THE NEW
CAVERN
How the iconic old
club was resurrected
on Mathew StreetThe Cavern Club continued to thrive into
the 60s and early 70s. Debbie Greenberg
remembers performances by Queen,
Badfi nger and Status Quo being particular
highlights. The club was closed in 1973
following compulsory purchase by British
Rail and the area was subsequently
turned into a car park – 5,000 bricks from
the damaged archways of the original
cellar went on sale at £5 each and the
proceeds went to Strawberry Fields
children’s home.
Plans to excavate and reopen The
Cavern Club in its original form in 1982
were abandoned because the arches had
been too badly damaged during the
demolition of the ground fl oor.
The Cavern was relaunched in 1984, but
fi ve years later fi nancial pressures forced
it to close. In 1991, the new Cavern Club,
which covers 70% of the original venue’s
area, was reopened.
Adele, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys and Travis
are among the artists who have
performed at the new venue. In December
1999, Paul McCartney played there to
promote his album Run Devil Run, and he
returned in June 2018 for a ‘secret’ gig.
“Liverpool. Cavern,” said McCartney as he
came onstage, “Those are words that go
together well.”Above: Paul McCartney returned to play The Cavern on
14 December 1999 with a band that included Pink Floyd’s
David Gilmour and Deep Purple’s Ian PaiceThe Beatles At The Cavernwas saying, ‘We never should have come
back here’,” he told Leigh. The power cut
compounded tensions. “Normally, John Lennon
would have cracked jokes while somebody got
it right, but he was in such a bad mood that he
came off stage.”
Debbie Greenberg remembers the band
introducing the new Lennon/McCartney songs
into the set. For fans such as her, The Beatles’
astonishing ascent was bittersweet because it
signalled the end of an era.
“When they performed at The Cavern for the
last time, they played Please Please Me because
that had gone right up the charts. And they
had played Love Me Do before that because,
of course, it was their fi rst single, and all the
regulars said don’t buy it because they might
become famous and we’ll lose them. And I was
one of them. I didn’t buy it.”
Debbie would go on to have a more direct
relationship with The Cavern. In April 1966,
her father bought the club and ran it until
January 1971. She believes The Cavern played
a hugely signifi cant role in the development
of the Merseybeat sound. “Oh, I think it
played a very big part. The atmosphere of The
Cavern was second to none. There were plenty
of clubs in Liverpool, but The Cavern had
something special and The Beatles loved it. The
atmosphere, it was palpable, you could feel it.”
Years later, Paul McCartney would look back
with fondness on his days playing in the
small, sweaty subterranean venue beneath
Mathew Street. “My best playing days were at
The Cavern’s lunchtime sessions,” McCartney
told Chris Charlesworth of Melody Maker in1971, “where we’d just go on stage with a cheese
roll and a Coke and a ciggie, and a few requests.
And you just sing them in between eating your
cheese roll, and no-one minded and afterwards
you went and had a drink. That was great. We
really got something going in that place, in The
Cavern, we really got a rapport with an audience
that we never got again.” 9O With thanks to Debbie Greenberg and
Tony Waddington. Debbie Greenberg’s book
Cavern Club: The Inside Story is published by
Jorvik Press and available at Waterstones,
Amazon.com, The Beatles Bookstore and
other Beatles outlets.“In The Cavern, we
got a rapport going
with an audience that
we never got again”
PAUL MCCARTNEYDebbie Greenberg, author ofCavern (^) Club: The Inside Story,
with (^) Paul McCartney (^) in 1968