The Beatles Royal Variety 1963 1963

The Beatles during rehearsals for the 1963 Royal Variety Performance, at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London. L-R: Paul McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr. * 12/11/2000: The band will unleash an album widely expected to become one of the biggest sellers of all time. With 80 minutes of music on it, the album, entitled 1, is the first collection of greatest hits they have released and comes three decades after the band split. * 10/11/2001: Music fans were celebrating the 40th anniversary of Beatlemania with a night of Merseybeat sounds. Sam Leach, the promoter who organised Beatles gigs at the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton, claims the concerts were the band's first experience of the mass hysteria which came to mark their every public appearance. The first Tower Ballroom gig, which took place on November 10, 1961, attracted a crowd of 4,100 - one of the largest ever audiences for a British Beatles concert.