[Closed] Liverpool and The Beatles

You could have asked a few locals while there, which might have given you a better idea than a bunch of random people spread all over the country.
I would hazard a guess that many do, it's a very important part of the city's recent history, along with music in general, and brought global attention to the city.
However, the attractions are obviously geared towards visitors, the locals know all that stuff already.
Same with the Roman Baths and Jane Austin in Bath, locals are generally ambivalent, but they bring lots of tourists, and money, into the city.

Our HO is in scouseville never heard any references to them from the locals.

I used to live near Penny Lane (and Strawberry Fields) you know.

Nope, we don't chat much about them to be fair.

Tourists - especially those from the Far East - are apparently as besotted as ever, though. 😯

If I paid for the Magical Mystery Tour to Penny Lane (a massively dull residential street with nothing at all amazing about it) or Strawberry Fields (a pair of gateposts), I'd feel short changed… then again, I wouldn't fork out squillions of pounds to visit the Beatles Museum either.

It's almost like it was decades ago and the city has moved on.

Penny Lane (a massively dull residential street with nothing at all amazing about it).

Depends whether you consider Alma de Dovedale to be a tourist attraction.

Pier head, liverpool is a homage point for tourists at weekends,so is the yellow magical mystery tour bus, and all the other places theyre supposed to have lived, eaten a pizza etc etc.

Thought so. Somebody is selling a lot of T-shirts to tourists.

Tourist still flock there due to the Beatles and from Japan in particular

The local residents are probably proud they come form there but its not an everyday conversation piece

I imagine if you said to the average scousers what is liverpool best know for most will say the beatles in the top 5 things.

Depends whether you consider Alma de Dovedale to be a tourist attraction.

😀

When my Mum came to Liverpool a few years ago, she just had to visit Matthew Street (home of the Cavern don'tcha know) and buy a truckload of tacky-ass t-shirts.

It's a tourist and nostalgia thing.

Tourists around here pay out for that kind of tat, so who's bothered? 😀

Anyone know if folks in Manchester still bang on about James?

I had the most debauched weekend of my life in Liverpool. Wonderful place . Bert and Ernie made me LOLcano

Anyone know if folks in Manchester still bang on about James?

No, but we have got Tim Booth International Tram Depot.

T-shirts and associated crap?

If I ever visit the city again I'll bring £35 for a tatty Tim t!

It's a bit like that in the south as well.

When I lived in London there were always loads of tourists in Trafalgar Square, and the Mall and the Tower, but tbh, after a while I ran out of things to say about Nelson, and the Beefeaters, and the Queen, when I was talking with friends.

I suspect it's similar with the Beatles, especially the dead ones.

I suspect it's similar with the Beatles, especially the dead ones.

…unless, during a conversation with a Liverpudlian, you happen to mention that The Beatles [u]might[/u] not be the best band ever (only because some other bands might also be in with a shout of that title).

Blimey did that evening go on. 😯

My dad was a Dingle lad who worked on and off on the door of the cavern and other clubs when he was back from sea, so between that, going to school with Gerry and sharing a house with the fourmost he knew most of the main characters from the scene 🙂

I've been lucky enough to meet many of the 'names' as a kid on the Wirral, and over the years since.

So, IMO, do they 'care' about it? Not that much, In fact I think that the Beatles don't mean that much to them (middle class art students!) but they're bloody proud of the entirety of merseybeat as a movement, and there's a lot of 'so and so's auntie went out with Rory Storm' or 'My dad went to school with' and similar tales, everyone's got one of them 🙂

Best band ever?

[img] [/img] 😉

Liverpool is the most backward looking city in the country.

I worked on the 2008 capital of culture bid ( I know, I know... Apparently they didn't have anyone native up to the job, so had to get some Mancs to do it. Oh, the irony). We did a load of really nice design work for them and presented it to the people responsible for the bid. They looked at the cover options, and the first words out of their mouth's ... and I'm not making this up.... were an incredulous 'where's the picture of the Beatles?!!'

At this point we realised we were dealing with people who's mental and cultural development stopped some time around 1970, and collectively head butted the desk in despair, and just billed them for whatever backward-gazing Beatles related crap they wanted doing. They seemed happy enough.

They won the bid

Sympathy vote.

Did your version feature Tim Booth from James, Binners? 😀

But leaving aside the badinage for a moment, you're taking about the city authorities here… I know what you're saying cos I've worked with them too. Nobbers the lot of them.

you're taking about the city authorities here… I know what you're saying cos I've worked with them too. Nobbers the lot of them.

Bring back Derek Hatton

Camo - Agreed! I actually love 'The Pool' but I could give you chapter and verse on the utter ****-wits I was working for in the City Council.

They presented the bid with... what else... a Beatles tribute band.

By this point, everyone who'd come up with forward-looking creative ideas (like you'd see at the other end of the M62) had washed their hands of the whole thing and let the dickheads from the council get on with it. Though Christ knows how much money they spaffed in the process!

Remember the Fourth Grace? All part of the bid? Designs commissioned from the countries best architects? No? Neither does anyone else. Because they scrapped it about 0.3 Milliseconds after they won the bid

Like I said... sympathy vote

to be fair they replaced the fourth grace with mann Island
Do i need to highlight which three they built?
[img] [/img]

Oh.... and as my dad always told me... Jagger and Richards were 100 times better songwriters than Lennon and Macca. 😀

Camo - Agreed! I actually love 'The Pool' but I could give you chapter and verse on the utter ****-wits I was working for in the City Council.

Yup - I presented to a steering group led by council nobs last year. I'd heard about that's body's 'let's have more meetings to discuss the meetings we'll hold later' syndrome, but it was quite an eye-opener.

I think it was at that moment that I realised they were all idiots. 😡

Oh.... and as my dad always told me... Jagger and Richards were 100 times better songwriters than Lennon and Macca.

You don't say that here. 😳 I mean, I kinda did and it almost destroyed me.

I'd list the stories of what I encountered there. You literally couldn't make it up. But I know that if that'd been my council tax paying for it then I'd be absolutely ****ing apoplectic! So i'll spare your blood pressure. 🙂

Fort Perch Rock is not Liverpool 🙄

Weird place.
Last time I was there we popped to Birkenhead on the ferry.
Cue Gerry & the boys so the Tannoy ad a family tipped the ashes of a relly off the back.
Quality stuff.
If my eldest gets the grades I may be seeing more of Liverpool, could be worse he could have applied to Oxford

I've worked in Liverpool for nearly 20 years now (Dingle) and most of the older people I work with who are born & bred scoucers during that era say the Beatles were over rated & the Rolling Stones, Kinks etc were better.

Oh and I found out last night one of my neighbours is standing for parliament, turns out she was Derek Hatton's brigade. Now in a very middle class area but still preaching the far left ideology "Left Unity - Trade Unionists and Socialists"

Tourists - especially those from the Far East - are apparently as besotted as ever, though.

I live near Abbey Road studios and it's CHUFFING annoying how tourists hold up traffic by walking to and fro over the crossing while their mats take pics.

I'm a scouser and I couldn't care less about them. That idiot Macca goes on about Liverpool all the time yet he doesn't live there anymore; in fact they all buggered off as soon as they had enough cash! ( I now live in Manchester...work reasons!) they are, however a big tourist attraction!

Nope. But I can tell you that so many tourists from all over the world come here for the Beatles. And the city doesn't half milk it. It can be a bit tiresome for those of us that live here who know there's much more to the city but it's such a money earner that it's kind of understandable.

sadly the "When Elvis met The Beatles" exhibit in Fort Perch Rock was closed

You're really not missing much...............

they all buggered off as soon as they had enough cash!

That's why the airport is named after John Lennon, it's the first place he went when he got some money.

IGMC

 

Us lot in Swindon still thrap over XTC if that helps?

For some reason Mrs Gti loves going to Liverpool and I'll admit that she brings back some funny stories about cheeky Scousers. But just like Blackpool, all the money has been spent on the front while two blocks back the place is a dump, full of DSS dossers and asylum-seekers and people with a serious attitude problem. It's my belief that if you visit either town or any British seaside town and knock on a random selction of doors after about 8 pm you'll find 85% of the residents either blind drunk or stoned. Liverpool flourished as a port but then come the industrial revolution, centred on Manchester, the good people of the city slit their own commercial throats by stealing and obstructing and overcharging for the cargo that passed through, so much that the industrialists of Manchester clubbed together in desperation and built a huge canal to allow ocean-going freighters to avoid Liverpool and discharge their cargo in Salford inland docks. Ever since then, Liverpool has been impoverished.

lilly savage, paul ogrady,cilla black stan boardman, all the beatles and many more have all left the liverpool conurbation but still say they love the place , but dont actually visit or put anything back

lilly savage, paul ogrady,cilla black stan boardman, all the beatles and many more have all left the liverpool conurbation but still say they love the place , but dont actually visit or put anything back

Do you really want Cilla Black back?

My family are scousers, they're embarrassed by Macca and completely indifferent to the tourist claptrap. I assume it's the same for most city dwellers, I don't spend all day on Brighton Pier eating chips.

My Uncle did build most of the Beatles expo at the Albert Dock so he certainly likes that part££

My Mum used to go the original cavern, when Cilla White worked there, she saw the Beatles a few times and considered them a bit novelty, She was Stones through and through.

For some reason Mrs Gti loves going to Liverpool and I'll admit that she brings back some funny stories about cheeky Scousers. But just like Blackpool, all the money has been spent on the front while two blocks back the place is a dump, full of DSS dossers and asylum-seekers and people with a serious attitude problem. It's my belief that if you visit either town or any British seaside town and knock on a random selction of doors after about 8 pm you'll find 85% of the residents either blind drunk or stoned. Liverpool flourished as a port but then come the industrial revolution, centred on Manchester, the good people of the city slit their own commercial throats by stealing and obstructing and overcharging for the cargo that passed through, so much that the industrialists of Manchester clubbed together in desperation and built a huge canal to allow ocean-going freighters to avoid Liverpool and discharge their cargo in Salford inland docks. Ever since then, Liverpool has been impoverished.

And right there, ladies and gentlemen, speaketh someone who knows **** all about Liverpool 🙄

What a tit!

two blocks back the place is a dump

I presume you're talking about the historic commercial district (where there's been loads of reinvestment) or the new (ish) Liverpool One shopping centre then?

Been to Liverpool much, globalti? 😆

I think it may be a generational thing - most of it is for the tourists these days and it's completely tacky and overblown but if you go back a bit there is still a lot of local pride in the 60s music scene from those who were there at the time.

My family are from Liverpool. Mum worked in the centre of town and used to go to the Cavern in her lunch hour. Dad was a CID officer working the clubland beat. Both were massive Beatles fans who were involved in "the scene" and I was brought up with their music - I think my Dad cried when John Lennon was shot!

I have a memory of walking down Church St with my Dad when I was about 16 and him bumping into someone he knew and stopping for an extended chat - this happened quite often and it was generally either a fellow ex-copper or someone he'd banged up for armed robbery or suchlike in the sixties. This one turned out to be neither - it was Alan Williams, the Beatles' first manager who at that point was involved in negotiations to auction a pair of John's leather trousers!

Like any other big city Liverpool has it's share of problems but it's been transformed in recent years. I think it's a great city and we always enjoy our visits to family.

DavidB - Member
Us lot in Swindon still thrap over XTC if that helps?

POSTED 3 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

I have literally just cycled up Matthew St 5 minutes ago. Pretty busy with tourists, and the obligatory busker singing Beatles songs.

Said Thomas ......