A Long and Winding Road...That Leads to Liverpool

I don't remember the first time I heard a Beatles song, but I do remember being about 11, buying Revolver on tape and listening to it over and over and over and falling in love with the music and the band.  I used to record mixed tapes off the oldies station on the radio and cut out all the other songs until I basically had just Beatles songs.  Obviously this was long before iTunes or Internet or even Cd's, so there was a lot of effort involved.  I remember finding the movie Yellow Submarine on tape at the library and being so excited to actually see the Beatles, and being so disappointed when I got home and watched it to find out it was a cartoon.  I remember, again about 12, falling asleep one night in tears because it occurred to me that since John Lennon was dead there was no way I'd ever be able to meet him.  Not that the chances of meeting the others was such a possibility, but at least they were alive!  I remember that so clearly.  It's funny that I could be so young and yet so emotional about it.  Anyway, suffice it to say, it's been a long, winding love affair and it culminated to some degree yesterday.  I'd seen Paul in concert some years ago, and also Ringo in LA a couple of years back.  I'd gone to the John Lennon exhibit in Cleveland at the Hall of Fame, but until yesterday I had not been to the Mecca... Liverpool.



If you didn't already know, yesterday would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday.  I knew this, of course, but it didn't even occur to me to take the 45 minute train ride to Liverpool for the day until about 10pm Friday night.  I'd happened to look online to see if there were any celebrations going on, and sure enough, there were plans for a ceremony to unveil a monument in his honor at a park in the city center.  Tickets weren't available - you had to be invited or you had to have won them through a local lottery a few months ago - but I figured maybe I would just try to get close, have a glimpse - Cynthia Lennon, John's first wife, and his son Julian were due to speak and do the honors of cutting the ribbon.  It was worth the 9 pounds to check it out.  Worst case, I'd do some of the touristy things - there are all sorts of Beatles tours and exhibits and there were going to be concerts and things throughout the day.  And it's not like I had studying to do or anything....


Do you ever have those days that are just so completely serendipitous that it makes you think that there must be someone up there pulling the strings?  Like, literally everything goes your way - exactly, perfectly synchronized with what you want to do that day?  Well, that's about how it went.  It was the most perfect, unbelievably unexpected day.  I had so much fun.  I planned to go by myself, which I didn't really have a choice in doing, but I think that was best.  Very few people would have wanted to geek out as much as I did, and I liked not having a set plan - I think it's what made the day go so well.  Plus, I kinda cried a lot.  A little bit embarrassing if someone had been with me...


I got up early - I had no idea what time the ceremony was supposed to be, other than sometime in the morning - so I caught the 9am train from Picadilly and I was on my way.  I had my ipod set to all Beatles all day (nerd, I know) and had some coffee on the train and enjoyed the view of the countryside (very pretty, by the way.  Lots of sheep.) between Manchester and Liverpool.  It was a little under an hour on the train and suddenly I was there!  Stepping off the train I felt a little shudder of excitement, of disbelief.  I was finally here.  I didn't even realize how excited I was, or would be.  I made my way out to Lime Street and tried to figure out where to go to find the park.  Google maps being almost completely worthless, I meandered a bit and not entirely in the right direction, but it was still early and the streets were quiet and it was almost meditative, and I was all alone, walking the streets, taking it all in.  I have to say - I really love Manchester, but Liverpool has it beat in aesthetics.  Not at all what I expected. I thought it was just beautiful, actually.  But more on that later.


I had a feeling things might get started around 11, so I was pretty focused on finding the park, but I happened to turn down (the aptly named) St. John's Street and all of a sudden, I was at The Cavern Quarter.  Again, for those of you lacking in Beatles Historical Knowledge, The Cavern is the club where they played most of their early shows, where they were "discovered" by Brian Epstein (their manager) and it's an iconic spot.  In reality, it's just a dingy club in an alleyway with a few other pubs and now it's been turned into a bit of a touristy gimmick - but at 10 am on a Saturday, with no other tourists around, it was nothing short of hallowed ground.



  

Inside the Cavern.  Much smaller than I imagined from pictures.  Absolutely tiny.

There was a guy there playing Imagine on his guitar, but that was about it.  I took a couple of pictures, and then it hit me where I was and how long it has taken to get here (20 years!).  I couldn't help it - my eyes welled up and I kinda lost it.  Thank goodness I was alone...or so I thought.  Right about then this tiny little Chinese girl, about 25, taps me on the shoulder, explains in broken English that she is from a News Channel in China and asks if I would be willing to give an interview.  Ha!  I mean, I looked terrible, I was crying, and now thoroughly embarrassed.  but I said yes and took a picture with her afterwards.  It was pretty funny, actually.

I'm going to be famous!  In China...

On the alley wall across from the Cavern Club

"Best of" Liverpool wall mural

Other than Cavern Quarter, the city is pretty tastefully non-Beatles Gimmicky.  But they clearly couldn't help themselves in a few places...

After that I walked around trying to find the park and after a roundabout way, I found it.  There's a huge outdoor shopping mall in the city center, and the park was up on sort of a hill overlooking the shopping area, but also the docks and the waterfront.  Very pretty, actually.  I got there about 45 minutes before it was due to start and, although I didn't have a ticket and couldn't go inside the barricades, standing just outside you could see very well - the whole stage and everything - so I stood with some other fans and waited for it all to begin.

Before the ceremony - the monument is under the "birdcage" which says Give Peace a Chance.  In case you couldn't figure that out.

Meanwhile, there were all of these local "Liverpool Guides" who were milling about, keeping order and chatting with everyone.  They all seemed like retired locals who were obviously Beatles fans and just wanted to be involved.  They were ridiculously friendly and happy and excited.  It was fun to just overhear them chatting about how proud they are to be from Liverpool and how proud the city still is of the Beatles and of John and how this monument is so exciting and it's such an honor.  one lady sat and talked for a while with a woman who brought her daughter - who was probably about 11 - because she loves the Beatles.  I couldn't help thinking about myself at that age and how excited I would have been to be there.  And then the waterworks went off again.  Seriously.  Anyway, they started letting the ticket holders in and I watched with a tinge of envy, but I had such a good spot, it wasn't all that necessary to go inside.  The band was warming up and they started leading in some of the VIPs.  Then, one of the guides - a lovely little lady who had chatted with the group of us for a bit - says all of a sudden, "They're opening the gates for you - go on in!"  All I can put it down to is that everyone was just so excited and the vibe was so great, that the security people, or whoever was running the show, just wanted to be kind and let everyone enjoy the celebration.

Bottom left (and an admittedly terribly picture):  Cynthia Lennon and beside her, Julian.  The guy talking is a radio announcer for BBC in Liverpool.  Bottom Right is the 19 year old American (from Cleveland, Ohio!) who designed the statue.  

I got right up as close as I could, although we were still behind the VIP section, but it was certainly close enough and totally unexpected.  The show was lovely.  There was a signing choir that performed to Imagine, In My Life (my favorite Beatles's song!) and Real Love.  Then the dignitaries spoke - the mayor, someone from the EU, and the man who commissioned the monument.  It's actually a statue for Global Peace - there was one already dedicated in Singapore, and there are plans for a statue to be designed and erected on each continent.  So this is a pretty big honor for the European statue to be in Liverpool, in honor of John.  There were nice speeches all about peace and John's contribution, etc.  Then we all sang Imagine together and then FINALLY, Cynthia and Julian got up to speak.


Now, it was fun to see Cynthia, but to see Julian Lennon in the flesh, I mean, that's amazing to me.  He's, like a demi-God.  To me anyway. And he looks so much like John, it's unreal.  They said some nice things.  Apparently Julian never gives speeches and wasn't going to for this but changed his mind at the last minute!  So glad he did.  Cynthia said that the mourning period was over and that we should celebrate now.  And I think that's probably true.


Then we sang Give Peace a Chance and she and Julian cut the ribbon to reveal the statue and unleash hundreds of white balloons.  It was very beautiful and I have a terrible recording of it on my camera (which I am trying to upload but it's taking forever!).  I was on my tip toes and shaking and a little bit emotional.  Ha.

The monument, after the ceremony.

Anyway, that was it, really.  Everyone milled about for a while and I tried to get a few more pictures.  But, just before I was leaving, some of the VIPs were still walking out, right near where I was standing and one of them was Pete Best - the original drummer for the Beatles - before Ringo! An actual Beatle! I wouldn't have recognized him as an old man, but a guy next to me shouted out to him and he came over and shook hands and said hello, then the guy said who he was and I proceeded to follow him out of the park and maybe stalk a little bit.  =)  Got an ok picture, though!

That's a Beatle!  Pete Best (closest to the camera), as I surreptitiously followed him out of the park...

Then it was really over.  I went for lunch, and then had a (very) long walk through the city.  I tried to make it down to Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane, but I'm going back to see some friends who live there in December and I decided to save some things for that trip.  Plus it would have taken forever to walk to and I was getting pretty tired.  But I decided that I think Liverpool is a lovely, lovely city - there are some beautiful old row houses on the hill overlooking the docks and also an amazing Anglican cathedral.  I did see The Liverpool Institute, the school where George and Paul went, and I walked around the docks,which is now a shopping center, too, but nicely done.  There's also a Beatles Exhibit that I want to see next time, and at the University Art Museum, there is an exhibition of Astrid Kircherr's pictures - she was the girlfriend of Stu Sutcliff, the original bass player from when they played in Hamburg - and she took some iconic photos of the band early on, which are on display.  Next time.  There will definitely be a next time.

View of the city from the docks.  And a gloriously sunny day!

Another view from the docks

Anglican Cathedral

Park Street

I just love that, apparently, Back Canning Street leads the way to Hope.  =)

Paul and George's primary school.

A sculpture outside of the Liverpool Institute.

This is a big theater near the train station on Lime Street.  The early version of the Beatles once competed in a competition here and lost.

A couple of other things - it's the first time that I've left Manchester and I have to say, as great of a day as it was, it was nice to come home and I loved that it felt familiar to me to come back here - even after just a day trip!  Also, if you were wondering, there was some other ceremony yesterday in Iceland, which Yoko attended along with Ringo.  Not sure what Paul did on the day...

So that's it.  I was on such a high and had so much fun. I got home last night and I basically had to go straight to bed - I was wiped out!  But my expectations were surpassed and it was a day I won't forget.