60's groups and Nottingham Venues


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Would have been called 'Earth' at that time, have a couple of recordings in similar venues.

Interesting how Tony I's guitar playing is so similar to Alvin's early in their career.

 

Is their a listing of Groundhog show's ?

Must have seen them about 40 times over the years and didn't go looking! 

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  • 7 months later...

Just had a look at this old thread,as a result of someone else mentioning it,and was surprised/annoyed to see someone saying that the Beatles pulled out of the Rainbow Rooms and only played Nottingham at the Odeon later in 1963.

              As most people in Nottingham who were going to gigs at that time (oldies now!!!) should be aware, the Beatles' first gig in Nottingham was at the Rainbow Rooms (above the Co-op on Parliament Street...It was prior to supporting Orbison and then  headlining their own concert at the Odeon, where the tickets had to be paid for in advance and only those lucky enough to be drawn out of the hat got to see them - I say see, because they were virtually inaudible for much of the time because of the hysterical screaming)

 

They had just gone to 2 in the charts with 'Please,Please me ' and were supported by Gerry and the Pacemakers, whose first record was released shortly afterwards and went to No 1 ,The Big 3 ,who had been a featured band in Liverpool for some time and had been in the charts with 'Some Other Guy' and Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas. Billy had just signed with Epstein, who had taken him over from another Liverpool Manager,Ted Knibbs,and was pushing him as part of his stable of acts.

             A friend of mine booked them and I was lucky enough to compere the show and spend much of the evening back stage with them. Many of the audience were members of local groups and Alvin Lee, then leader of the Jaybirds before they became Ten years After ,came in and had quite a chat with them,as he had played the Star Club when the Beatles were resident there prior to Ringo joining them and had become quite friendly with Lennon.

           

One thing I can recall,apart from Mc Cartney insisting on using his own fountain pen to write a brief message as well as his autograph on the fan club application form I gave the band to sign for me, whilst the others were happy to use my biro, was Alvin remarking how happy he would have been to play in front of Ringo when others were comparing him unfavourably with Pete Best, his predecessor.

               Also,I can recall the Stones appearing as one of the supports on a bill at the Odeon=they played only 3 or 4 numbers and I wasn't unduly impressed ,actually preferring another outfit on the same bill, called The Rattles ,who were very much the German equivalent of the Stones at that time.How wrong can one be!!!

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Welcome Keith 

Re-Beatles    i think that I was about 13/14 when I went to see a new group called the Beatles, myself and a friend bunked off school one lunch time and went to see them.  It was a lunch time venue but it was at the 

    Palais de dance lower Parlinment st  12'00 till 2  00  of cause we did not go back to class as it was jus too late.

my other half went to see Bill Hayley the venue was The Odeon.

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I thought the Rainbow Rooms were on Broad Street and the venue above the big Co-op was Elizabethan Rooms.  A friend of mine, who you probably knew @keith gordon because he was in The Beatmen, saw The Beatles at the Elizabethan Rooms.  My cousin saw The Beatles at the Odeon but I wasn’t allowed to go, my parents said I was too young :mellow:

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  • Cliff Ton changed the title to 60's groups and Nottingham Venues

A repeat of my memory of the Beatles , May 63 concert from a previous thread ......

 

......"from my diary I kept for

1963 , when I was a spotty 14 year old .

Though I always remember vaguely going to the following concerts I didn't realise how many acts

were on one bill and what value they were compared to the present.These I am sure were mainly at the Odean Cinema premises

and probably paid for out of money saved from my paper round.

 

Thurs 23rd May 1963:

The Beatles

Gerry and the Pacemakers

Roy Orbison

David Macbeth?

Louise Cordet

Ian Crawford?

 

This tour was significant in that the Beatles were supposed to support Roy Orbison but had just gone to No1 with "From me to you" and so were made the main closing act.This made Roy O a bit peeved and they solved it by breaking the show into 2 halves with Roy O closing the first half.

Roy Orbison was great and I still love his songs.

 

Thurs 19th Sept 1963:

Roy Orbison

Freddy and the Dreamers

Bryan Poole and the Tremeloes

Searchers

Sons of Piltdown Men?

 

24th October1963:

Everly Brothers

Little Richard

Bo Diddley

Rolling Stones

Mickie Most

Rattles?

 

I noted that the Everlys and Little Richard were "fabulous" but I was particularly impressed by Bo Diddley and bought lots of his records.

In my diary I noted that the Rolling Stones were "rather poor" and that they sang "Come on","Some other Guy" and "Wanna be your Man"

 

 

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I wish I’d kept a diary in the mid 60s. I saw so many acts at the Dungeon, Beachcomber, Boat Clubs and Sherwood Rooms, as well as Dancing Slipper, Rainbow Rooms and various out of town venues seeing so many local groups.  Don’t know how I managed to fit school in …….. ! 

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16 hours ago, DAVIDW said:

David Macbeth?

Louise Cordet

Ian Crawford?

 

Sons of Piltdown Men?

 

Rattles?

 

Having a few minutes to spare I decided to search those names to see what came up.

 

I'd heard of David Macbeth and there's a lot of material on him

 

Louise Cordet is filed under one-hit wonders, as I suspected.

 

Ian Crawford seems to have disappeared, if he ever really existed. There's a current American singer/guitarist of that name but clearly isn't the same person.

 

Sons of Piltdown Man were real, but nobody seems to know who they really were.

 

And the Rattles....I remembered a group from 1970 who had a single 'The Witch' and it seems they could've been the same band. 

 

 

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On 5/8/2022 at 10:11 PM, LizzieM said:

I wish I’d kept a diary in the mid 60s. I saw so many acts at the Dungeon, Beachcomber.......

Unfortunately I stopped writing my diaries after I left school , so like you have forgotten a lot of the bands I saw at the same Nottm places as you Lizzie. 

 

I'm sure I went to Sheffield too , to see Sam and Dave and also the Bath festival which was the fore -runner to Glastonbury. We only stayed for the Saturday daytime and bands such as Steppenwolf and Canned Heat were on , as well as strangely the Maynard Ferguson jazz band.

Also used to help booking bands for Digby College , Saturday night dances around 1965/66, though hardly remember any of the bands names now unfortunately.

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Talking of bands does anyone remember Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band?

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1 hour ago, DAVIDW said:

Unfortunately I stopped writing my diaries after I left school , so like you have forgotten a lot of the bands I saw at the same Nottm places as you Lizzie. 

 

I'm sure I went to Sheffield too , to see Sam and Dave and also the Bath festival which was the fore -runner to Glastonbury. We only stayed for the Saturday daytime and bands such as Steppenwolf and Canned Heat were on , as well as strangely the Maynard Ferguson jazz band.

Also used to help booking bands for Digby College , Saturday night dances around 1965/66, though hardly remember any of the bands names now unfortunately.

Played a few times at Digby College Saturday night dances. Regards,will2017

 

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@MRS B yes of course, I remember see Geno Washington at the Nottingham Tech College, now NTU, on a Friday night in 1968

.  @DAVIDWi wonder if you booked Salty Dogs for a gig at Digby?  Nottstalgia member Moz was a member of that band, along with a school friend of mine John Briley, who has worked in the music industry all his life. I used to go to the Digby gigs occasionally, in 1966/67. 

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50 minutes ago, LizzieM said:

.... wonder if you booked Salty Dogs for a gig at Digby?  Nottstalgia member Moz was a member of that band, along with a school friend of mine John Briley, who has worked in the music industry

@LizzieM   Don't remember that band unfortunately.

We did have bands from out of town too as I remember phoning Stigwood agency in London to find availability of touring bands. 

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Wonder how many from Nottingham made the trip to the Spalding bulb halls on a sweltering May Bank Holiday 55 years ago to see , Hendrix, Cream, Geno, The Move,Pink Floyd etc......all for £1 ?

 

Pink Floyd were on when we arrived and were terrible and to my shame we didn't stay to see the rest ! 

More details of the gig here :

 

https://www.ukrockfestivals.com/spaulding-festival.html

 

 

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Reading that link, you obviously weren't the only one who wasn't impressed with Floyd. It's not the first time I've read that they weren't very good as a live act in those days.

 

I liked the singles (Arnold Layne, Emily, etc) but there was no way they could replicate that live. Apparently they spent most of their set doing long space-out improvisations. I don't think I would've stayed around long.

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