The Quarrymen’s Cavern Debut Perfectly Encapsulated John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s Personalities

Although specific dates can vary depending on who you ask, the most common legend of the Quarrymen’s debut at The Cavern lands the skiffle group onstage on the evening of August 7, 1957. It was a skiffle-themed night, with additional performances by Dark Town Skiffle Group, the Deltones Skiffle Group, and Ron McKay’s Skiffle Group. 

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Interestingly, John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s relation to that night (namely, what Lennon was doing while there and what McCartney was doing while absent) seems to encapsulate their personalities and, in a broader sense, their time in the Beatles perfectly.

The Quarrymen’s Cavern Debut In 1957, The Club’s Inaugural Year

The Cavern Club opened on Mathew Street in January 1957 and quickly became a hub for the local Liverpool music scene. Skiffle, a type of folk music that blends blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, became increasingly popular throughout the United Kingdom in the late ‘50s. The Cavern began attracting skiffle bands like the one that would later evolve to become the Beatles, which John Lennon started the year before the club opened in his hometown. Other members included Pete Shotten, Eric Griffiths, Bill Smith, Colin Hanton, and Rod Davis. Paul McCartney joined months later in July 1957.

One month later, according to most reports, the Quarrymen made their Cavern Club debut on the evening of August 7. Lennon, of course, was at the helm behind the mic with his guitar. But McCartney was noticeably absent. In hindsight, the explanation for McCartney missing the show (and Lennon’s behavior while there) seems like a perfect encapsulation of the musicians’ personalities and their roles in the Beatles. The younger of the two, McCartney, was away at Scouts camp.

Lennon, meanwhile, was rocking the boat onstage. After performing several rock ‘n’ roll numbers, like “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes,” a note appeared from the crowd. “John Lennon was passed a note, and he said to the audience, ‘We’ve had a request.’ He opened it. It was [Cavern Club owner] Alan Sytner saying, ‘Cut out the bloody rock ‘n’ roll,’” Hanton recalled in The Cavern (via BeatlesBible). (This is the same owner, by the way, who described the teenage Lennon as “arrogant and hadn’t got a clue, but that was John Lennon.”)

A Perfect Representation Of The Two Musicians

That Paul McCartney would be away at Scouts Camp and John Lennon would be onstage, causing trouble, seems to be an accurate representation of how the two musicians handled interpersonal relationships, songwriting, their roles in the band, and their connections and aversions to fame. McCartney was traditionally the more straight-laced of the two, writing songs that Lennon famously referred to as “Granny s***.” Lennon, meanwhile, seemed to have a rougher edge.

That’s not to say McCartney was milquetoast. Whereas Lennon wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers and rock the boat, McCartney proved to disrupt the status quo in more palatable ways. He was just as creative as the other half of his long-time collaborative duo. But McCartney tended to have a greater awareness of and affinity for what was pop-sensible, traditional, and universally likable.

McCartney would debut with the Quarrymen a few months after the band’s first show at the Cavern Club. On October 18, 1957, the Quarrymen played at the Conservative Club at New Clubmoor Hall in Norris Green, Liverpool. That was the same night McCartney first played an original song, “I Lost My Little Girl,” for Lennon, which inspired Lennon to start writing his own songs. Thus, the music-changing, era-defining seeds of their future songwriting partnership in the Beatles were planted.

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