Part 12: Liverpool, Beatles and a Spider

"They were a great little rock and roll band."

-Paul McCartney

We have come to Liverpool to see The Beatles Story, an exhibition on Liverpool's vibrant Albert Dock. It is a fascinating display, introduced by John Lennon's sister, Julia Baird.

"Let Me Take You Down"

The Story of the Greatest Band in the World

The premise of The Beatles Story is to re-create actual scenes or locations from their life as a band starting in Liverpool, supported by some iconic memorabilia, such as John Lennon's glasses, and George Harrison's first guitar. The displays start with John playing in his skiffle band, The Quarrymen at Woolton Village fete. We follow them to Liverpool's Casbah, called the true birthplace of the band, whose name changed to the Beatles here. Next is Hamburg, Germany where they learned to sound better by playing better: they returned to Liverpool standing out as being different from all the other Liverpool bands.

Below is a photo of the recreation of the Cavern Club on the famous Liverpool Matthew Street.

"The Cavern was the greatest club in the world--it was dark, smelly, sweaty, but had the greatest atmosphere for music in Liverpool--I wish I could go back and do it all again."
-Gerry Marsden, Gerry & The Pacemakers

There is also a re-creation of Brian Epstein's NEMS record shop, Hesey's Music Centre, and the Abbey Road Studio. There is a cutaway of the PA airplane that flew them to their first tour of America with film footage of screaming fans experiencing Beatlemania, and concert scenes of the great concerts at the Palladium in the UK and at New York's Shea Stadium on 23 August 1965.

A special photographic gallery features the first Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964. Personally, I remember the show clearly, and like millions of others, was stunned by their performance. I became, like so many of my friends, an instant fan. It was at this same time that my best friend, Pete Cameron, got together with his brother, John, and school mates David MacKinnon, Ken Ryan and Verne Wells, and created The Mystics. Looking at a display of the original Beatles jackets, I fondly recall when The Mystics started to dress in powder blue jackets, emulating The Beatles. (I, of course, never was musical: I became their first manager, publicist and chief roadie, but I got to wear one of the jackets, too.)

Perhaps my favourite part of the display pertaining to their greatest albums--Abbey Road, Let it Be, The White Album, etc.--is the display for Sgt. Pepper, with a wall-sized mock-up of the album sleeve.

"The record was as though this marching band had done a concert in a bandstand and after the concert, they'd gathered together and so the flowers at the front of Sergeant Pepper are the equivalent of a decorative, flower clock, you know, or whatever, you know, a municipal flower park display . . . they could be surrounded by a kind of crowd of fans and of the Beat--of Sergeant Pepper. . ." -Sir Peter Blake, designer of the record sleeve.

Another special display is a room dedicated to John and Yoko and their legacy of peace and love, complete with a recreation of the hotel room where they held their famous sleep in. There are also separate displays for each of their solo careers, following The Beatles break-up in 1970.

"They say all good things must come to an end. But look at the legacy they left us. In a recording life that spanned less than eight years they released twenty-two singles, ten albums, and wrote over two hundred great songs. That's not to mention four films, dozens of concerts and countless memories." -Julia Baird

The most poignant of all the displays is The White Room, a re-creation of the John Lennon room in Tittenhurst Park where John and Yoko lived and where the Imagine video was shot. It is a contemplative moment to listen to what may be the greatest song ever, Imagine by John Lennon. We complete the tour by purchasing some Beatles souvenirs. (I wish I knew what my son Chris needs for the collection he is building based on my own collecting from the 1960s!)

I grabbed this photo as we approached the downtown area. I have no idea if it is just a mural, or represents some significant place.

Of course, we are in Liverpool and there is much more to it than The Beatles. It has some wonderful old buildings, but also some desperate areas of closed-up old slums of row housing and old factories. But there is plenty of evidence of revitalisation, too.

We walk along Strand Street, noting that many streets are closed, but pleased things aren't too crowded--here. Ahead we see the Port of Liverpool Building. It is one of three old waterside buildings, called the Three Graces. The other two are the Royal Liver Building and the Cunard Building.

When we crossed the bridge into the Albert Dock, I took another photo of the Port of Liverpool Building. Heavy rain has started, and such wind on the quay I think Sam will blow away!

From the Albert Dock. The Dock was built in 1846 and closed in 1972. In the 1980s the warehouses were converted to this upscale area of restaurants, shops, exhibits and museums. Here one can also visit the Tate Liverpool, with its contemporary art collections, but time does not permit a visit today.

This shot, up Richmond Street, shows that on this Saturday, every area has become crowded.

We pass Derby Square, where we find the Victoria Monument. This is the site of the original Liverpool Castle. We also notice a huge building boom underway, with huge new, upscale rebuilding projects underway, including the magnificent Liverpool One project.

It is not until we begin the long walk to the parking garage that we finally realise that Liverpool is not always as crowded as the downtown area now proves to be. We had seen BBC reports of a giant spider in the city, but we had failed to realise what that meant. And then it hits us: we are part of a surge of 100,000 people who have come to see the spider! We approach along Paradise Street, needing to go through the intersection to Whitechapel, to find the car. The Police turn us back, telling us that the number of people has become dangerous, especially for children, because of the crush of the crowds. We turn back.

Around the block we approach the intersection again, this time along Lord Street. I really want to stop and watch the mechanical spider, but we are caught in a stream of pedestrians pushing forwards. One cannot stop. As well, a bit of enochlophobia (fear of crowds) kicks in for some, who want to get away. It is also scary for little Sam, whom none of us can carry.

Nevertheless, as we pass, I manage to photograph the spider. I know she has been named La Princesse, and that she weighs 37 tonnes and is 15 meters long.

La Princesse settles down for a nap following a performance. The press will let us know what we saw.

“Giant spider stalks streets of Liverpool” sounds like the premise for an unlikely science-fiction horror flick or a Scouse arachnophobe's worst nightmare. But an eight-legged creature did visit the city this past weekend. Fifty feet high, made of steel and poplar and weighing 37 tonnes, this mechanical marvel was hatched in Nantes, where François Delarozière's company La Machine has its workshops. Delarozière is the engineering wizard whose designs for the free, peripatetic street-theatre event The Sultan's Elephant lured huge and appreciative crowds into Central London in 2006. Commissioned as part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture celebrations, his harmless creepy-crawly exerted a similarly magnetic pull on the local populace over a three-day period. Produced by the company, Artichoke, the Liverpool production turns out to be amazingly successful.It certainly was a boost to "scouse"--the word used to refer to Liverpudlian spirit.

Hauled about on a forklift truck, or raised above the dock by a crane for an entirely redundant water-cannon shower, the spider was indeed impressive. A dozen stoic operators travelled with it, a few stationed atop its occasionally frothing head and the rest seated in a ring below manipulating its long, articulate legs. There was also a retinue of twenty British musicians playing from inside the plastic-covered buckets of cherry pickers.

‘She waved her massive legs at the crowd and they waved back, she sprayed water and the crowd begged for more, and when she was caught in a snowstorm and went to sleep in the middle of the main retail area, the audience gave out a great collective sigh of pleasure as if they had all been given a precious free gift. It turned out to be a very bad day for shopping, but a great day for art.’ The Guardian, 8th September 2008

News reports about La Princesse show up around the world, with plenty of coverage by the BBC and CNN, as well as the major newspapers. Below are a few additional media photos of the creation, which not only clung to buildings but even went for a "swim" in the Mersey. One unsuspecting motorist crashed his car when he caught sight of the moving spider!

Below are a few media photos from perspectives we didn't get to see.

We had come to Liverpool from the town of Chorley, near Preston, where we had found a good inn for the night. We drove from home in Bicester through some of the most urban parts of England--Birmingham and Manchester--but this is a country where one passes huge cities and then finds oneself in empty, rural countryside in an instant. (We had taken the M6 north.)

The canal in front of the inn/restaurant in Chorley. Whilst babysitting Sam I take him for a walk around the hotel, the night before's pouring rain (which caused flooding to the east) having eased in the morning. We loved these horses at Roscoe Farm across the canal.

The Grampy Portrait, by Sam, age 6, in front of the Malthouse Restaurant.

Next on the travel schedule: Scotland, Ireland, and maybe, finally, London.