The Beatle’s Story

On our trip to Manchester, Wales, and Liverpool there was one thing I could not pass up, that was doing something Beatles related. Even thought they were together really for a short period of time they created a lot of music that is some of the most recognized in the world. I bet it would be hard to go a week with out hearing a Beatles track. That said, I am not the most dedicated fan. I own a couple of CDs but not all of them. I didn’t know a ton of Beatles trivia and I am no great student of music either. But when you are in the hometown of a group of individuals with such fame I figure you should embrace that culture and see what it has to offer. If I was in Memphis I would stop at Graceland, so when I was in Liverpool I went to The Beatles Story.

There were a ton of options. We could have taken self tours through John and Paul’s boyhood homes. We could have taken the walking tour, the magical bus tour, or several other “Beatles” tours. But I decided we should go to the museum that was run by the Beatles own company Apple. Not the computer company, the music label that is at least 15 years older and has won a number of lawsuits against Mr. Jobs. The Beatles Tour is fantastic. I was a little leery paying what I thought was a larger than required fee but it was completely worth it. Though I am still not sure if the wife agrees with me, but being a good sport she went along for the ride as usual.

The museum is located along the docs that once made the town such an industrial place to live. It is in the basement of a newly restored freight house that also houses posh and flashy shops along with a hotel, art gallery, and some fine eating establishments. The building is probably well over a hundred if not two hundred years old and made out of very appealing yellow brick. The old hand pulley-swivel cranes originally used to move freight from the ground to windows and doors in the upper levels of the building dot the side of that building and are painted a striking red. The basement is a series of building supports that hold up arches that in general reach 10 feet before the next one starts. As is common in Europe you are give an audio guide that you operate by entering a number that corresponds to the exhibit you are looking at.

There were a mix of glass displays, wax figures, recreations of entire clubs, streets, and even areas of foreign cities. The museum was set up as if you were in a documentary. Literally starting out with material on the school children that would grow to be the famous musicians, and then walking through their careers. Many of the places that have been recreated no longer exist or have changed dramatically in the last 30-40 years. There were at least a dozen and a half rooms each containing a different chapter of the bands history. Each different chapter was a mix of artifacts, recreations, narrations, and recording of interviews of the Beatles and those people involved with them. It was a lot of fun. And I learned more about the Beatles than I think I would have watching a documentary or reading books. We spent easily two and a half hours on this adventure and I was not disappointed at all. At the end of the museum there were also little pods dedicated to each Beatle that told their personal pos band story, and the last room was a dedication to John Lennon done all in white, with a side room containing photos of John and Yoko. However one of the things I thought really made the tour was learning the little facts. For instance the band would sit at a certain table every night before playing, because it was by the girl’s bathroom. When the door swung open and closed they could see the girls in various stages of dress as the girls would change from their school clothes to there going out clothes there!

After the tour we got a bus tour of the city which led us to continue our trip into Beatles lore as we did get off the at the Mathew’s Street stop. This is the street where it all really got cooking. This is where the band originally played and got the first fan base. There were statues of each band member as long as a couple of other musicians from the era. Again it has become a place for the night crowd but I am sure it is a lot more polished than it was in the 50s and 60s.