For those who witnessed the goings on at the ABC Cinema in Ferensway, it was a night that, 50 years later, still brings back happy memories for hundreds of local people.
From the all-night queue for tickets a few weeks before the big day, November 24, 1963, the 20th date of the group's autumn tour, excitement built.
Never had Hull seen anything like it. This and another visit the following year stand out as the unforgettable highlights of visits by some of the biggest stars of the pop world. Even the Rolling Stones failed to match the reception The Beatles received. In the following decade the Bay City Rollers came close. But the Beatles ruled, and pop fans of a certain age will never forget it.
The November visit was part of a nationwide tour and came after the group had topped the charts twice, From Me To You made it to number one and stayed there for seven weeks in April that year and in August, She Loves You, was in top spot for six weeks.
The group also reached number two in January 1963 with Please Please Me. By November what became known as Beatlemania was well and truly established. And didn't we know it.
The Beatles were not the only act on stage that night, but it is a fair bet that the vast majority of those who were there will not recall who else they saw – and actually heard. Peter Jay And The Jay Walkers who had a hit with the Joe Meek produced Can Can 62 were on the bill. So, too, were the Brook Brothers who had a couple of chart hits, Warpaint and Ain't Gonna Wash for a Week before sinking into obscurity, the Vernons Girls and the Kestrels.
The support acts were irrelevant, the crowds wanted only one, The Beatles. They never stopped demanding their appearance.
Reporters and photographers gathered in number for all this, being put in the orchestra pit, an ideal place for pictures of the group and the mayhem among the audience. Around the pit stood heavies with arms folded and carefully watching as chaos reigned. St John Ambulance staff were on hand to help those who were overcome by it all.
The noise was incredible, reaching a crescendo when The Beatles finally appeared. Even being within a few feet of them it was impossible to hear what they were singing but then, in the early 1960s, sound systems were hardly brilliant.
Time and again screaming girls tried to hurl themselves at the stage, only to be forced back by the bouncers. Many girls were in tears, completely overcome by it all, others held their heads in their hands, overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment.
Had they been able to hear what the group was performing, the audience would have heard a standard set of ten songs: I Saw Her Standing There, From Me To You, All My Loving, You Really Got A Hold On Me, Roll Over Beethoven, Boys, Till There Was You, She Loves You, Money (That's What I Want) and Twist And Shout.
And suddenly it was all over. The group stopped playing and ran off stage, the crowd whipped into a state of hysteria gradually subsided and left only to gather again at the stage door where police awaited them.
Inside the theatre newsmen gathered backstage for interviews. Among them was a national daily newspaper reporter whose sole job was to follow The Beatles from venue to venue. A sharp lad, this, he had arranged a piano to be conveniently left nearby, had a word with Paul McCartney and, lo and behold, the press had a brief but exclusive "concert".
Also backstage were fans who had been specially invited to meet The Beatles. Some were handicapped youngsters, others had won tickets in competitions. And that was it.
The Beatles were escorted secretly out of the building and into a car to hot-foot it out of Hull, the still screaming girls waited hopefully and hopelessly at the side of the cinema and the relative calm of a typical autumn Sunday night in Hull bus station gradually returned.
The Beatles' visit to the Majestic had an unfortunate ending for George Harrison.
The group were travelling back to Liverpool, where the following night they were booked to appear at the Locarno Ballroom, when the van they were in, which was being driven by George, left the road at Burton's Corner in Goole, taking with it a large section of the fence around the building.
The result, an appearance at Goole Magistrates' Court where the guitarist was fined for careless driving.
