|
 Music, fans and young people in the 1960s
10 September 2010 – 27 February 2011
Museet på Koldinghus is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the creation of the most successful music group of all time: The Beatles. We are telling the story of the four boys from Liverpool who began performing in the years around 1960 as a young unknown band in the city centres of Liverpool and Hamburg and ended up in 1970 as icons and trail-blazers for a whole generation.
The exhibition tells the story of the music, the fan culture and the youth culture of the 1960s – and traces the trends up to the present day, when the group is once again highly topical. What is it that makes The Beatles something totally special in rock history? What is it that was different about The Beatles as opposed to earlier pop idols? How did The Beatles affect young people in Denmark? And how did the memories of The Beatles live on after the break-up in 1970?
It is these questions that the exhibition seeks to answer, with the help of music, photos from the story of The Beatles, merchandise, memorabilia, fashion, instruments, transistor-radios, portable record-players, posters and LPs, fan magazines and juke-boxes – in brief, all that belonged to the era of The Beatles.
The Beatles story in contemporary photos
There are hundreds of thousands of photos that show The Beatles in all possible and impossible situations. Photos from the early beginnings in Liverpool and Hamburg, where The Beatles performed with Elvis hairstyles and leather jackets, photos of The Beatles wading through fans, photos from the innumerable tours all over the world, photos from the studio, photos from the self-development trips to India and photos from the concert on the roof at Abbey Road in 1969. We have put together our very own photo-collection, illustrating the highlights of the story of The Beatles from 1960 to 1970.
Musical revolution
The Beatles revolutionised pop and rock music in the period of not quite seven years during which the group issued records. At the beginning the music was simple, catchy and made for live performances. From the mid 1960s it became more complex and arranged – a development that was partly due to the group’s raised level of artistic ambition, and partly due to inspiration from other major artists, but also, not least, due to the new advances in studio techniques that made it possible to edit, change and mix sound in completely new ways. The Beatles developed as a group, and at the same time the members of the group each developed musically in his own direction. In the exhibition there are a number of “happy-spots” where the public can come right into The Beatles’ musical machine-room and find answers to the question: What is it that makes the music something totally special?
Instruments that became icons
All The Beatles changed instruments and amplifying equipment innumerable times during their careers – in step with the way music and technology were developing. Many of the instruments and items of equipment became classic icons of rock history, simply because The Beatles had used them. The best known is the violin-shaped Höfner-bass which Paul McCartney made his trademark, and which became every amateur bass-player’s most ardently desired object. The exhibition contains a complete collection of vintage instruments and amplifying equipment from some of the high points in the story of The Beatles.
Danes with personal stories about The Beatles
There are many Danes who carry around their own entirely personal Beatles story. Some remember exactly the situation they were in when they heard ”She Loves You” or ”I Wanna Hold Your Hand” for the very first time. Others have preserved their Beatles dresses, posters, and chewing-gum pictures from that time – as souvenirs of a tumultuous period. Later generations too have exciting Beatles stories to tell, bearing witness to the extremely long durability of the music.
We have asked 30 Danes from various generations to tell their own Beatles story and to illustrate it with an object. The invitation list includes both well-known people from music- media- and cultural circles and perfectly ordinary Danes. This has resulted in a diverse and enthralling mosaic of memories.
The Beatles in KB-Hallen in Copenhagen in 1964
On 4 June 1964 The Beatles gave two concerts for a total of 8,800 fans in KB-Hallen in Copenhagen. (Ringo Starr was ill and was therefore temporarily replaced by Jimmie Nichol.) As was the case everywhere they went in those years, The Beatles were given a heroes’ welcome in the Danish capital. Bands such as The Beethovens, The Weedons and The Hitmakers ensured a good atmosphere in the warm-up, and the scene went totally out of control when The Beatles came on stage. 60 attendants had their hands full trying to stop screaming girls climbing up onto the flower-bedecked stage, and attempting to get the public to sit down again. The exhibition shows press photos, private snapshots, posters, tickets and other memorabilia from the visit to Copenhagen.
Being young in Denmark in the 1960s
As is well-known, Danish society underwent radical change in the 1960s, and this was a time of turmoil when young people found they had money in their hands and turned to rebellion against the prevailing norms, demonstrating this both in action and in clothing. The exhibition seeks to outline the major trends that influenced society at that time, including those within the national Danish scene, young fashion, the various movements of the beatniks, provos, hippies and student revolutionaries, and the new sexual liberation. The different themes are illustrated through a re-created girl's room from 1966/67, photos, sound, books and magazines, and other objects from the 1960s.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Thy
Just as The Beatles were reaching what was to be the last verse of their collective song, Denmark found a remarkable place in the story of The Beatles. Completely without attracting public attention at first, John Lennon and Yoko Ono turned up in the village of Vust in Thy, in northern Jutland, shortly before New Year 1969, in order to spend some time with Yoko Ono's little daughter, Kyoto, who was with her father while he was attending what was called the New Experimental College, in Thy. During their stay there the famous couple proclaimed that the turn of the year 1969/70 was the beginning of a new way of reckoning time, ”Year One AP” - the first year After the Peace. On the same occasion they both had their hair cut short. The exhibition tells the story, with the help of press photos, sound and original artefacts, of how in those days Thy became for a few weeks the focus of attention in the Beatles story.
The Beatles since then, and now
The story of The Beatles did not end in 1970. The music, and not least the commercial enterprise of The Beatles, lives on in fine form. The exhibition tells the story, with the help of sound and pictures, of some of the highlights since the group dissolved, including the campaign in recent years in connection with the re-issuing of the Beatles catalogue and the launching of the console game The Beatles Rock Band.
|
