Mr Epstein is Here

November 9, 1961

Spurred on by all the local buzz about this group improbably called "the Beatles", including a request for the record at his store, Brian Epstein makes the long walk 600 feet down narrow alleyways to the Cavern Club to see these boys for himself.  He later records his first impressions in his book "Cellar Full of Noise".

"There on the platform at the end of the cellar's middle tunnel stood the four boys.  Then I eased myself towards the stage, past rapt young faces and jigging bodies and for the first time I saw the Beatles properly...  I had never seen anything like  the Beatles on any stage.  They smoked as they played and they ate and talked and pretended to hit each other.  They turned their backs on the audience and shouted at them and laughed at private jokes.  But they gave a captivating and honest show and they had considerable magnetism... There was quite clearly an excitement in the otherwise unpleasing dungeon which was quite removed from any of the formal entertainments provided at places like the Liverpool  Empire or the London Palladium, though I learned later that the response to the Beatles was falling off a little in Liverpool - they like me were becoming bored because they could see no great progress in their lives."

Very shortly afterward, he decided to invite the Beatles personally around to his office at North End Music Stores for an informal chat.