"Discovery" in Blokker

On August 30, 2005, during a bicycle ride through Westfriesland, Stefanie 'discovered' the 'Beatles Monument' in the small rural village of BLOKKER.

This monument preserves the memory of the only concert ever given by The Beatles in the Netherlands, somewhere in the 1960's.

Blokker does not have a concert hall, but outside of the vegetable season a local building - normally used for the auctioning of locally produced vegetables - was converted once a year for a weekend to house a 'giant party'.

These parties, organized by a few 'local boys', not only included performances by The Beatles, but also by other great - specially flown-in - international performers, such as - for example - Louis Armstrong and his All Stars, the Benny Goodman Orchestra.

The level of the concerts was so high that artist such as Jacques Brell, Nana Mouskouri and many others also performed during those weekends, but -remarkably - just for the warming-up sessions and not as the main attraction.

The once-a-year weekend parties ended after about five years when the local boys grew up and left the village.

The story goes that Louis Armstrong was so impressed that he later sent a Hollywood crew to Blokker to register the village and the hall. This later reportedly became one of his party-pieces because nobody back home believed his story about his performance in a 'vegetable hall' in a small Dutch village. Indeed hard to believe for a man who normally played in famous places like Carnegie Hall in NewYork and l'Olympia in Paris.

A few locals [see picture above] , sitting in front of the monument and enjoying their case of beer in the sunshine, were more than happy to give us the background concerning the monument and to share their [real or perceived] 'memories' with us.

"The first right to buy the tickets for the Beatles Concert"

Curiously, the invitation for the Beatles Concert [see picture, taken from the back of the monument] states that ticket holders for the concert by Cliff Richard [also one of the performers during the same weekend in Blokker, of course] have the first right to buy the tickets for the Beatles Concert.