Kaiserkeller, Hamburg: the Beatles' 1960 Club on Große Freiheit

The Kaiserkeller is a basement music club at Große Freiheit 36 in Hamburg's St. Pauli district. Bruno Koschmider opened it in 1959, and the Beatles played there from 4 October 1960 after leaving his smaller Indra club. They shared the bill with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, whose drummer was Ringo Starr. The club still operates.

From the Indra to the Kaiserkeller

Bruno Koschmider opened the Kaiserkeller in October 1959, a cellar club with room for about 550 people. He already had the Beatles booked at his smaller Indra Club further up Große Freiheit, and when neighbours there complained about the noise, he moved the band to the Kaiserkeller. Their first night was 4 October 1960.

The work was long. Accounts of the Hamburg clubs put it at six or seven hours a night, seven nights a week.

Two Liverpool bands on one stage

Koschmider also booked Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, another Liverpool group, and the two bands took turns on stage. The Hurricanes' drummer was Ringo Starr, which makes the Kaiserkeller the club where the future Beatles lineup first worked side by side. Hamburg's tourism board presents it that way too, as the place where the band got to know its later drummer.

The audience included two young Hamburg art students, Klaus Voormann and Astrid Kirchherr. Kirchherr soon began a relationship with the band's bassist, Stuart Sutcliffe, who died in Hamburg on 10 April 1962 and is buried at St Michael's, Huyton.

How the residency ended

The booking fell apart in November 1960. The Beatles had agreed to play the rival Top Ten Club run by Peter Eckhorn, and Koschmider also had a problem with George Harrison's age. Sources disagree on the last night. One Beatles chronology counts 56 nights ending on 30 November, a fan-run concert list ends the run on 28 November, and another account says Koschmider gave notice on 1 November. Notice and the final show may simply be different dates.

The Kaiserkeller today

The building at Große Freiheit 36 reopened as a concert venue on 19 September 1985 with a Rory Gallagher show, and the Kaiserkeller in its basement came back about a year later. It runs as a rock club, with live nights for newer bands and weekend club nights listed by Hamburg Tourismus from 22:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. A plaque at the venue records its Beatles history.

The club is one floor below the street, and OpenStreetMap marks it as not wheelchair accessible. Entry depends on the event, so check the Große Freiheit 36 programme before going.

Beatles-Platz, Hamburg's Beatles memorial square, is at the Reeperbahn end of the same street.