File:The Beatles ~ She Loves You (ABC Cinema, Manchester) 1963 (w-lyrics) -HQ-

BEST QUALITY. This clip, which is sourced from original 35 mm film, is from the Beatles' performance at the ABC Cinema in Manchester, England on the 20th November 1963. The Beatles performed 10 songs, but only 'She Loves You' and 'Twist and Shout' were recorded. Derek Taylor, then a reporter for the Daily Express, was present. Taylor had become a huge Beatles fan after first seeing them in Manchester on 30th May 1963, and later worked for them at NEMS and Apple. His full account of the concert as he reported it is below:

"Beatlemania, in its sobbing, throbbing extremities, gripped Manchester last night.

It captivated the teenagers of the city and far beyond. It drew 5,000 of them inside the Apollo Cinema to share the thumping ecstasy of their electronic excitement. It tore half the city’s police force – men and women – from normal duties. It totally mobilised the first-aid resources of South Lancashire – men and women, even earnest children.

At noon in a curiously apprehensive atmosphere, in places far from the Apollo, plans were rehearsed. St John’s paraded their staff with first-aid kits. So did the Red Cross.

The police were given their final orders. A mobile headquarters – last used in a murder hunt last month – was set up outside the cinema.

The lads themselves, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, still trying to regard themselves as everyday Liverpool entertainers, were ploughing towards Lancashire from Wolverhampton where they appeared on Tuesday.

Outside the theatre, at lunchtime, the teenage vigil began. Small knots of leather-clad girls gathered.

By early afternoon there were 200 of them. Few had tickets for last night’s two-house show. They all went in four desperate hours weeks ago when mounted police were called in to suppress riots.

Where there’s a crowd, there’s a tout. The Apollo had dozens. Selling pictures and books and souvenirs. Most at 2s. 6d., mostly sold by men who were in the same spot ten years ago when Johnny Ray was the draw, eight years ago when it was Bill Haley, or this May when it was Cliff Richard.

The Beatles themselves, dressed as Beatles, looking like Beatles, slid quietly into the cinema in mid-afternoon. No policeman's uniforms this time. That sort of game can be played only once.

They faced a battery of cameramen which would frighten Krushchev. Tier on tier of flashbulbs flashed. Newsreel cameras whirred, television cameras gently hummed.

It was all Christian names. ‘Look this way, George.’ George looked.

‘John, pull Ringo’s hair.’ The languid Lennon, blandest Beatle of them all, pulled. And Ringo, plain mournful little Ringo, looked pained for the cameras.

‘Fall off a chair, Ringo.’ Ringo fell.

Do they mind? Have they any conception of the Beatlemania? Do they know they will be discussed in the House of Commons today?

The answer is no, they don’t mind. ‘It’s part of the game,’ said George. ‘We like it. It’s great.’

And no they haven’t any idea of their status. ‘We’re just singing and playing and enjoying ourselves. We’re not important really. We don’t recognise ourselves when we read about ourselves.’

And yes, they know an M.P. is to ask that police protection be withdrawn. George doesn’t like that. ‘It’ll mean that people will get hurt.’

The lads don’t want that. But they claim they don’t cause the hysteria. ‘We just arrive, sing and play and go,’ said George. ‘The fans do the rest. We love them.’

Did the fans love them last night?

I have never seen anything like it. Nor heard any noise to approximate the ceaseless, frantic, hysterical scream which met the Beatles when they took the state after what seemed a hundred years of earlier acts.

Compere Frank Berry abandoned any pretense at announcements. He postured in Beatles postures, gestured, shrugged. The screams grew louder. Many acts came and went.

All very good, all marking time, because no one had come for anything other than the Beatles…

Then the curtains parted and the dark-suited Liverpool lads bashed their guitars into their first number.

The theatre went wild. First-aid men and police – men in the stalls, women mainly in the balcony – taut and anxious, patrolled the aisles, one to every three rows.

Many girls fainted. Thirty were gently carried out, protesting in their hysteria, forlorn and wretched in an unrequited love for four lads who might have lived next door.

The stalls were like a nightmare March Fair. No one could remain seated. Clutching at each other, hurling jelly babies at the stage, beating their brows, the youth of Britain’s second city surrendered themselves totally.

It is, quite simply, the ultimate phenomenon of show business."

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