The Cavern Club

The Cavern Club, Liverpool

The Beatles played the Cavern 292 times between 1961 and 1963. The original club, opened in 1957 as a jazz venue in a basement cellar at 10 Mathew Street, was demolished in 1973 to make way for a ventilation shaft for a planned underground railway that was never built. The current Cavern Club, opened in 1984, was reconstructed on the same site using approximately half the original bricks that had been recovered and stored. It is both a replica and partly the original building, which is an appropriately Liverpudlian situation.

The club runs live music every day of the week, typically from early afternoon through the night. The daytime shows feature Beatles tribute acts and Merseybeat covers; evening programming mixes tribute bands with original artists. Admission during the day is free. Evening tickets typically cost £5-10 depending on the act.

The space is small — capacity is around 300 in the main room — and the low brick vaulted ceiling and dim lighting do approximate the atmosphere of early 1960s Liverpool, more so than most music heritage venues manage. The stage is where the Beatles’ stage was, though the exact dimensions have changed slightly in reconstruction. There are framed photographs and memorabilia throughout.

The Mathew Street Area

The street itself has become a music tourism corridor with several other bars, a couple of Beatles statues (including one of John Lennon leaning against a wall), and the Magical Mystery store selling Beatles merchandise. The annual Mathew Street Festival, held in late August, draws tribute acts and significant crowds. The rest of the year, the immediate area is lively at weekends due to the concentration of bars.

The Beatles Story

The Beatles Story at Albert Dock is the more comprehensive museum option for Beatles-specific tourism, covering the band’s history from Hamburg through the breakup with reconstructed settings and original artefacts. It’s about a 10-minute walk from Mathew Street. Tickets are around £17 for adults and it takes 2-3 hours to get through properly.

Liverpool More Broadly

Albert Dock is a restored Victorian warehouse complex on the waterfront housing the Beatles Story, Tate Liverpool (contemporary art, free entry), and the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The waterfront walk between the Pier Head and Albert Dock passes the Three Graces — the Royal Liver Building, Cunard Building, and Port of Liverpool Building — which are the dominant landmarks of the city’s famous skyline.

Liverpool’s restaurants have improved significantly in recent years. The Bold Street and Lark Lane areas have the best concentration of independent restaurants. The central dining scene around Castle Street offers more mainstream options. Accommodation ranges from budget hostels to boutique hotels; the Titanic Hotel in Stanley Dock and the Hope Street Hotel are the most regarded independent options.