A Beatles fan has recalled the night in early 1963 when the Fab Four played Bridge of Allan’s Museum Hall.
Davy Lowe, who lived in Raploch in the early 1960s, was just short of his 15th birthday when he saw the band at the Henderson Street venue not long before they shot to pop superstardom.
The Beatles’ Bridge of Allan gig on January 5, 1963, had been part a five-date tour of Scotland and took place two months after their debut single ‘Love Me Do’ had peaked at number 17 in the charts.
A former St Modan’s High pupil, Davy, 73, who now lives in Ayrshire, said: “My recollection is that there was a sizable crowd, probably around 120 dancers, although there are differing accounts of this contained in various music books written over the years.
“The Beatles’ Bridge of Allan set comprised rhythm and blues as well as soul classics like ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Twist and Shout’ and some Lennon and McCartney originals like ‘Love Me Do’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and to finish, ‘Please Please Me’, which they announced as their new single that would be available the following week. I have been a lifelong Beatles fan ever since.”
‘Please Please Me’ reached number one on the New Musical Express and Melody Maker charts and reached number two on the Record Retailer chart, which later became the UK Singles Chart.
Davy said he had been lucky to have a job in his spare time preparing and delivering firewood to enable him to buy the ‘Please Please Me’ single when it was released on January 11, 1963.
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He said of the night 58 years ago: “It was a particularly cold, snowy and icy evening, some said the coldest for decades.
“Me and my good friend Josie Bell left the Raploch on foot to walk to the Museum Hall via the Cornton.
“The reason being we only had enough money to get into the gig and the late-night transport back to Stirling.
“I was a month short of my fifteenth birthday and Josie was about a year older than me. Due to the chilly weather and the darkness of the night, it seemed a very long haul that evening.
“But, buoyed up, because we were supposed to have a ‘date’ with two local Bridge of Allan girls, we made our merry way there, joking, laughing and singing to pass the time in the cold.
“Needless to say, we never met the girls, which was a common occurrence in those days for many young people.”
Davy, who recently compiled a book on the Forth Valley music scene over the decades – Stirlingshire and Clackmannanshire Entertainers and Venues Pre-1950s to 1989 – said very little memorabilia has surfaced from The Beatles’ Bridge of Allan gig.
However, during his research for the book he was forwarded a poster which publicised it.
He also pointed to band autographs on the back of a photograph of an unknown couple as well as a photograph of The Beatles, which were written and taken, it is claimed, backstage at the Museum Hall on January 5, 1963.
