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The Beatles · S3 E1
The Reeperbahn
Hamburg's red-light district. Strip clubs, sailors, and a cellar venue called the Indra where five teenagers from Liverpool play eight hours a night
Five boys from Liverpool step out of a van onto Hamburg's Reeperbahn, and the neon signs of strip clubs and dive bars hit them like a wall. It is August 17, 1960, and none of them have ever left England before.
Hamburg separated the day trippers from the real thing. Listen for the R&B riff that John and Paul forged during hundreds of hours of all-night sets in the clubs of St. Pauli.
Day Tripper (1965)
John and Paul built the entire song around that opening guitar riff, written in a single session at John's Weybridge home. The riff owes everything to the American R&B they absorbed during marathon Hamburg sets, playing four, five, six hours a night. Listen for the bass mirroring the guitar line at a slightly different angle each time. Released as a double A-side with 'We Can Work It Out,' it hit number one in the UK.
The Indra Club
Grosse Freiheit 64, Hamburg. The tiny basement club where the Beatles played their first Hamburg residency, starting August 17, 1960. The street name translates to 'Great Freedom.'
TAP TO REVEAL: What kind of cinema was the Beatles' first Hamburg bedroom?
How much were the Beatles paid per person, per night at the Indra Club?
I'm Down (The Beatles)
Paul McCartney's most unhinged vocal performance: screaming, laughing, completely losing control. At Shea Stadium, John played the organ with his elbows while Paul howled into the mic. This is the sound of Hamburg distilled into two and a half minutes.
The Indra is half-empty and the neighbours are already complaining about the noise. But club owner Bruno Koschmider has a solution, and it comes in two German words that will change the Beatles forever.
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