Lost Beatles demo tape from 1962 found in Vancouver record shop

Rob Frith doesn't recall when exactly he purchased a tape he assumed was a Beatles bootleg, as it was part of a record collection he bought. It turned out to be a demo tape.

A Vancouver record store owner is still trying to process an astonishing and accidental discovery he made recently.

“It’s been sitting here for years,” Rob Frith, owner of Neptoon Records on Main Street, told Global News.

Frith doesn’t recall when exactly he purchased a tape he assumed was a Beatles bootleg, as it was part of a record collection he bought.

However, last week, Frith went to a friend’s house to get some of the tapes transferred and archived when they made a once-in-a-lifetime connection to music history.

The last tape simply said “Beatles demo.”

“Take it out and oh my God, jaws dropped,” Larry Hennessey, Frith’s friend and a mixing and mastering engineer, said. “It can’t be, the Beatles demo.”

“It was so exciting and we are sort of laughing,” Frith added.

“We can’t believe what we are listening to. I thought it was going to be off a record but it was obviously off a master tape.”