On the evening March 7 of 1962 an unassuming rock group from Liverpool took the stage in front a live audience at The Playhouse Theatre on St. John’s Road, Manchester. Smartly dressed, at the insistence of their manager, in suits and ties, they played a short concert of four songs, three of which were covers and were off stage in 45 minutes. Hardly anyone had yet heard of the Beatles, but they were already touring to nightclubs around Britain, and with the BBC program, now their first ever radio recording.

On this day, March 8, in 1962, a day following the Beatles’ Manchester performance, the BBC played the concert’s recording as part of their Teenager’s Turn (Here We Go) radio series. The program ran between 5 and 5:30 in the afternoon, and those who heard it could claim to be part of a singular moment of history: no recordings of decent quality of that short concert are known to exist.

John Lennon sang their original “Hello Little Girl”, written by himself and Paul McCartney, to open the set. They followed up with a faithful rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee.” Then Lennon took over singing Dream Baby, a Roy Orbison hit climbing the pop charts, and finishing up with “Please Mr. Postman,” a Marvelettes cover which the Beatles would officially release in their album the following year.