As the 50th anniversary of the first Beatles gig in the city approaches BRIAN PEDLEY traces the musical roots of the then not-so-fab five

LIKE THE owls and foxes of rural Britain, the wildlife of Hamburg’s Reeperbahn springs to life at dusk. Here, as the sky begins to darken, music thuds, shop signs pulsate in a dazzle of primary colours and a tour guide breaks into song.

Pounding a ukelele like George Formby on Red Bull, the pony-tailed Stefanie belts out her version of I Saw Her Standing There in flawless English.

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As a youngster I saw The Beatles play this at a cinema in Plymouth but struggled to hear it above the screams. Now I hear the song “unplugged” against a backdrop of bars, cafés, sausage and kebab stalls and a shop quaintly named “Condomerie”. Natives call the Reeperbahn “die sündige meile” or the sinful mile but within the wider district known as St Pauli, the lads from Liverpool evolved from a group that was leather-clad, sweaty and not very fab, into a band that was ready to rock the world and change music for ever.

In Hamburg, The Beatles got their act together, playing two years of engagements, in five clubs, for up to seven hours a day.

Hamburg was the city where the group met drummer Ringo Starr, signed their first recording contract and changed their hairstyles from Elvis-style “duck-tails” to those iconic “mop-tops”.

In Hamburg, The Beatles played more gigs than in any other city in the world.

“I was born in Liverpool,” John Lennon once said, “but I came of age in Hamburg.” Fifty years since the first Hamburg gig, the city is manifestly proud of its place in rock history.

Hamburg singer-songwriter Stefanie Hempel was among the first to commemorate The Beatles’ heritage with the launch of her themed tour six years ago.

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“I came into music through The Beatles,” she tells us. “My father gave me one of their albums when I was nine years old and it changed my life for ever.”

We move on to the nearby Paul-Roosen-Strasse where we see the former Bambi Cinema.

Here the group shared two dank rooms behind the screen, using the toilets for washing and shaving.

In Grosse Freiheit, the dazzling vortex of light and noise that runs at a right angle to the Reeperbahn, we stand outside the gold-and- russet-coloured frontage of the Indra, the club where The Beatles made their Hamburg debut on August 17, 1960. “It was the beginning of a great career,” a commemorative plaque informs visitors.

Outside the former Top Ten Club, where the lads from Liverpool played as a backing band for Tony Sheridan as well as in their own
right, we learn of a set list that bordered on the uncool.

“Sailors always asked for shanties when they were drunk. So The Beatles mocked them a little by playing a rock ’n’ version of
My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean,” Stefanie tells us.

Among a complex of shops and cafés, we stop by a black-and-gold “memorial stone” that marks the site of the Star-Club, where the band played their final Hamburg gig on December 31, 1962.

By day, the changing St Pauli becomes more noticeable. Just a the original five Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best.

In a re-creation of St Pauli club land, I wave a smart card to activate an exclusive interview with German photographer girlfriend of Sutcliffe Astrid Kirchherr, whose images of The Beatles predate the original phenomenon of Beatlemania by up to two years.

Down a spiral staircase I am “backstage” among instruments and amplifiers, a jukebox and a battered sofa before I witness the real hysteria of Beatlemania and the surreal world of Strawberry Fields. In a life-sized re-enactment of the celebrity-laden Sgt Pepper’s iconic album cover, I pose for snapshots in the back row between “Edgar Allan Poe” and “Fred Astaire”. Downstairs, I “sail the
sea” with The Yellow Submarine and later struggle to get the song out of my head.

Beyond the Reeperbahn is a waterfront waiting to be explored.

I walk a full 3,000 years of marine history and view the 26,000 ship models in the 10-storey International Maritime Museum.

At the world’s largest model railway in Miniatur Wunderland, you can watch 1,000 trains running, on time, through Alpine vistas and
neon-lit, high-rise cities.

I cruise the harbour, the hub of Hamburg, passing beneath ranks of cranes that tower over a city skyline remade from the ruins of the Second World War.

At dusk, I arrive back at the crossroads of the Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit and the newly created £420,000 Beatles-Platz, which features life-sized, stainless steel outlines of the five musicians (the display includes Stuart Sutcliffe).

During the day they look like cookie-cutters but at night, cleverly lit from below, they shimmer into life.

Stefanie tells me that The Beatles left Hamburg for good on January 1, 1963. By February, Please Please Me was topping the UK singles charts and, for this teenager in Plymouth, no music was ever the same again.

● GETTING THERE:
Empire Riverside Hotel (dialling from the UK: (00 49) 40 311 190/ www.empire-riverside.de) offers doubles from 129 per night
(two sharing), room only.

Lufthansa (0871 945 9747/www.lufthansa.com) offers return flights from Heathrow and Manchester to Hamburg from £99.

Beatlemania (00 49 85 388 888/www.beatlemania-hamburg.com) 12 per adult, 8 per child (up to 14 years)

Hamburg Tourism: 00 49 40 3005 1300/www.hamburg-tourism.de
German National Tourist Offi ce: 020 7317 0908/ www.germany-tourism.co.uk