He hadn’t been expecting comedy from the band, but next to classical music, comedy is what George Martin knows best. It’s the icebreaker that saves what could have been a disaster.

The boys from Liverpool spend the next twenty minutes keeping the studio in absolute stitches. At least John, Paul, and George do—Pete, as usual, stays silent in the corner. By the time the Beatles leave, Norman Smith has to dry his tears of laughter. He turns to George Martin and says, “Phew! What do you think of that lot then?”

As George Martin would say later, “I did think they had enormous talent, but it wasn’t their music, it was their charisma. When I was with them they gave me a sense of well-being, of being happy. The music was almost incidental.”

If they have this effect on me, he thinks, they are going to have that effect on their audiences.

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

You’ve got to hide your love away.

—“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”

At home in Liverpool, the Beatles are preparing to face an audience of one. One of their own.

John, Paul, and George decide to tell Brian that he has to handle the uncomfortable job of firing Pete. As George will later admit, “Being unable to deal with the emotional side of that, we went to Brian Epstein and said, ‘You’re the manager, you do it.’”

Brian is upset by the news. “I think you should keep Pete,” he says.

But the others felt they’d already given Pete enough of a chance. Another local drummer recalled encountering Paul and Pete huddled together at the Mandolin Club one afternoon in 1962, after a lunchtime session at the Cavern. “Paul was showing Pete the drum pattern he wanted on a particular song,” the drummer remembered. “Pete tried to do it, but he didn’t get it.”

“It had got to the stage that Pete was holding us back,” Paul later explains. “What were we gonna do—try and pretend he was a wonderful drummer? We knew he wasn’t as good as what we wanted.”

“Do you have someone in mind for his replacement?”

“Ringo,” John says.

“He’s rather loud,” Brian says. “I don’t want him.”

“But we do.” John lists the reasons why the Beatles want—need—Ringo. When Ringo is around, the Beatles feel like a full unit, both on and off the stage. And they know Ringo’s interested. “We want Pete out and Ringo in.”

Ringo, the three of them believe, is the key to making the band better.

On Thursday, August 16, 1962, a band meeting is called at the NEMS office. Only Brian and Pete attend. John and the others don’t show up.