The missing piece

Paul, John and George at the bar, Indra Club, Hamburg, August 1960.

Fifty-five years ago today, The Beatles started their professional career as musicians. Leaving jobs, school and parents behind, they had left Liverpool to start their residency as a bar band in Hamburg’s Indra Club, near the Reeperbahn. A series of photos were taken while they were there, not many – just a handful. The photo depicted above of Paul, John and George at the Indra bar is one of them.

This is how the photo is usually presented to us, but something is missing. The full photo shows the full band, with Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best standing next to them. Pete Best has the complete photo, and a part of it was shown on his Best Of The Beatles DVD.

For his excellent website of photos of the early Beatles, Chazz Avery has matched a still from the DVD with the one we all knew, resulting in this image.

Stu and Pete restored back in, from a partly shown image in a DVD film.

I’ve tried to get in touch with Roag and Rory Best to ask them publish the complete photo, but haven’t gotten any answer back.

When the Beatles museum in Hamburg was in operation, all the images of The Beatles at the Indra club were on display, but this particular photo was taken from Avery’s website and cleverly positioned behind one of the other photos to disguise the fact that it was, in fact, incomplete.

Can you help? If you have a complete version of this photo, get in touch. Or if you know Pete, Rory or Roag, show them this blog post.