1960 Sometime during that week, around Thursday 5 May, acting on advice from Brian Cassar, Williams secured the Beatals a drummer, Tommy Moore. He was considerably older than the others, but a drummer was a drummer, they reasoned, so he was welcomed into the group. Cassar also declared, in rather earthy terms, that the name Beatals was " ridiculous". He suggested they call themselves Long John and the Silver Beetles, and although John Lennon refused to be called Long John, for want of anything better they stuck with the name the Silver Beetles. The audition before Parnes and Fury was held between 10. 30 am and 4.30 pm on Tuesday 10 May at the Wyvern Social Club, 108 Seel Street, in premises newly acquired by Allan Williams for a night club he was to call the Blue Angel. Several of Liverpool's top beat groups turned out to perform before the star and The Big Man From London, among them Cass and the Cassanovas, Derry and the Seniors, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Cliff Roberts and the Rockers. The Silver Beetles were there too, more or less making up the numbers, or so it was thought. But when their turn came to play they were missing Tommy Moore, who was somewhere across town collecting his drum equipment from a club, so Johnny Hutchinson, the burly drummer from the Cassanovas, sat in with them until Moore appeared halfway through their ten-minute, four-song audition. Precisely what happened next is in doubt. According to Williams, Parnes and Fury both loved the Silver Beetles but were put off by Stuart Sutcliffe's awkward back-turned fumblings on bass; he says that Parnes' attempt to prise Stuart out of the group by dangling the offer of the tour before the four remaining members was met by a flat and loyal refusal. Parnes himself remembered nothing of the sort, only that he was slightly discouraged by the sight of Tommy Moore, who arrived late and flustered. A backing group for Billy Fury was not found that day, but Parnes did offer to use two of Williams' groups to support other, less important, artists on ballroom tours of north-east England and Scotland. The Silver Beetles were the first in line and on Wednesday 18 May they gratefully accepted a nineday seven-engagement Scottish tour backing 20-yearold Liverpudlian and one-time apprentice carpenter Johnny Gentle, at L18 per man per week, part-expenses paid. They had just two days to prepare and certainly didn't bother to inform promoter Brian Kelly of their unavailability for a Saturday-night booking he'd generously given them, at Lathom Hall in Seaforth. Hurriedly, George and Tommy Moore arranged time off work, Paul persuaded his father that the rest away from home would make it easier to revise for his f orthcoming A-level exams, and John and Stuart cut college. Before setting out for this first-ever tour, three of the Silver Beetles decided to adopt stage names. Paul became Paul Ramon, George became Carl Harrison (after American rockabilly musician Carl Perkins) and Stuart became Stuart de Stael (after the Russian artist Nicholas de Stael). So, with visions of their name in lights, money, fame, and girls chasing them, the group set out from Liverpool Lime Street station for Alloa. In reality, the tour was not only dismally disappointing but it was poorly planned. After Alloa, the other six dates
were scheduled along the north-east coast, from Inverness to Peterhead, a distance of 112 miles. But Parnes and his Scottish intermediary, an elderly chicken farmer from Dumfries named Duncan McKinnon, arranged the dates without much care for geography and the group spent the week unnecessarily ferrying back and forth along the
The Silver Beetles auditioning for Larry Parnes and Billy Fury, 10 May 1960. Note Stuart Sutcliffe's side-on stance and the apparent boredom of guest drummer Johnny Hutchinson, filling in for the yet-toarrive Tommy Moore. Johnny Gentle on stage in Alloa, backed by the Silver Beetles. He had evidently bought or borrowed a pair of their matching shoes.
19