Long before the Monterey International Pop Music Festival was held in 1967, in England there were the NME (New Musical Express) Poll Winners concerts. The 1965 event was held on Sunday, April 11, and it featured an unbelievable lineup, along with a couple of lesser-known acts. How did these huge names all clear their schedules to appear together on the same day?
The Moody Blues
Bo Didley
Go Now
Freddie And The Dreamers
Little Bitty
Pretty One
A Little You
Georgie Fame And The Blue Flames
Yeh Yeh
Walking The Dog
The Seekers
I’ll Never Find Another You
A World Of Our Own
Herman’s Hermits
Wonderful World
Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter
The Ivy League And Division Two
Funny How Love Can Be
Sweet And Tender Romance
That’s Why I’m Crying
Sounds Incorporated
Time For You
In The Hall Of The Mountain King
Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders
Game Of Love
Just A Little Bit Too Late
The Rolling Stones
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
Pain In My Heart
Around And Around
Pain In My Heart
Cilla Black With Sounds Incorporated
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Going Out Of My Head
Donovan
You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Band
Catch The Wind
Them with Van Morrison
Here Comes The Night
Turn On Your Love Light
The Searchers
Bumble Bee
Let The Good Times Roll
Dusty Springfield with The Echoes
Dancing In The Street
Mockingbird
I Can’t Hear You
The Animals
Boom Boom
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Talkin’ bout You
The Beatles
I Feel Fine
She’s A Woman
Baby’s In Black
Ticket To Ride
Long Tall Sally
The Kinks
You Really Got Me
Tired Of Waiting For You
The first time I heard about the ’65 NME concert was at a solo Ray Davies show, where he described how the Kinks were stuck being the follow-up act to the Beatles. Let’s all agree to ignore the presence of the posthumously disgraced Jimmy Savile, and please note that, despite being two hours long, the concert footage is far from complete, but what there is of it is fantastic. And now, on with the show!
That was amazing! Thanks for posting it.
Those Brits in the audience are so reserved and the main emcee so polite to a fault (yeah, Savile, eww), you’d think they’d all been slipped a Valium on the way in … until the Fab Four take the stage. What a DREAM line-up!