Friday 27 October 1961 | Live performance | Knotty Ash, Liverpool
On Friday 27 October 1961, the Beatles performed at Knotty Ash Village Hall on East Prescot Road in Liverpool. It was their fifth appearance at the venue, during a sequence of eight documented visits between September 1961 and March 1962.
The booking was made by Mona Best, mother of the Beatles’ drummer Pete Best. Her involvement connects this village-hall engagement with the wider network of local beat-music events she promoted, including those at the Casbah Coffee Club. The concert belongs to the Beatles’ Liverpool working circuit before their national recording breakthrough, not to the later theatre and arena tours.
| Date | Friday 27 October 1961 |
|---|---|
| Venue | Knotty Ash Village Hall |
| Location | East Prescot Road, Knotty Ash, Liverpool |
| Appearance number | Fifth of eight documented Beatles performances at the venue |
| Booking | Mona Best |
| Beatles drummer | Pete Best |
| Previous Knotty Ash show | 20 October 1961 |
| Next Knotty Ash show | 10 November 1961 |
| Exact setlist | Not established for this date |
The Beatles’ fifth visit to Knotty Ash
The group first appeared at Knotty Ash Village Hall on 15 September 1961. Two further September engagements followed, then a fourth appearance on 20 October. Their return a week later, on 27 October, was therefore the fifth entry in the venue chronology.
These repeated appearances show that Knotty Ash was part of a continuing local relationship rather than a one-off booking. The eight dates also reveal the pattern accurately: there were three September performances, two in October, two in November and one further visit in March 1962. They should not be described as an uninterrupted weekly residency.
The date sits alongside other Liverpool work in the archive. On the preceding day, the Beatles had played a Cavern Club lunchtime show on 26 October 1961. That was a separate venue and booking, not another name for the Knotty Ash appearance.
Mona Best’s role beyond the Casbah Coffee Club
Mona Best is closely associated with the Casbah Coffee Club, but the Knotty Ash booking demonstrates that her activity extended beyond that venue. She promoted beat-music events at other Liverpool locations and arranged this Village Hall show.
Her role should be described directly as part of the concert’s history, rather than reduced to a passing reference to her being Pete’s mother. The promoter helped connect musicians, audiences and venues, while the band supplied the performance. For this date, the surviving account identifies Mona as the person who booked the engagement.
The Casbah connection also helps explain how the Best family’s story fits within the Beatles’ local development. Our account of the Casbah performance on 27 August 1961 covers another event in that network. It is related context, not the same concert moved to a different location.
The Pete Best-era Beatles
The Beatles at this stage were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best. Ringo Starr had not yet replaced Best, so the familiar later quartet should not be projected backwards onto this October 1961 booking.
Pete’s presence is especially relevant here because of Mona’s role in arranging the show. The evening connects two parts of the same local history: the band’s lineup and the work of a promoter whose family was directly involved with it.
For earlier context, read about the Beatles asking Pete Best to join in August 1960. By the time of this Knotty Ash performance, he had already taken part in their Hamburg and Liverpool work.
Knotty Ash within Liverpool’s live-music circuit
The Village Hall on East Prescot Road was one of several kinds of venue in the Beatles’ early working life. Their local appearances were not confined to the Cavern: halls and coffee clubs also supplied places to perform and opportunities for promoters to arrange beat-music events.
Reading the Knotty Ash dates alongside the Cavern and Casbah entries gives a fuller picture than treating one famous venue as the whole story. Each location had its own bookings and chronology, even where the same musicians or organisers connected them.
For fans exploring that wider Liverpool chapter, the At the Cavern T-shirt celebrates another venue in the story.
All eight Beatles performances at Knotty Ash Village Hall
The complete documented venue sequence appears below. The current date is highlighted. The final visit belongs to a later promoting arrangement and should not automatically be credited to Mona Best.
- 15 September 1961: first appearance
- 22 September 1961: second appearance
- 29 September 1961: third appearance
- 20 October 1961: fourth appearance
- 27 October 1961: fifth appearance, this concert
- 10 November 1961: sixth appearance
- 17 November 1961: seventh appearance
- 17 March 1962: eighth appearance, promoted by Sam Leach
The later Sam Leach-promoted show
The last of the eight appearances, on 17 March 1962, was promoted by Sam Leach. The venue chronology records that he had taken over the promoting role from Mona Best earlier in 1962.
This later change does not alter the attribution of the October 1961 event. Mona booked the fifth appearance; Sam’s involvement belongs to the final visit in the sequence. Keeping those two stages separate avoids turning the whole venue history into a single promoter’s run.
What did the Beatles play?
The dated account does not establish a complete setlist for 27 October 1961. It would be misleading to borrow songs from another Liverpool performance and present them as an exact running order for Knotty Ash.
The secure details are the date, venue, fifth-appearance position and Mona Best’s booking. An exact start time, admission price and song-by-song programme are not supplied here without date-specific evidence. The article therefore follows the documented event rather than filling those gaps with a generic early Beatles concert.
Where is Knotty Ash Village Hall?
The historic hall is identified today as Knotty Ash Village Community Centre, 251 East Prescot Road, Liverpool L14 5NA. Liverpool’s premises-licence register gives this address, while the Merseyside historic environment record identifies the building as an 1890 community hall and provides its coordinates: 53.417999, -2.894021.
The map targets the recorded building coordinates, rather than East Prescot Road generally.
Open the historic Knotty Ash hall location in Google Maps.
More early Beatles history and merchandise
Continue with the Casbah on 27 August 1961 and the previous day’s Cavern appearance. For an artist-focused merchandise option, explore the Black & White Band T-shirt.
Frequently asked questions
Where did the Beatles perform on 27 October 1961?
They performed at Knotty Ash Village Hall on East Prescot Road in Liverpool.
Who booked the Knotty Ash show?
Mona Best, Pete Best’s mother, booked the 27 October 1961 performance. She also promoted events at the Casbah Coffee Club and other Liverpool venues.
Which appearance at the venue was this?
It was the Beatles’ fifth of eight documented Knotty Ash Village Hall performances.
Was Pete Best still the Beatles’ drummer?
Yes. The lineup comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best, before Ringo Starr joined the band.
When was their last Knotty Ash Village Hall performance?
The eighth and final documented appearance was on 17 March 1962. That show was promoted by Sam Leach.
Is an exact setlist established for 27 October 1961?
No exact song-by-song running order is established in the dated account. Setlists from other performances should not be substituted for this event.
27 October in Beatles history: the full day’s timeline · Explore more On This Day in Beatles History · Browse the preceding day’s timeline
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