Saturday 4 November 1961 | Live performance | Cavern Club, Liverpool | By Beatles Fabdom
On 4 November 1961, The Beatles returned to the Cavern Club on Liverpool’s Mathew Street for their 22nd evening performance at the venue. Counting both lunchtime and evening engagements, this was their 72nd known Cavern appearance.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best were already regular performers in the cellar club. Their Saturday evening booking came just one day after their 50th lunchtime show and five days before Brian Epstein’s documented visit to see them on 9 November. The group’s local following was established; the management relationship that would help take them beyond Merseyside was still ahead.
| Date | Saturday 4 November 1961 |
|---|---|
| Session | Evening |
| Venue | Cavern Club |
| Historic address | 10 Mathew Street, Liverpool, England |
| Evening appearance | 22nd |
| Known Cavern appearance overall | 72nd, including lunchtime shows |
| Line-up | John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best |
| Next major development | Brian Epstein’s Cavern visit on 9 November 1961 |
The Beatles’ 22nd evening show at the Cavern Club
The Beatles first appeared at the Cavern under their own name on 9 February 1961. Evening bookings followed, including their first Cavern evening performance on 21 March. By the beginning of November, the venue was a recurring part of their working schedule.
The 4 November engagement was specifically an evening show. It followed the lunchtime performance on Friday 3 November, their 71st known appearance overall. That Friday had marked their 50th lunchtime booking; Saturday brought their evening count to 22. Together those two session totals account for the 72 known appearances reached on this date.
The appearance count is not a count of different calendar days. The Beatles sometimes performed both a lunchtime and an evening session at the Cavern on the same date. Those were separate engagements in the concert chronology.
John, Paul, George and Pete: the November 1961 line-up
The band playing this Saturday evening was a quartet, but not yet the quartet that would record The Beatles’ best-known albums. Pete Best was the drummer. Ringo Starr had not joined the group.
| Musician | Role |
|---|---|
| John Lennon | Guitar and vocals |
| Paul McCartney | Bass guitar and vocals |
| George Harrison | Guitar and vocals |
| Pete Best | Drums |
McCartney had taken over bass duties after Stuart Sutcliffe left the group. That change distinguishes this Liverpool appearance from the Kaiserkeller performance on the same date in 1960. A year earlier, Sutcliffe was still on bass, McCartney was a guitarist and The Beatles were a five-piece band.
Best connects those two line-ups: he was the drummer for both engagements. Our biographies of Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe explore their roles in the years before the familiar recording-era line-up was complete.
A Saturday evening on Mathew Street
The Cavern’s lunchtime and evening programmes gave the same club different places in Liverpool’s daily life. Lunchtime sessions fitted into the working day; evening bookings brought audiences back after work and at the weekend. The Beatles’ appearance on 4 November belongs to the Saturday evening programme, not to the noon-to-2pm sessions associated with their lunchtime engagements.
Regular work at the Cavern sat alongside appearances at other halls and clubs around Liverpool and the surrounding area. In November 1961, the band were not yet a national theatre attraction. They were building a following through repeated local performances after the experience of their Hamburg engagements.
These separate session types also explain why a single venue appears so frequently in their diary. The Cavern was not an occasional stop on a travelling tour: it was a recurring base in the group’s Liverpool performing life.
The cellar club before Beatlemania
The Cavern opened on 16 January 1957 in a warehouse cellar at 10 Mathew Street. Its founder, Alan Sytner, established it as a jazz club. Ray McFall took over in 1959, and the venue became increasingly associated with the young beat groups of Liverpool.
The Beatles’ arrival in February 1961 began the relationship that made the club internationally famous. During their first year there, the musicians were still performing at close quarters to a local audience beneath the brick arches, rather than facing the enormous crowds of their later touring years.
The Cavern setting is an essential part of this stage of the group’s career. It links their early local following with the events that led to professional management, a recording contract and the very different demands of national success.
Five days before Brian Epstein’s visit
On Thursday 9 November 1961, Brian Epstein visited the Cavern for a lunchtime session and saw The Beatles perform. Both the Cavern’s own history and The Beatles’ official timeline place that encounter on 9 November, five days after this Saturday evening booking.
Epstein’s family business, NEMS, was nearby on Whitechapel. His visit brought a local record retailer into contact with a band whose audience had already grown through regular appearances in Liverpool. The management relationship followed; it was not already in place for the 4 November show.
This evening therefore belongs to the last days before that documented meeting. The Beatles were already 72 appearances into their Cavern story, rather than an unknown group playing their first engagement when Epstein arrived. Explore the wider career of Brian Epstein, The Beatles’ manager.
The Cavern diary around 4 November 1961
The early-November sequence shows how daytime and evening performances followed one another. This is a selected local diary, not a separate concert tour.
| Date | Session | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 November 1961 | Lunchtime and evening | The evening engagement was their 21st evening show and 70th known Cavern appearance overall. |
| 3 November 1961 | Lunchtime | 50th lunchtime show; 71st known appearance overall. |
| 4 November 1961 | Evening | This performance: 22nd evening show; 72nd known appearance overall. |
| 7 November 1961 | Lunchtime and evening | Another day with two separate Cavern sessions. |
| 8 November 1961 | Evening | Their 24th evening show. |
| 9 November 1961 | Lunchtime | Brian Epstein’s documented visit to see The Beatles. |
The preceding autumn appearances included 24 October at lunchtime, 25 October in the evening and 26 October at lunchtime.
How many Cavern performances did The Beatles give?
The Beatles’ appearances as a group at the Cavern span 9 February 1961 to 3 August 1963. The dated concert chronology records at least 155 lunchtime and 125 evening shows. The Cavern itself commonly commemorates a total of 292 performances.
Those overall totals differ with the records and counting used. For 4 November 1961, the precise description is their 72nd known Cavern appearance and 22nd evening performance. It places the event within the surviving chronology without treating the whole Cavern history as a single uncontested total.
Historic Cavern site and Liverpool map
The historic venue address is 10 Mathew Street, Liverpool L2 6RE, England. The present-day Cavern occupies much of the original footprint, but it is a reconstruction, not an unchanged 1961 interior.
The original club closed in 1973 and the cellar was filled in. Excavation in 1982 found that it could not safely be reopened intact. It was carefully dismantled, with thousands of original bricks saved for the rebuilding. The reconstructed club reopened on 26 April 1984 on approximately 70 per cent of the original site.
The map targets the historic Mathew Street location, now home to the reconstructed Cavern Club.
Open the Cavern Club address in Google Maps. Read the Cavern’s account of the original site and reconstruction.
Cavern designs for Beatles fans
The At The Cavern black T-shirt features a photographic collage on the front and a smaller Beatles design on the back.
The black Cavern Beatles mug references a later event: the group’s final Cavern appearance on 3 August 1963, rather than this November 1961 performance.
Frequently asked questions
Where did The Beatles play on 4 November 1961?
They gave an evening performance at the Cavern Club on Mathew Street in Liverpool.
Was this The Beatles’ 72nd Cavern show?
It was their 72nd known Cavern appearance overall and their 22nd evening show.
Who was The Beatles’ drummer that evening?
Pete Best played drums, alongside John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
Was Brian Epstein already managing The Beatles?
No. His documented visit to see them at the Cavern took place on 9 November 1961, five days after this show. Their management relationship followed.
Who played bass in November 1961?
Paul McCartney was the bass player, having taken over after Stuart Sutcliffe left the group.
Is today’s Cavern Club the unchanged original cellar?
No. The present club is a reconstruction opened in 1984 on much of the original site, using thousands of original bricks.
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