Find A Year

It seemed really confusing to have to scroll through every post to get to 1966 for example, so I’ve changed the blog layout. The box to the right of the postings will give the archives. If you want to see 1966, just click on December 1966 and you’ll get the complete year. Hope that makes life easier. If not, please tell me!

Ballerina Flyer Day

Maybe it’s me being here but the rain has stayed away and is giving Nairn its first dry Highland Games in three years. It’s a quick visit to get flyers passed out in various places in town and what I’d like to call “posters” for the blog but they’re nothing more than A4 sheets that I’m hoping will get input from anyone that sees them.

It’s also a great opportunity for you to stop me in the street and tell me some of your stories or give me advice on how to get a better blog experience up. Okay, I know the answer to that one – TIME! I really will get round to adding some of the gig adverts, pop columns from The Northern Scot and pictures of the North East bands that played here.

Seriously, if you want to, just stop and say hello. You probably can’t miss me. One of the women in landbrokes (honest, I wasn’t betting but asking about their old shop) said she thought John Lennon had walked in. If that isn’t enough of a give away I’ll also be carrying a silver carrier bag full of flyers. Of course, I may not be carrying it if I get rid of them all but I digress.

Failing that, you’ll find me in the library for some time before they shut staring at the microfiche reader and getting the dates for 1967 that are missing from yesterday’s listing. Please don’t call me John, my name’s Roy!

Talking of the pop columns, there’s one fantastic piece around the time that Cream played the Ballerina. Eric Clapton had given an interview to one of the music papers in which he decried the fans in Scotland. On reading it, or more likely hearing of it, Albert Bonici, the promoter defiantly stated that he’d make sure Clapton never played here again! Little did he realize the status Eric would achieve.

Okay, that’s it for now. I’ll see you in town or you can catch up with the missing dates later.

1967 (now complete)

January 06 - The Washington D.C.’s plus The Rebel Sounds

January 13 - Big Three Star Show – Tomorrow’s People plus Neil Christian plus Chatz and the Scatz-Katz. Here’s Neil Christian with “Two At A Time”. 2m 16s.

January 20 - The Flock plus The Circle plus Go-Go Competition

January 27 - The Magic Lanterns plus The New Jacobeats

February 03 - It’s the “45″ all over again, with the sassenachs The In Crowd adainst the Highlanders themselves, the New Jacobeats

February 10 – Valentine’s Queen. Who will be Nairn’s pin-up for 1967? The Throb plus The T-Set

February 17 - The Web plus Oreogons

February 24 - Beatstalkers plus The Style

March 03 - Night Of The Op-Arts. 3 Bands. The Regent V plus The Circle plus The Blues Union

March 10 - The Luvvers plus The T-Set

March 17 - The Facells

March 24 - Hear the beat of the ghostly group with their devilish sound. If you like what’s ‘way out’ then try this spine chilling night of !HORROR!

March 31 -   Fortunes plus The Winston G-Set. Here are the Fortunes with “You’ve Got Your Troubles” from last year’s NME POllwinners Concert. 6m 17s.

April 07 - The Wild Flowers plus a special event for the Mod Man – prizes for The Miniest Shirt. My guess is that tonight’s band was actually The Wilde Flowers, who would see one member from this line-up join Soft Machine and the others form Caravan. Despite their progressive future, the band at this time had a strong soul sound. 

April 14 - A 3D ‘Freak Out’ In Weird World Of Psychedelic Sounds And Scenes. No groups listed.

April 21 - The Throb plus The King Pins

April 28 - It’s - Heat Two Of This Year’s May Queen with The Tony Merrick Scene plus The Beatroute

May 05 - The Alan Price Set plus The T-Set. The clip above comes from the German TV show “Beat Club” and features Alan Price performing “Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear”.

May 12 - The Steeple-Jacks plus Chatz and the Skat Kats

May 19 - The Pride And The Passion plus The Beatroute

May 26 - Haydock’s Rockhouse plus The Rebel Sounds

June 02 - Wimple Witch playing at the dance to find nairn’s M.D.E. (Modern dancing Enterprises) Queen.

June 09 - Wimple Witch plus The T-Set

June 16 - The Shireens plus The Throb plus The Copycats

June 23 - Final of the Modern dancing Enterprises Queen for 1967 with The Ashley Kaye Group plus The Rebel Sounds

June 30 - Honey Band plus The Tiffany Shell

July 07 - Cream plus Newton’s Theory with its Go-Go Girls. The gig was cancelled when the van carrying the band’s equipment failed to turn up. Above is the M.D.E. advert announcing tonight’s scheduled gig from The Northern Scot.

July 10 - Cream return to play their concert. The rare footage above is from the Paris Pop Festival staged last month, the track is “We’re Going Wrong” and shows the band at the peak of their career.

July 12 - The Nairnshire Telegraph carries an advert for The Pink Floyd for this day but the actual date was July 21.

July 14 - The Rebel Sounds

July 15 - The Beatroute

July 21 - Pink Floyd. “See Emily Play” was climbing the charts and here the band are miming to it on a Belgian TV show.

July 28 - Geno Washington and The Ram Jam Band plus The Copy Cats. Here’s Geno with “Michael (He’s A Lover” and “Que Sera Sera”.

August - 18 The Small Faces - concert cancelled.

August 31 - Zoot Money and his new group Dantalion’s Chariot plus The T-Set

September - 08 The Freddie Mack Show

September - 15 The Throb plus The Life N’ Soul

September - 22 Tony Merrick plus The T-Set

October 06 - The Who plus Gideon’s Few (pictured below). The Who were in the charts with “I Can See For Miles” and here it is In Colour from The Smothers Brothers TV Show.

October 13 - The Beatstalkers plus The Rebel Sound

October 20 - The Four Shades Of Blue plus The T-Set

October 27 - The Tamala Express plus The Beatroute

November 03 - The Rhubarb plus The Barons

November 10 - Clock-work Orange plus Last Chapter

November 17 - Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Seen here on Top Of The Pops with “Zabadak”. 3m 41s.

December 01 - The Delroy Williams Show plus Keith Taylor

December 08 - The Troggs plus The Throb. Here are the Troggs with their original version of “Love Is All Around” which got to number 5 in October. The promo film is typically surreal for the time but gives great glimpses of the band on stage and in transit to gigs.

December 15 - Symon Dupree. Ok, you and I both know that it should be Simon Dupree but the adverts carry a “y”. Here he is with The Big Sound performing “Kites” which hit the top ten last month. The video’s a bit jumpy but it does show exactly how the band were on stage.

December 22 – Cash Boutique Queen For 1967. Grand Final

December 25 – Aberdeen Students’ Charities’ Campaign present Their Xmas Beatnik Ball with The Circle plus The T-Set

December 29 – The 1967 Last Fling with The Middle Earth plus The T-Set