbyowl, I know people who did see the Fab Four live and have told me exactly same thing about them, -

1 )

The group could hardly be heard above the noise of the crowd of fans

2 )

The Beatles themselves did not actually sound at their best, - or as your aunt put it, they were "a bit rough"

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The Beatles stayed at the Grand Hotel when they played the City Hall. My sister worked on reception at the time and tells me how they had to sneak the Fab Four in the back doors to avoid all the fans in front of the hotel.

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The Beatles stayed at the Grand Hotel when they played the City Hall. My sister worked on reception at the time and tells me how they had to sneak the Fab Four in the back doors to avoid all the fans in front of the hotel.

Sounds like your siter had A Hard Day's Night dealing with that mickjj lol

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Sounds like your siter had A Hard Day's Night dealing with that mickjj lol

She told me her thoughts at the time were "We can work it out", "With a little help from our freinds"

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Guest Drumbeat62

My band/group the 'Drumbeats' lost the support slot to the 'Beatles' at the 'Azena' White lane Gleadless on the toss of a coin to Mark Stone & The Adens.

Roy Simonite (The Adens Drummer) still has the setlist John Lennon left on stage.

We ended up supporting Screaming Lord Sutch at the Black Cat Club (St Aidens Churh Hall City Rd) instead.

I've atached a shot of the Drumbeats playing Derby Locarno in 1964

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The first Sheffield concert was at the Azena Ballroom, White Lane, Gleadless on 12 February 1963. Peter Stringfellow paid £85 to book them. Although Peter had originally been quoted £65, Brian Epstein put the price up to £90 "because they've got a record in the charts", which was then haggled down by a fiver.


Stringfellow originally planned to book them to play at his Black Cat Club (St. Aiden's Church Hall), but because he couldn't fit enough people in to cover the huge booking fee of £85 (most "name" bands charged between £35 - £50 back then), he hired the Azena for the night, which cost him £29.


The Azena normally held 500 people, but Stringfellow sold 2,000 tickets and it's estimated another 1,000 showed up on the night. Tickets were four shillings (20p) rising to five shillings (25p) when demand took off.


Just pause and think about that: 25p to see the Beatles!


God knows how they did it, but the Beatles also played another gig on the same day in Oldham, Lancs.


The exact set list for the Azena show is lost in the mists of time, but they were only playing one Chuck Berry song live around that time (Too Much Monkey Business). The rest of the set would have been songs from their first LP including: Chains, Keep Your Hands Off My Baby, Please Please Me, Love Me Do, A Taste Of Honey, Do You Want To Know A Secret, I Saw Her Standing There.


By an amazing coincidence the Beatles had just recorded the remaining 10 tracks which would make up their debut LP on 11th Feb - the day before the Azena gig! All ten tracks were recorded in the one day, the remaining 4 tracks (it was a 14 track LP) being the A & B sides of their first two singles (Love Me Do & Please Please Me), which were already released.


Interestingly, The Beatles were back in Sheffield only a few weeks later on 2 March and then again on 16 March. Both concerts took place at the City Hall during the first wave of Beatlemania.

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2nd April1963 The Beatles perform at the Azena Arena in Sheffield, Yorkshire.

They were booked (for £85) by Peter Stringfellow who was later to become a well known London nightclub owner.

The setlist was written by Paul McCartney on the back of a Parlophone postcard

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