The first serious international concert I ever attended was a triple bill - The Who, The Small Faces and mod moppet Sandy Shaw - at that venerable, but now defunct venue Festival Hall in 1968. Big moment involving major life-style decisions. What to wear - corduroy hipsters, best Westminster Boutique shirt, Italian loafers plus an extra workout with the hair brush.
I never saved that concert ticket, but recently found most of my tickets from the '70s, some of which are framed below.{Hit the magnification button) Now there are some pretty good musical memories here when combined with their corresponding back stories of serious excess.
However, one of these concert moments stands out as both extemely embarrassing and Monty Pythonesque. We are referring to probably the worst example of English prog-rock excess, a band which went far beyond the pretensions of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Focus and Super Tramp combined and all that inflated seriousness which characterised the '70s, until the the Sex Pistols vomited on the whole edifice.
Q. Scan pic below, recall all those guitarists of the period who fell prey to the fashion of the twin necked guitar, and you have the culprits.
A. It was YES and they still stalk the memory lane circuit to this day after minor repair work at the fat farm and botox clinic.
And the Pythonesque dimension. Well, the promoters didn't read the fine print and forgot to book a local warm up act as required by law. The whole gig was delayed while they raced over to the seedy D'Brazil night club, and seconded a third rate comedian in a safari suit with his repetoire of tasteless 'boom boom' jokes.
A collective What the Fuck is Happening!
I don't feel very comfortable in this Parallel Universe?
Finally, reasoning kicked in with "I knew there there was something wrong with that bloody acid".

