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7- 5-69.

The Stones in the Park.
Rolling Stones, Family, Battered Ornaments (without Pete Brown), King Crimson, Roy Harper , Third Ear Band, Alexis Korner's New Church, Screw.

     This is the only Hyde Park concert about which is easy to find TOO MUCH information .However, 99% of what is available is related to the Rolling Stones performance, -which was dodgy to say the least - but there is almost nothing about the other bands, who in general out performed the Stones on the day. There was so much hype about this show, and so much emotion, that when the event actually occurred, there was no way that it could have managed to live up to its expectations. Also, true to form , it was NOT a good place to debut a new line-up, like Blind Faith, the Stones were not particularly well prepared , Jagger seemed ill at ease, Keith was inexplicably reduced to a cipher. Whilst Mick Taylor did well to perform so well in front of such a huge audience he had not yet become an integral part of the bands sound .
      I was there, along with a couple of hundred thousand others , but I must admit that I got far more enjoyment out of seeing The Who and good old Chuck Berry wow a couple of thousand souls in the Albert Hall later on in the afternoon- but I digress, more of that later......
    Is it really necessary to recap on the events leading up to this show ? Perhaps , if only for the younger readers benefit.... .Briefly, after many months of problems too numerous to recount here, founder Stone ,Brian Jones , left , or was chucked out of the band for good . Some said he was treated dreadfully by the Stones, thus exacerbating his personal problems, , others maintained that he was clearly past his musical use by date and was a washed up drug addled waste of space.  Whatever, he left and very shortly was found dead in his swimming pool -in dubious circumstances that have never been properly explained . The free concert in Hyde Park that The Stones had planned to debut their new wunderkid guitarist Mick Taylor suddenly became a memorial concert in Brian's name as the shocked Stones tried to come to grips with the finality of Master Jones demise........

The Shark's saga....
  Once again I , G W Shark ,accompanied by high school buddies Ian McPherson and Allan Jones , found myself on the way to Hyde Park , but instead of the laid back atmosphere of the Traffic concert of the year before, this time around the air was thick with hype,  most of it created by the Stones themselves. Seemingly unable to treat any event , even the death of a fellow band member, in a manner that did not somehow manage to publicize the band's activities and add to their mystique, the Stones had turned their free show into the MAIN EVENT of the British rock summer . It was almost mandatory to be THERE and so THERE we were, although in our case we aimed to kill a multitude of bands with one stone by also attending the Who's Albert Hall show on the same day. Nevertheless, we did expect that this was going to be a major event to remember over the years and in some ways it was , if one measures these things by the mere size of the crowd ,or the fact that the Stones had changed personnel for the first time in years ,or that this concert did , in a minor way, act as a memorial for Brian Jones.
 

    However, as I've already said, this was not a musical triumph by any means. By the time we got to the show, there must have already been around 80.000 there and we managed to squeeze ourselves into a niche with a reasonably good view and some shade ,around the line of the first trees. If you look at the photo above, we were in the shade about a third of the way in from the left. Not exactly ringside seats, but near enough to get some idea of what was going on on-stage and to experience fairly good sound .
  There were highlights, of course, Family were as usual , great , possibly the highlight of the day , but slightly muted by the distance. Roger Chapman , their manic lead singer, he with the voice that sounded like a mix of a strangled goat and an elderly parson having a seizure, or gargling some unpleasant liquid , was his usual over the top self and the crowd response was good. The fledgling King Crimson were a hit, their speedball paced "21st Century Schizoid Man" and Court Of The Crimson King , impressing many in the crowd, including myself. I was particularly taken by Fripp's guitar playing, more so than the material itself , which I always found a bit overbearing in those days, I really came on board the Crimson flagship around the Larks Tongues in Aspic era.
     These were the highlights for me .There were a lot of bands, but the others did not really hit the musical g spot. The Battered Ornaments ,without Pete Browns patent madness ,were just not the same , Alexis Korner -who I admired greatly- was ok , but came nothing near his real potential, even though he had some very good players in his band . Screw have faded away completely due to the fact that they were pretty awful , I liked the Third Ear Band , but they were too ethereal for this show to make any real impact and I can't remember Roy Harper even being on the bill, but then again, I saw him so many times in this era that the gigs just all melt into one mass . He was the sort of performer one needed to see close up to really appreciate his true worth - which was ( and still is ) considerable.

 

   A couple of attendees also maintain that Donovan did a very short set , but so far I have yet to see any press reports that confirm this , its possible, but they also may just be confusing two concerts as Donovan also played at the Blind Faith show a few months before.

  The Stones themseleves were really pretty underwhelming and since we've all been able to view the film of the event, we can see that they were not on top form. However, its also fairly easy to see just why they were uncertain of themselves. They were under a lot of criticism about Brian Jones' death , many people saw the booting out of Jones as unfair in the first place and there were rumours that he had killed himself in despair over his ousting by Jagger and Richards. Then this was the debut of Mick Taylor. It must have been pretty daunting for Mick -to go out boldly armed only with a split infinitive and his axe and be expected to impress an audience of 250,000 in less than ideal circumstances. In the circumstances he did very well , in fact he probably played better then Keith did ....... 
   No, it was just one of those times that the Stones did not get it together. They are a strange band sometimes , a little like the Grateful Dead, not in content or stage act of course,  but inasmuch as they need to work their way into a sufficient state of musicianly groove , which they can use as a base to take off. This never happened at Hyde Park , possibly because they were under rehearsed, but probably because of the sheer size of the gig. Even master Jagger's ego melted slightly under the gaze of 200,000 and they just did not manage to rise to the occasion for most of the show, although the injection of Ginger Johnson's African  Drummers definitely gave the set a bit of a kick . 

Left: The two Micks onstage , photo @ Rob Walls 1969

    However, by this time, we were gone , running like the hounds of hell were after us, across the park and through the subway to the Albert Hall .just in time to see The Who and Chuck Berry , both of whom knocked the spots off the Stones performance wise, but thats another story........

Howard Posner has this to add about the Who Berry show later on in the day

Yes. For what it's worth I agree with you about the Albert Hall gig
later that night being far better than the day concert.
In those days they hadn't cracked outdoor rock concert accoustics
properly.

But the Albert hall gig that night was legendary mostly 'cause of the Who. Chuck Berry got on stage first, the Hells Angels with energy to burn from the day gig went mad,and Chuck lasted about half an hour
(admittedly brilliant) before security got him offstage with the bikies wrecking the seats in the stalls and causing general mayhem.

Pete Townsend came on, to much abuse from the pit, and proceeded to play the whole of Tommy + lots more to help keep the lid on things. Went for about 3 and a half hours. In front of him it was like a warzone,with
running fights between security and the bikies. Single best live performance I've ever seen, 'cause it was seriously violent down there.
I was lucky enough to be in a box, observing and grooving with other beautiful young things. (Oh to be a beautiful young thing again).
The others in our box were, I think, Howard Abrahams, Suzy Shearman, Peta Heskell and my brother Jim. Maybe not, time blurs things.

Howard Posner


Personnel and set lists.
King Crimson .
Robert Fripp ( guitar)
Mike Giles (Drums),
Greg Lake (Vocals/Bass),
IanMcDonald (Reeds/Keys)
and Pete Sinfield (Lyrics/Lights)

Court Of The Crimson  King, 21st Century Schizoid Man .

A very decent quality audience recording exists of the entire set.


Alexis Korner's New Church.
 

Alexis Korner (guitar)

Peter Thorup (guitar, vocals)

Colin Hodgkinson (bass)

Ray Warleigh (sax)

Sappho Korner (percussion, vocals)

Battered Ornaments

Butch Potter

Chris Spedding

Pete Bailey

Rob Tait

Nisar Ahmned Kahn

Family.

Roger Chapman -Vocals

Jim King-sax

John Whitney-guitar

Johm Wieder - bass

Rob Townsend - drums

Third Ear Band

Glenn Sweeney

Paul Minns

Paul Buckmaster

Richard Coff

The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger

Keith Richards

Mick Taylor

Bill Wyman

Charlie Watts -

Ginger Johnsons African Drummers - dancing and percussion.

SET LIST

Eulogy for Brian Jones,  I'm Yours , She's Mine .Jumpin' Jack Flash .No Expectations ,Mercy Mercy ,Stray Cat Blues, I'm Free .Down Home Girl , Love in Vain .Loving Cup , Midnight Rambler .Satisfaction, Honky Tonk Women , Street Fighting  Man, Sympathy For The Devil.


Photo courtesy © Chris Eve

click the image to see a larger version

Stones in the Park Part 2


If you can contribute any info on this concert,e-mail me.Contact email

 (These pages include large photogalleries of the concert, most especially King Crimson and Jack Bruce. )

Concert reviews and info -1974-76