A night with the Beatles at the 'Iron Door'

Discuss the early days of the Club with the manager.
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13_temple_street
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A night with the Beatles at the 'Iron Door'

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it for what it is the note of a single E string amplified to mutter in my sleep tossing and turning as something nudges my head
I roll over on the dirty pile of blankets .My back encounters a loose board and I slowly come awake. Something nudges into my head again and irritated I open my eyes and realize where I am above the Iron Door club sleeping on a makeshift mattress.
The warehouse floor is in darkness but a feeble light filters in from the open warehouse doors set in the wall. With its grey gibbet crane poking out into the ceiling, it resembles a wanly lit scaffolding .
The light cuts across the dirty floor in a swathe, etching the ghostly silhouettes of the twelve by twelve pillars that recede off into the gloom at regular intervals supporting the low slung roof with it’s rusting eye hooks, worm-drives and metal brackets, reminiscent of some mysterious function when the warehouse was a working unit.
The something nudges my head again. Awareness dawns it’s sound Foggy brained, I recognize horrendous proportions. It shears through the floor boards at my feet and soars through the air like a laser, slicing through metal, glass, wood, solids and liquids with equal disdain. My dull brain transfixed by the horrific volume, I have a brief hallucinatory vision into the sky and streaming across the universe to boil the crust of some planet realize that what I am hearing is the rift from Ray Charles’ ‘Whote I say’ played over an amplified guitar.
The music pounds through the floor accompanied by vast, belly, quivering resonances which are the muffled notes of a bass guitar.
Realize I have over slept. The day has gone and the night begun the music denotes the beginning of the evening session in the cellar two floors below me.
I yawn, stretch and stagger to the locked doorway at the top of the stairs. I slide back the bolt. The noise from the floor immediately below hits me redoubled, accompanied by laughter, clinking glasses, the shrill sound of girls voices.
a vast bludgeon Zombie- like I descend, staggering down the stairs like an extra from ‘The Night of the Living Dead’. On the ground floor, the babble from the crowd is incessant but not sufficient to drown out the music, I push my way, dazed, through the crowd of brightly clad girls and the motley dressed youths, the evening rock audience. I head for the open doorway which will take me to the cellar.
I clatter down the crude, wooden cellar stairs, glad of the gloom on this lower level, and pause halfway to peer across the gloom, over the bobbing heads of the crowd to the brightly-lit stage on the other side of the dance floor.
Paul McCartney, his face bathed in sweat, has heaved himself up onto the low slung rafters above the stage . Both his legs are wrapped around the beam in one hand he has hold of the microphone, the other hand he uses to hang like a monkey from the rafter. George clad in the ubiquitous black Hamburg leathers, is grinning broadly at Paul’s antics .He has become the de facto Bass player, playing Paul’s fiddle Bass upside down, while John chops out the vast laseresque rift on his ‘ole Rickenbacker’.
In the low ceilinged space, the noise is electrifying. Pete Best breaks into the drum beat for the call and response section of the number, and John and George stop playing, clap their hands and scream their responses into the stand up mike, at cappella: Hey- ey- ey – ey!’ SCREAMS Paul from his impossible position hanging upside-down. ‘Hey – ey – ey ey – the crowd roar back. The hairs tingle on the back of my neck and I sit down on the cellar steps to watch the action from my vantage point above the crowd.
Aaa- aa- ah !’ screams Paul jerking himself up and down in a series of contrapuntal pull-ups. Then comes the rapid buildup, each cry punctuated by from Pete Best’s bass drum.
“Oooh “ Paul “Oooh “ (Crowd”) “Aaaah”(Paul) . “OOOH –AH OOH AH! Screams Paul higher and higher as the drum beat the drum beat rises to a crescendo. Then he screams “ Tell me what I SAY” !!
On the word SAY’ the entire band swings back into action like the clap of amplified doom .Girls scream, men roar; the entire crowd goes berserk as the cellar walls shudder under the impact of the rhythm. Still hanging upside down, Paul jerks as if he is being electrocuted; screaming his heart and lungs out in a insane inspired motion.
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jps
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Re: A night with the Beatles at the 'Iron Door'

Post by jps »

This is great stuff, Geoff! Happy that it is still fresh in your mind. :D

Or, did you make this all up? :mrgreen:
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Re: A night with the Beatles at the 'Iron Door'

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Jeffery ,This article was written by a person who installed himself permanently on the upper floors of the Iron Door, I don't know how many moved in , but ,others did . This particular individual descended onto the club premises from India, he was in the merchant navy jumped ship in India, struggled to find his way back to his home port of Liverpool . He eventually went to University joined the BBC World Service promoted to high position in that organisation. He departed the BBC moved to America , I met up with him after an absence of thirty years. The subject of drugs was mentioned I asked how they got their kicks in the 50s/60s .The method they used was digesting the contents of a inhaler, a medical product, developed to clear a blocked stuffy nose.They discovered the factory that manufactured this product was in one of the Lancashire towns, pooling their money they started to purchase this product at factory prices.( Peter Hamilton who his knowledgeable on matters appertaining to the Liverpool scene 50/60s may have heard of this practice.
Welcome back Jeffery please stay 'Safe and Well' .I notice you still maintain a sense of humour.
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Re: A night with the Beatles at the 'Iron Door'

Post by jps »

Always have to have a sense of humor in this world! :D

Your indian friend did inhalers, eh? I seem to recall whippet cartridges being popular in the '70s/'80s, I wonder if it gave a similar high?

Anyone who can vividly remember what was going on 50-60 years ago must be doing alright. 8)
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Re: A night with the Beatles at the 'Iron Door'

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Re: A night with the Beatles at the 'Iron Door'

Post by hamilton_square »

As remember it Geoff, the inhalers came out of the Evans Medical factory in Speke - they were asthma inhalers. The chemicals involved are known as beta-agonists which, if taken in sufficient quantities, will speed the heart-rate up to achieve the desired state of euphoria, which in turn will keep one awake for longer.

On the other hand, “whippets” is nitrous oxide gas, and even long after the 70s & the 80s is still being inhaled in some quarters …

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-16/ ... de/9046574
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