Four are truly Fab

Jan 21 2008 by Larry Neild, Liverpool Daily Post

ONE thing that struck me about the events to mark the launch of the 08 Capital of Culture Year is The Beatles are big, really big.

Yet the world’s most famous foursome remain no more than a cottage industry in their home city of Liverpool.

Cavern City Tours, the Beatles Story, the National Trust, and a few other individuals and businesses, linked to John, (Sir) Paul, George and Ringo, do a brilliant job to cater for the steady influx of international Beatles fans from places as far away as Japan, the US and Australia. But isn’t it time the city council and tourism agency, the Mersey Partnership. just stopped for a moment – to Imagine the missed opportunities?

The reaction given to the Madryn Street Kid, aka Ringo Starr, on both Friday and Saturday was incredible. The applause given on Saturday to the late John Lennon was equally incredible. Paul’s Big Gig at Anfield will be a sell-out.

Chatting about the Beatles Industry – or rather shortage of it – to an executive at Kings Dock on Saturday extracted the not unexpected response: isn’t it about time, he groaned, that Liverpool moved on from The Beatles?

Try to convince the population of Stratford-upon -Avon that they should move on and discard the great Bard into the realms of history. Likewise in Memphis, the Elvis machine attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists. Gracelands has become a theme- park-cum-memorial to the great US heartbreaker. Hundreds, if not thousands of jobs, have been created by the Elvis industry. Oh, and you don’t need to be an Elvis fanatic to appreciate what Graceland has to offer.

A few years ago, I suggested to councillors they should recruit a dedicated Beatles promotion manager to better co-ordinate what is on offer, and to expand the Beatles industry. Such a manager, particularly one with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the mopheads, would be a hit on television and radio channels across the world. On the basis there’s more to Liverpool than The Beatles, they proceeded to appoint a music development officer. Well, I haven’t seem him, or is it a her, popping up on Larry King Live or a Japanese chat show.

I’m not suggesting the city changes its name to Beatlespool, but it seems we just fail to grasp how important the appointment is.

There’s a Beatles Interest Group, made up mainly of those hard- working and dedicated cottage industry people, and the Beatles- themed hotel will open close to Mathew Street, in North John Street. Shouldn’t we get a move on while there are still many people with unforgettable memories of the Merseybeat era? Maybe, if William Shakespeare had come from Liverpool, we would have been denied proper recognition of the world’s greatest wordsmith.

Meanwhile, the message from the movers and shakers in Liverpool seems to be: Beatles – we love you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you say so.