When the Beatles Played Northampton

Simon Selects is a weekly pop culture themed radio show that started on Northampton’s community radio station – NLive Radio in May 2018.
It is hosted by Simon Hoggarth, a self-confessed geek who wanted to share his passion for music and pop culture with the local area.

Back in November 2023, there were three big events in pop culture history marking 60 years – the TV show Doctor Who, President Kennedy’s Assassination both of which had global reach. Closer to home I found out that The Beatles came to Northampton and played two concerts at a local theatre back in 1963 at the beginning of their fame. I thought it would be a great opportunity to do shows over several weeks focusing on all three events, the local connections and impact it had.

The preparation

For the Beatles themed show, a lot of research was required. My initial idea for the show was to try and recreate the concert on air by trying to find out the set lists of what was played by the Beatles along with the other support acts on the bill. This proved to be challenging as there’s not much information available, compared to the readily available set lists found from concerts of today’s artists.

I did manage to find a set list of The Beatles, and it turned out that the November 1963 concert was the last time they came to Northampton. As for the other acts, I found some bits of information but it was much more sparse, so for that part of the show I also researched what hits they had in the charts around the same time to boost the list of songs to play. Live tracks were used from the Beatles and other acts where possible to give that extra feeling of being there at the gig.

I then got in touch with several online Facebook groups about Northampton’s history asking for information about the event and if anyone had any memories or stories that they’d like to share which I could then read out as part of the show. I had lots of funny, amusing and lovely anecdotes provided of which you hear some within the show.

The Deco Theatre in Northampton (where the concerts took place), were also planning to mark the anniversary by having a Beatles tribute band – The Upbeat Beatles playing. I contacted them to see if it was possible to interview the band for my show and was told they’d pass my request on.

The band’s manager then got in touch a few days later to say the band could do an interview via a WhatsApp call there and then whilst they were travelling. This caught me a bit off guard as I wasn’t sure at first how to record it. However I managed to get WhatsApp on my computer and use a screen recorder. It was a really good chat, however listening back afterwards I realised there were problems with the recording. I tried to clean it up using Adobe Audition filters but the result was still slightly disappointing.

The set list

The first hour of the show was focused on the other acts that performed on the bill alongside The Beatles at both concerts. This included The Rhythm and Blues Quartet (The Spencer Davis Group), The Vernon Girls, The Brook Brothers, Peter Jay & The Jaywalkers, Chris Montez, Tommy Roe, The Viscounts and The Kestrels.

The second hour features a mix of live recordings of The Beatles performances from various albums to try and get that authentic feel of what it might have been like to have been at a Beatles gig back then.

Reaction to the show

After the show went out, I received lots of positive comments from listeners saying how much they had enjoyed it, particularly those who actually went to the concert who said it transported them back to being there on that day. Hearing those kind messages makes the hours and hours of work into a weekly 2 hour show worthwhile.

In the October 2024, the show was a finalist in the Community Radio Awards for Specialist Content Show of the Year.

Listen to the show in full below…