En vivo: Odeon Cinema, Manchester

Measuring it word by word, let me make a solemn declaration that because of the city of Liverpool, popular music, after years of turmoil and unspeakable rubbish, has become healthy and gay and good again.The Liverpool Sound came to Manchester last night, and I thought it was magnificent… Indecipherable, meaningless nonsense, of course, but as beneficial and invigorating as a week on a beach at the pierhead overlooking the Mersey.The spectacle of these fresh, cheeky, sharp, young entertainers in apposition to the shiny-eyed teenage idolaters is as good as a rejuvenating drug for the jaded adult.I suppose there is not – yet – a first-class musician among them. Last night’s audience of screamers gave the ear little chance of picking up two consecutive notes. And record companies can work wonders in the studios. So how can you tell whether there is any quality?I suppose also that in another 12 months another sound will have been fed to the teenagers. But in the meantime, The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers – who, with their first record arrived at No. 1 on the hit parade – were a fair-sized sensation.Their stage manner has little polish but limitless energy, and they have in abundance the fundamental rough good humour of their native city.It was difficult to believe that the reception they had when they closed the first half of a generous bill would be exceeded by the noise accorded to The Beatles.One underestimates the teenage audience who gear their enthusiasm in ratio to the status of a star. It was really The Beatles we had gone to see.When the no-lapelled, shiny black suits and thick black Roman hair-cuts of the stars appeared to a cascade of outrageous praise from the compere, the cinema went wild.Nobody could hear themselves trying to think. The act was largely drowned, but it didn’t matter at all.It was marvellous, meaningless impertinent, exhilarating stuff.