Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
A question from Ally Pally staff - when was first big standing gig at the palace?
The staff at Ally Pally are are researching Ally Pally's musical heritage. They've been unable to find when the first big standing gig took place (they say "other than the All Night Raves, Jazz festivals etc…")
They've asked for our help in accessing the local mindhive!
Do you have any memories of gis gone by? Can you help?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gill on
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Post on Twitter - I can't find their account. Also contact old NME/Melody Maker reviewers such as Danny Baker, who has a phenomenal memory. And if he doesn't know then he'll make it his mission to find out.
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Middleton on
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It has been on twitter a few times...
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Permalink Reply by Janis Milnes on
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If it helps The Rolling Stones played at the Palace June 1964.
Led Zepplin played there Dec 1972
Grateful Dead played there Sep 1974.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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Seems to be quite a bit of footage around for the 1967 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_14_Hour_Technicolor_Dream
Pink Floyd headlined. John Lennon was there:
Guess there have been many, many 'gig's in the previous 70 years of Ally Pally though, just not called that? The American Sousa Band for example, may have had their first Ally Pally gig in the 1930's here they are in 1937
I say this because that amazing woman Dolly Shepherd reportedly got a job as a waitress in Ally Pally when she was 16 as she couldn't afford a ticket to see them and that was in 1904.
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Can no longer edit the above for some reason. Meant to say The American Sousa Band may have had their first gig in the 1900's not the 1930's so wouldn't they be the first 'gigs' at AP?
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I was at that 14 Hour Technicolour Dream. My idol John Lennon walked within a foot or so of me through the front door followed by his entourage, his psychadelic Rolls Royce parked just outside. I seem to think Yoko Ono was performing a "living art piece" there. I also think the revellers were encouraged to cut pieces of clothing off her........... ??? I think I have a video or DVD of the concert somewhere.
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Wow John, what an experience it must have been :)
The gig was a 'Free Speech Benefit Concert' in aid of counterculture paper International Times - one hell of a magazine, a 'community newspaper', cofounded by Barry Miles and John "Hoppy" Hopkins. Gig organisers also included David Howson, Mike McInnerney and Jack Henry Moore, it took place in the Great Hall on Saturday 29 April 1967 from 8pm for 14 hours till 10am next day.
£1 a ticket. Here's a 90-minute documentary. According to this memoir, both LSD and 'banana skin joints' were gi....
I was just 15 at the time, not living in London - fully signed up to the values though - one of the reasons I eventually moved here and have stayed. IMO this was the most significant gig held at Ally Pally to date. It changed a lot of things and in a way was the beginning of the end for 'hippiedom', or the end of the beginning - "When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake".
Everybody hated what the US was doing in Vietnam. There was a fight for freedom of expression going on and IT was partly central to it. I remember reading in it the fake news that a leaked memo from cigarette maker Rothmans proved that they were preparing a brand called 'Xanadu' - ready-rolled joints for when cannabis was legalised.
It was a seditious publication.
Here's the IT that came out during the week of the Ally Pally 'Human Be-In':
The gig was a "multi-artist" event, a "happening" etc with poets and artists performing as well as musicians.
Pink Floyd headlined, arriving very late having flown in from another gig, reportedly playing 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' at dawn - hope that's true :) They had just released their first single (not really a singles band but hey) the month before - I remember buying it:
Here's what it was probably more like (in case you can't remember!) a band I've not heard of covering Hendrix's second single that had just come out, Purple Haze:
The bill featured many who went on to become much more famous:
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, One In A Million , Soft Machine, the Move, Tomorrow,
the Pretty Things, Jimmy Powell & the Five Dimensions, Pete Townshend, John's Children,
Alexis Korner, Social Deviants, the Purple Gang, Champion Jack Dupree, Graham Bond,
Savoy Brown, Ginger Johnson and his African conga drummers, the Creation, Denny Laine,
the Block, the Cat, the Flies, Charlie Browns Clowns, Glo Macari and the Big Three, Gary Farr,
the Interference, Jacobs Ladder Construction Company, Ron Geesin, Lincoln Folk Group,
Mike Horovitz, Poison Bellows, Christopher Logue, Robert C. Randall, Suzy Creamcheese,
Sam Gopal's Dream, Giant Sun Trolley, Simon Vinkenoog, Jean Jaques Lavel, the Stalkers,
Utterly Incredible Too Long Ago To Remember Sometimes Shouting At People, Barry Fantoni,
Noel Murphy, Dick Gregory, Graham Stevens and Yoko Ono.As you wrote, John Lennon was there (in the audience with his friend and one of the organisers, John Dunbar). Paul McCartney was staying at his girlfriend's house and her brother, with John Dunbar and Barry Miles, owned the Indica Gallery, so presumably that's how John Lennon met Yoko Ono, at her show there the previous November - she was already a well established artist.
The performance art you saw I think was 'Cut Piece' - in the clip above of John Lennon wandering around the gig it is described as 'Happening' by Yoko Ono (delivered by someone else it seems).
Here is the piece itself being delivered by Yoko two years earlier:
I didn't realise then how sophisticated her art is - Cut Piece is more powerful than ever now I think, more than 50 years later. As she has said:
"She sat quietly but her body was expressing a universe"
No wonder John Lennon fell in love with her.
Let's meet up for a coffee and reminisce when the smoke clears...
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Wow to you as well Chris........you've certainly done your homework ! I was of a "senior" age at the time being just 2 weeks into my 18th year and living just 2 miles down the road. It certainly was a time of some change and I wonder how successful a pack of "Xanadu" might have been ? I believe John Lennon and Yoko first crossed paths in a London gallery. And must agree with you in as much as Yoko was/is very talented though it did take me some years to realise that ! And a very good looking woman.......... a match made in heaven we might say ? I honestly don't remember too much of it now but it was a very "different" gig. Loads of bands of varying styles but particularly recall Pink Floyd................ to be contd..
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I've ben interested in this gig for a while.
We were idealists John - over time things have not been as rosy as I for one expected. Human rights have been 'knocked back' a lot on that seemingly inexorable journey, the 'green' movement still nowhere near as powerful as it should be and feminism not making the strides everyone young I knew thought inevitable.
Nonetheless, things are so much better now though - really wouldn't want to go back except in conversation.
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