It’s easy to think of progressive rock as being quite separate from the psychedelic era: PROG is 1970’sĀ Britain, Psychedelic is 1960’s California.
But Britain had a quite lively psychedelic scene of its own. The Beatles dabbled in it during their later years, and were known to be fans of the emergent Pink Floyd. The Rolling Stones‘ arguably most interesting album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, was not just a contrived response to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but full-blown psychedelia in its own right.
On this day* in 1967, an American guitarist named Jimi Hendrix was brought in at the last minute to headline at London’s legendary Marquee Club. The opening act was a band called The Syn, a precursor of progressive rock’s perhaps most tenacious group, Yes, and featuring future Yes-men Peter Banks and Chris Squire.
In the following video, a rather older-looking Squire demonstrates some pretty decent storytelling skills as he recalls that fateful meeting:
The video is courtesy of the EMP | SFM Oral History Videos project. There’s another one here which explores the origin’s of Yes‘ propensity for wearing capes in the Seventies… funny stuff…
For Peter Banks recollections of the event, check out this article on the Marquee Club’s website. He seemed a bit wound up, understandably, at being the only other guitarist on stage that night other than Hendrix, and with practically all of rock’s royalty seated in the first few rows. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
It was a very peculiar gig. All the Beatles were there, and the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and every other guitar player in town came along and we had to play one set to all these people! They were waiting for Jimi Hendrix, but we had to play once, come off and then play another set. So people were going ‘Well thank God if they’ve gone’. Then we came back on again! It wasn’t very nice for us but it was great meeting Hendrix.”
* Once again, for the purposes of this article, “this day” in PROG was actually January 24, 1967. But let’s not sweat the fine points…
*I’ve* gotcher fine points #SDBI
Nice blog.
You coming back now, or what? š
Well DUH I miss ya. Gotta take what I can get š
Blogged myself the other day and only have one lonely comment so I know how nice it is to get feedback! (I’m SO transparent)
Ahem.
At any rate, tis nice to *see* you š
Interesting how he mentioned that Noel Redding was terrible. I have heard that, a LOT. It has been said by more than a few that he got the job by virtue of his dope ass hairdo. Noel couldn’t pick up the changes to ‘Red House’ on bass when they played live. So, he played a guitar (his original instrument). Though I think Mitch Mitchell was awesome, I think it is a great musical crime of history that Chas stuck Jimi with Noel.
I might clarify I am a guitarist, so a bit of a purist snob on some of these issues.