IT was a nothing moment in a nowhere town when Freddie Lee strolled past a northern record shop in the 1950s.

But it led to a life filled with music, drink and drugs, alongside the likes of The Beatles, Little Richard and Screaming Lord Sutch - a "fantastic, mad" life. A life on the road.

It was that single moment in a Yorkshire town when Consett man Freddie "Fingers" Lee heard Jerry Lee Lewis for the first time, and nothing was ever the same afterwards.

He became a leading player in the British rock 'n' roll scene for a generation, and eventually became a major star with an outrageous stage act which included setting fire to his own head.

Now Freddie who, at 63, plays most of his concerts in Europe and is celebrating 50 years in the music business, is to return to his native Blackhill, in Consett, to play a one-off gig at the Comrades Club, in aid of the Willow Burn Hospice, in Lanchester.

Young and old rockers alike can rest assured that Freddie will be banging them out just the same as when he was a teenager in the early days of the rock 'n' roll boom in Hamburg, where he shared a stage with the Beatles.

"I was there when it all started and met all the Beatles," he said.

"They were nothing even remotely out of the ordinary then. I saw Lennon so drunk on stage he would be lying down playing. We all used to be taking speed which we got from a little old lady who minded the toilets."

The craziness continued back in London in the early and mid-1960s, when he teamed up with Screaming Lord Sutch.

Sutch taught him some of his own outlandish stage act, which Freddie still performs today.

He talks with the air of a man who has been shooting the breeze in halls and bars for a lifetime, calmly explaining that he has a special hat which he lights during his act using diesel.

"Petrol burns too quick. I had a few accidents," he says.

The big time came for Freddie with a television show in 1980 - he went on to play with Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry.

Tickets for his show on Friday cost £4, or £5 at the door, and are available from the club or Northern Recording, in Delves Lane, Consett.