Don Wishon
10-08-2003, 09:47 AM
Beatles' Club Set to Rock Around the World
By Gideon Long
LIVERPOOL, England (Reuters) - The Cavern nightclub where The Beatles launched their career as the world's most famous rock band is set to be reproduced around the world from Rio de Janeiro to Moscow.
The company which owns The Cavern, where the Beatles were first spotted by their manager Brian Epstein in 1961, says it plans to form a subsidiary to oversee the project.
It plans to open a Cavern in the southern Spanish holiday resort of Fuengirola next month, one in Adelaide, Australia, in June and one in Rio next autumn.
If all goes to plan, Caverns will follow in Buenos Aires, New York, Florida and even Moscow, where for years before the collapse of the Soviet Union people were banned from listening to The Beatles.
"There's interest from all over the world," said Bill Heckle, chairman of Cavern City Tours, which runs the club in downtown Liverpool.
"The challenge is to do it properly."
Heckle says the new Caverns will have to look like the club where The Beatles first played in February 1961.
They will have to incorporate the unplastered brick arches which characterize the Liverpool club, have a stage like the original and promise to promote live music.
"There will, however, be some flexibility to allow for local differences," Heckle told Reuters. "It's a bit of a hybrid between a license and a franchise."
Cavern City Tours will take a percentage of the turnover of each new club.
The Cavern has had a tumultuous history since it opened as a jazz club in January 1957.
It became the focus for the Mersey Beat sound of the early 1960s and has played host to all the biggest bands of British rock and pop from The Beatles to Oasis.
The Beatles played the club between 1961 and 1963 and secured their first recording contract after being spotted by Epstein during a lunchtime gig there in November 1961.
Former Beatle Paul McCartney (news) returned to his roots in 1999, playing a concert in the cramped confines of The Cavern before just a handful of people.
But the club has also suffered hard times and senseless town planning.
The buildings above it were demolished in 1973 and The Cavern was filled in. For years, locals used the waste ground above as a car park.
It was excavated in the early 1980s, partly in response to the assassination of The Beatles' guiding light John Lennon (news).
Bricks from the original Cavern were used to build a new club on the old site and, after financial difficulties forced another closure in the late 1980s, it reopened in 1991.
It now reaps a turnover of around one million pounds ($1.6 million) a year and is the centerpiece of an annual Beatles pilgrimage which brought over half a million people to Liverpool over a single weekend in August.
Heckle says 16 cities have already expressed an interest in having a Cavern and more are likely to follow.
But there is one country where the Cavern will never be replicated.
"Other cities in England might be interested but I won't allow it," Heckle, a Liverpudlian, said emphatically.
By Gideon Long
LIVERPOOL, England (Reuters) - The Cavern nightclub where The Beatles launched their career as the world's most famous rock band is set to be reproduced around the world from Rio de Janeiro to Moscow.
The company which owns The Cavern, where the Beatles were first spotted by their manager Brian Epstein in 1961, says it plans to form a subsidiary to oversee the project.
It plans to open a Cavern in the southern Spanish holiday resort of Fuengirola next month, one in Adelaide, Australia, in June and one in Rio next autumn.
If all goes to plan, Caverns will follow in Buenos Aires, New York, Florida and even Moscow, where for years before the collapse of the Soviet Union people were banned from listening to The Beatles.
"There's interest from all over the world," said Bill Heckle, chairman of Cavern City Tours, which runs the club in downtown Liverpool.
"The challenge is to do it properly."
Heckle says the new Caverns will have to look like the club where The Beatles first played in February 1961.
They will have to incorporate the unplastered brick arches which characterize the Liverpool club, have a stage like the original and promise to promote live music.
"There will, however, be some flexibility to allow for local differences," Heckle told Reuters. "It's a bit of a hybrid between a license and a franchise."
Cavern City Tours will take a percentage of the turnover of each new club.
The Cavern has had a tumultuous history since it opened as a jazz club in January 1957.
It became the focus for the Mersey Beat sound of the early 1960s and has played host to all the biggest bands of British rock and pop from The Beatles to Oasis.
The Beatles played the club between 1961 and 1963 and secured their first recording contract after being spotted by Epstein during a lunchtime gig there in November 1961.
Former Beatle Paul McCartney (news) returned to his roots in 1999, playing a concert in the cramped confines of The Cavern before just a handful of people.
But the club has also suffered hard times and senseless town planning.
The buildings above it were demolished in 1973 and The Cavern was filled in. For years, locals used the waste ground above as a car park.
It was excavated in the early 1980s, partly in response to the assassination of The Beatles' guiding light John Lennon (news).
Bricks from the original Cavern were used to build a new club on the old site and, after financial difficulties forced another closure in the late 1980s, it reopened in 1991.
It now reaps a turnover of around one million pounds ($1.6 million) a year and is the centerpiece of an annual Beatles pilgrimage which brought over half a million people to Liverpool over a single weekend in August.
Heckle says 16 cities have already expressed an interest in having a Cavern and more are likely to follow.
But there is one country where the Cavern will never be replicated.
"Other cities in England might be interested but I won't allow it," Heckle, a Liverpudlian, said emphatically.