Hamburg marked 60 years to the day that the Beatles played their first gig in the city with a live concert of their music on Monday, but fans attended digitally rather than physically, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Beatles fan Stefanie Hempel and her Rock’n’Roll Special band took the stage at Club Indra for the ‘Stream and Shout’ concert broadcast, playing numbers from the first set played by the Fab Four, as well as later hits.
Artists including Bernd Begemann, Jimmy Cornett and the Kaiser Quartet, appeared as guest artists during the two-hour show.
Video greetings from celebrities such as Otto Waalkes and Howie Casey were shown during the broadcast, as well as messages from people who saw the Beatles during their original run of shows in the St Pauli district. Fans from all over the world could ask guest questions in a live chat.
Originally planned as a festival with about 40 bands, the anniversary concert had to be downsized due to the coronavirus pandemic. It will be made up for later, however, according to the organizers.
The city’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall kicked off its own commemoration event an hour earlier in more sedate fashion, with a concert by jazz pianist Julia Huelsmann.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison played their first gig in the Indra striptease club in the days before drummer Ringo Starr joined.
They are estimated to have spent 1,200 hours on stage in four Hamburg clubs between August 1960 and December 1962, just prior to so-called "Beatlemania” breaking out in Britain.— dpa
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