you really got a hold on me | john lennon

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

August 17th, 1960

We arrived in Hamburg only a few hours ago after a long and tiring trip cooped up in the van—and the second we arrived, the whole band was already expected to start their first shift of shows. The boys and I were all knackered out of our minds and already thought that we weren't going to make it to Hamburg with how less than ideal our circumstances were.

Bruno Koschmider—the person who had hired them in the first place—met us outside his club, the Indra Club, and wasted no time in telling them that they had no choice but to start. All of them agreed right away even with their doubts because the man was their boss after all. The one who would provide the opportunities, the money, all of that. And the bloke hadn't organized a place for us all to stay at either, so this was just where he was sticking all of us in the meantime while trying to figure it out. Meanwhile, Allan, his wife, and the rest of the friends he had brought had all fled to the place they rented right after dropping us off. They had left us in the dust...not even asking if we were going to be alright here.

Now, I sat at one of the tables in front of their stage watching as they played on what was their fourth show tonight already, though they were nearing the end of this one and getting closer to their break. A ciggie was placed between my fingers and an almost empty glass of whiskey sat on the table that I was savoring. I needed something to keep me awake while they were still performing, so the bartender recommended this straight whiskey and it sure did the trick. Every drop of it had an overwhelming bite that made me snap awake and slow down for a moment to adjust.

Thank goodness that my tolerance with alcohol had miraculously gone up since Christmas, and it was serving me well. I hadn't done anything close to stupid yet, so I had no choice but to call that a win.

All of the boys were up there standing stock-still, quite unlike themselves back in Liverpool. They looked terrified to an extent and were all sweating their arses off despite not doing much movement up on stage. I could tell that the lack of sleep, alcohol, nerves and the new environment were catching up to them all at once. It was possibly the worst time for it to come out of them, but what could they do? Based on my first impressions of Bruno...he would probably bark their heads off if they stopped playing. So playing was essentially their last and only option right now.

Paul and John were on the last chorus of Tutti Frutti, a song that had grown to be one of the staples in their set-lists. Both of them were singing into their shoddy mics and tried to show the rather bare audience more of their natural side of performing, which also didn't seem quite...natural. They were just bobbing their heads around more like madmen and it made them look plain ridiculous, but I couldn't really say much against it because I'd be nervous as hell if I was in their shoes.

"A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom!" The two of them sang loudly, ending the song out with a bang. They were finally done with their fourth set and now had a rather short break to savor, only being thirty minutes long.

John staggered over to me whilst the other four went off to do whatever else they needed to do. Every step of his seemed to be dragged off the floor with an extreme weight that he was barely holding up. He collapses into the seat next to me and lets out the biggest sigh imaginable as he wipes beads of sweat off his face. John was exhausted in every way you could imagine, and I felt utterly horrible on his behalf. We were barely on our first day and even I knew that these conditions were less than substantial.

"Are you sure you can even go on after this? Look at you. We haven't even gotten anything proper to eat since last night." I sweep a few wisps of his hair out of his face and look at him sideways. Hanging around the boys even more often than I already had been doing really had activated a more maternal side of me which I thought was basically nonexistent—but I suppose I wasn't really a stranger to odd things happening to me left and right. "Don't push yourself too hard. Take your own advice when you were always spewing out knowledge from that brilliant brain of yers a few months ago."