Did you really think a former Beatle could return to the Cavern Club without something bizarre happening around it? Paul McCartney's Cavern Club date Dec. 14 with David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and Ian Paice (Deep Purple) has had an unexpected side effect: desperate fans said to be offering free sex in exchange for tickets.
``I've been repeatedly offered sex in exchange for a ticket to this historic gig,'' said Bill Heckle, manager of the Cavern, to Reuters. "Women have been blatantly accosting me in the club, trying to bribe me with their bodies. Anyone who has got anything to swap is offering it for a ticket.''
Among the less raunchy barter offers include an American businessman offering $16,000 all expenses paid holiday in California for a ticket, and a British businessman offering his helicopter for a week.
Aside from the attraction of McCartney himself, the Cavern date is significant because McCartney hasn't appeared at the site since the Beatles played their last Cavern date in mid-1963, as their British popularity was about to make them an international phenomenon.
The reason for the peculiar and desperate bartering could be that there are only 150 tickets available for the Dec. 14 show - and they're being distributed free, by way of a raffle.
McCartney says he's doing the Cavern show as a one-off nod to his rock and roll roots and the music "which will always thrill me." With Gilmour and Paice in his stage lineup, McCartney's gig will feature members of three of the most popular bands in British rock history. There are no reports on whether the other surviving former Beatles, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, will appear.
Heckle was overwhelmed by the surge of Beatlemania over McCartney's one-night homecoming. "Since the news broke," he says, "we've been swamped with calls from all over the world."
The Beatles were the virtual house band at the Cavern when they discovered by Brian Epstein in late 1961. The original Cavern was demolished in 1973, but a new Cavern opened on the site in the 1980s.
