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May 1, 2026 · 8:15 am

Beatles Freak Reviews is Finally Going to Liverpool

Landscape Liverpool Stock Illustrations – 285 Landscape Liverpool Stock Illustrations, Vectors & Clipart - Dreamstime

About f-ing time…huh? And I’m going to need a little help from my friends…

After over 15 years of owning Beatles-Freak, BeatlesFreak, and BeatlesFreakReviews.com, I’m finally going to get to see Liverpool.

And so much for celebrating the 250th birthday of America, because I will be in the mighty U.K. for that weekend. But…I’ll only have one day to visit Liverpool, so I’m asking for help from all my loyal blog readers and followers to help me to get the most out of my trip.

I’ll be landing the wee hours of July 3rd after a redeye flight from Philadelphia to Dublin to Manchester via Aer Lingus (they’ve been cancelling a lot of flights, so fingers crossed that ours doesn’t get the ax!). My traveling partner will be my friend Bessy, who will be a speaker at Womanifest this year. We’ll be spending 2 fun filled days on July 4 & 5, with a couple thousand woman having a mindful and meaningful weekend.

Call me an idiot, but after booking the trip to Womanifest, I finally got around to looking at a map and realized how close we’ll be to Liverpool. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to finally walk where the Fab Four have walked, so I started planning my escape. Turns out, we booked an extra day (Monday) into our trip, so I have just 24 hours to do all that I can do.

I’ll be catching a train into Liverpool on Sunday evening and staying at the Hard Day’s Night Hotel. Bright and early the next morning, I’ll be taking the 9:30 a.m. Magical Mystery Tour so that I can squeeze in all the Beatle sites that aren’t within walking distance of the hotel and Mathew Street.

Now comes the part where I need a little help from my friends. After the tour, I’ll be meeting up with my friend Bessy again and we’ll have the afternoon to have lunch and explore.

Help us out here, fellow Beatles freaks! What should we do with our afternoon in Liverpool? What are the must see sights? The best photo ops? The best place to have lunch?

Book Review: “The One After 909: A Mystery with a Backbeat” by Tony Broadbent

I’d like to thank author Tony Broadbent for sending me a copy of his latest book, The One After 9:09: A Mystery With A Backbeat. Tony is a Brit, born and raised, who now lives in North Carolina, USA.

This book is incredibly well written. Even with over 400 pages, a reader can easily read through it without feeling like it’s never going to end. The book contains, what I believe, to be three stories revolving around the early days of the Beatles career in the Liverpool and Hamburg days.

The first story is that of Raymond “Spike” Jones, the young man who apparently was the first Beatles fan to walk into NEMS record store and request a copy of “My Bonnie” with the Beatles singing back-up. This particular storyline is fictitious, even though Raymond is said to have been a real person. The second story is that of the mysterious private life of Brian Epstein and his (illegal) gay lifestyle. The third story is that of the Beatles in their early days of getting to the toppermost of the poppermost. Included in the all of the stories are Sam Leach, Mal Evans, Bob Wooler and many other well known Liverpool personalities.

All these tales and characters’ lives intertwine and overlap throughout the book, but at the same time, each holds it own. The problem comes, though, when the reader isn’t sure which story is the main focus of the book. And in the end, the storyline I had thought would figure prominently and close out the book wasn’t the one. It was as if there was one train of thought that never came to the dramatic conclusion that I was looking for in the end.

Still, this book was a nice light read and the author says that except for the Raymond Jones story, the book is factual and he even provides sources at the end. And for that reason…

I rate this book, 3 out of 4 Beetles!

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