The Archive. A History Of UK Rock Festivals

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September 28th 1968.

Roy Harper,The Action, The Move,The Action, Clouds ,Pete Brown.

The Bandstand, Hyde Park.

The miniscule show in the bandstand © Mick West

    We received several contradictory posts in 2006 from visitors to the site regarding a show that was ( presumably ) not documented . The accounts were VERY contradictory , as people had different recollections about who played and just where the events had taken place.

First of all Steve Norris wrote .

Hi,
I found your Hyde Park free gig info fascinating BUT I definitely attended a concert that featured The Move, Pete Brown's Battered Ornaments ( before Pete was arrested for alleged obscenities during Politician!!) and Clouds.

John Peel was in the (small) audience.He had a cold and borrowed tissues from a nearby girl, funny what you can remember from soooo long ago.


I can't accurately date it but it was definitely 1968 and I also recall going on the two previous Saturdays when nothing happened at all, word of mouth failure!!


I am also sure that this was the first concert in the park......

Ian Whiteman of Action © Mick West

Mox (flute ) and Alan bam King.

( thanks to Deepinder Cheema for indentification )

We thought that Steve was referring to the concert on 9-28-68 which featured The Move, Clouds, Strawbs and Roy Harper, but he replied ....

Having just read Chris Marshall's review of 28/09/68 I am even more sure that this is not the same gig I attended. The one I witnessed took place on a bandstand in the park.This is a mystery to me now because The Strawbs, The Action and Roy Harper were DEFINITELY not there on the day I remember.

Clouds opened, Pete Brown played until he was escorted from the stage by the police,(or the fuzz as I think we called them back then!) then , The Move.
Steve.

Left: The Action© Mick West

Roy Harper plays the Hyde Park bandstand September 28th 1968

© Mick West

The mystery deepened as Martin Shankleman sent us this missive:

I did go to the bandstand show as well, so I'm delighted you mentioned it.
The Floyd were there too, but didn't play.
How do I know ? because I and my friends met them mingling in the crowd. They explained that they were due to play, but the equipment hadn't turned up.

We got all 4 of them to sign copies of the Saucerful of Secrets LP...funny thing though it never occurred to me to get the autographs for myself. They signed them once for my friend Myles, a second time for a friend called David who couldn't make the gig.
Who else was on the bill?

The only act I remember were The Move , the 4 man version with Roy Wood and Carl Wayne.
I think the audience were a bit dubious about them , as they were seen as a pop band, and lacked "credibility".
My recollection was that the gig was in early September, after I'd gone back to school, and Blackberry Way may have been in the charts- they could have played it.
The bandstand was a poor venue, everyone was crowded into one segments of the circle. The bars of the stand acted as a barrier, and I don't think it was ever used again.

Best wishes
Martin

 

    Then the esteemed Mick West ( who took his camera along and took the excellent pictures featred on this page ), sent us a number of photos he took at the gig . He could not really remember when it took place either or who played - and he had lost a few negatives as well. However, he said the weather was good, the crowd tiny and he thought that the show was held in May 1968 .

    SO, we have now cleared this one up, we know the complete lineup - although we have no photos of the Battered Ornaments ( one would really think that Mick would have remembered the polis hauling Pete off to the nick ) or the Move and we know that Pink Floyd were there in the audience.

© Mick West

Quite a few people have now confirmed this was the September 28th show, the first being Charles Thomson

I went to that event. I got to hear about a concert that Pink Floyd were doing in Hyde Park. How, I'm not sure - either word of mouth or maybe a mention in International Times. I set off with my girlfriend of the time. As we approached the venue, you could find the way because of the kind of scattered people heading in the same direction. There was a guy walking in front of us, who was obviously not a "straight": his hair was too long and, although he wore a jacked, it was cut longer than a city suit. There was at that time a sense of either being part of the alternative society and belonging - or not. And appearance was a demarcation of that.

The concert was on a bandstand. Disappointingly, Pink Floyd weren't going to be playing - I think it was because their lorry had broken down. As I recall, that was announced. I'd gone there for Pink Floyd, so no one else could really match up to them. Roy Wood was on stage, and I'd never seen anyone with such a mass of dark thick long hair and a very impressive beard to go with it. However, I don't remember him being announced as part of The Move. I was again a bit disappointed by that, as I liked The Move, and it meant he probably wasn't going to be playing The Move songs I knew. He may have played some: I can't remember. I gained the impression that he'd moved on (excuse pun) from The Move and was there in his own right or with a new band, and for years it has stuck in my mind that the band was Wizard, but that would be too early, unless it was a brief prototype appearance.

Someone sang Politician, but it wasn't the Cream. It was performed fairly aggressively, but if it was the incident where the police hauled Pete Brown off, they must have done so fairly efficiently, as I don't recall the stage being filled with policemen - and that would be the sort of thing that would stick in the mind. The only other thing that stuck in my mind was that my girlfriend had a bleeding toe, and took off her shoe to reveal a bit of blood seeping through the end of the foot of her tights.

There may have been a bit of rain: I'm not sure. But there certainly wasn't a continuous deluge. The area surrounding the bandstand wasn't huge and was overhung with trees, but there was comfortable enough space to sit or stand: most people were standing. We were reasonably close to the front, but it would have been fairly easy to have wandered around and got closer. It seemed as though there were only about two or three hundred people there. It was like a private party and a good, relaxed atmosphere. If you knew what was happening, you could be there. I don't know the date, but if it was 1968, then I would have been 15. (I used to sell OZ and International Times at school.)

I wasn't interested in the Rolling Stones performance at Hyde Park. It seemed just like an ordinary pop concert, mass entertainment without the meaning and sense of purpose of the early concert at the bandstand.

I went to the Hyde Park concert when Pink Floyd performed (premiered?) Atom Heart Mother. There was a different atmosphere altogether. The audience franchise had expanded considerably, but it was quite relaxed and there seemed to be plenty of available space for people.

Cheers

Charles Thomson

As I recall the concert was originally to be held on the Saturday (I think in mid-September) but was postponed until the next day because of bad weather. It was a dull and damp day even then and the concert was held on the bandstand, presumably because it was drier underfoot. I know I went to One Stop Records off Oxford Street beforehand and bought the new Doors LP Waiting for the Sun. After 39 years I don't remember a lot about the actual music: I know that the Move didn't play any of their own stuff but covers of contemporary stuff (So You Want to be a Rock n Roll Star, Stephanie Knows Who). I vaguely recall an announcement that the Small Faces were billed to play but couldn't make it. I only saw two of the '68 free concerts (my first ever live music experience) but they were so much more relaxed and enjoyable than the '69 and '70 shows I went to.
Love and peace
Roger Jacobson

I was reading about the 68 Hyde Park shows and wonder are you sure there were two bandstand shows with the Move?

Along with various people I had signed up to a (then of course snailmail) mailing list that a listener (Jean I think, she lived in Harlow) had set up when the John Peel 'Perfumed Garden' shows ended with the closure of the pirate station Radio London. John had given out her address and the suggestion we sent our addreses & phone numbers to Jean who collated them all then sent the list back to everyone. I am still in regular contact with one friend I met then!

So by 1968 various people were keeping in touch and a loose group of us managed to meet up at the series of 'back of a lorry' free shows near the lake during '68. I always believed I saw all the 68 free shows and the Move in the bandstand was after the 'lorry' ones and the only one we ever saw in the bandstand.

I can remember the weather was wet and miserable shortly before the gig and stayed dull during much of the show. I remember it all being a bit disappointing as the ground was too wet to sit and it was difficult to get close enough to see and hear. While the other shows had a magical summer quality this was rather downbeat and drab and we were standing and walking round. I have some idea that this show may not even have been one of the same series, that it was more to showcase the somewhat more commercial Move rather than be like the multi band 'underground' shows of the afternoons earlier in the year. But that may just be a result of the weather and/or last minute rescheduling which reduced the time or made it impossible to have the same range of bands.

I didn't even own a camera then and memory is so inconsistent after 40 years. I went to the Stones show the following year and still have the girl I went with, we married a couple of years later, but I have nothing tangible from the '68 shows except a warm glow of happy memories.
All the best, love the site.
Chris Woods

I went to the bandstand concert and I cannot add anything else of great significance really. I remember the start was pretty chaotic, but eventually Roy Harper opened. I remember he sang "I hate the White Man". Then it was the Action, I believe. I was impressed because the drummer had a double bass drum set, which was unusual then.I remember Pete Brown being carted off by the police,and don't remember the Move at all!I used to take photos at all the concerts...but all the negatives gradually got lost in a succession of flat moves in the 1970's. When I found this site I was so sick I didn't still have them.
All the best with the site,
Dennis Spicer

Hi;
As far as I can remember Pete Brown and Roy Harper were the guilty parties who, in their own words,"disorganised this lot!". It must have been in the September as, many years later, a friend confessed to me that he had been FoH sound man for Family and been bought off them for a transfer fee of a crate of cider and a dog at the earlier concert in the park by The Fairports.

The bandstand gig I attended was memorable in that The Move knocked someone (a girl?) down with their van as they were leaving, they had played a few numbers but weren't very remarkable..Carl Wayne was definitely the vocalist and Roy Wood may well have been there, but they were subdued as having come straight from a late night gig before leaving for Birmingham.

Pete Browns Battered Ornaments, however, were joined by "Blind Owl" Al Wilson of Canned Heat for one number. He was a true blues genius and it was a privilege to have heard him "live" as he sadly died within two years. He was right at the back and I saw barely an outline.
Roy Harper was, well, Roy Harper and I was a fan in those days so the chaotic nature of the gig was "normal". I have a vague memory of Pete Brown being politely asked to leave the bandstand by one of the very few police present and there was no hassle at all. He came back on and mumbled something about the fuzz complaining that it was an illegal event and did another piece of "illegal music", or words to that effect.

The "crowd" was in the low hundreds and definitely less than 500, mostly very laid back and leaning under the trees. As you can see from the photos, it definitely wasn't too sunny and I remember there having been rain earlier but the gig was just mostly overcast. The audience dress with most people in jackets or overcoats strikes a chord as I remember being fairly cold.

This, for me was one of the best of the Hyde Park gigs as Blnd Faith were disappointing, the Stones too aggressive a crowd and "Bad Fuck Tramline" simply awful. This one was like a gig in your living room by comparison, in fact I have a more powerful PA system at home than was used here!
Kerry the Hat

definitely went to a free Hyde Park Concert which was at the Bandstand. Now I thought I saw Canned Heat at the Bandstand (could be wrong, memory isn't too hot these days). I can remember that it was a very small affair compared to Blind Faith a year later. I happened to be in the crowd with Pink Floyd, as at that time I was helping out the official Fan Club Secretary of Pink Floyd with some of the typing, which presumably is how I found out about the concert.

Elaine Richardson


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