BBC Radio on Tuesday revealed what is believed to be the earliest recording of a full concert by The Beatles.
The hour-long performance, captured on quarter-inch tape, was recorded on April 4, 1963 by teenager John Bloomfield at a board school in Buckinghamshire, England.
The Beatles accepted about $167 to perform at the school – and because it was an audience of boys, the show wasn’t drowned out by screaming. They played 22 songs, including “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Please Please Me” from their just-released debut album.
Bloomfield, now in his 70s, had never publicly revealed the existence of the tape until recently.
“The opportunity that this tape presents … is fantastic because we hear them just on the cusp of the breakthrough into complete world fame,” Beatles historian Mark Lewisjohn told BBC News. “And at that point, all audience recordings become blanketed in screams. So here is an opportunity to hear them in the UK, in an environment where they could be heard and where the tape actually does capture them properly, at a time when they can have banter with the audience as well.
"It's an incredibly important recording, and I hope something good and constructive and creative eventually happens to it.”