The Rolling Stones Family: Brian Jones' Lonely Hearts Club

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 Woman
Street Fighting Man
Sympathy for the Devil

Keith Mosely sent this excellent reflection on this concert and how the 1968 shows were so much better

Following on from the concerts of the previous year which had seemed positively amateurish in comparison but so, so much more fun. The abiding memory for me was the presence of the Hells Angels as 'security'. It seemed such a contrast as Mick Jagger was releasing his butterflies, some of the Angels near us were knocking seven bells out of some hippy with their chains and clubs. I was 17 years old and scared to death. I remember very little of the supporting acts, Family and Roger Chapman belted out a great set, but King Crimson andAlexis Korner were a disappointment.
The concerts of 1968 were wonderful - groups such as Jethro Tull playing their Blues oriented set with Ian Anderson regaled in knee length moccasins and his half coat, backed up by Mick Abrahams magnificent guitar and the rhythm section of Glen Cornick and Clive Bunker - Dharma for One, Cat Squirrel, Serenade to a Cuckoo and A Song for Jeffrey. I think I bought my moccasins down at the Kensington Market the weekend after their Hyde Park Concert and never took them off thereafter. I followed Tull around the circuit that Summer totally entranced after seeing them first at the Marquee. I've been a Tull fan ever since but those early days culminating in This Was are still my favourite Tull times.
Also Fairport in their heyday, while Ashley Hutchings was still keen and happy to be in the band, Richard Thompson was still finding his way doing new and different things both with his guitar and with his song writing and the balance of vocals between Ian Matthews and Sandy Denny. And of course Martin Lamble was still alive. There was such variety in their music, true folk-rock, but still heavily influenced by the blues. I still believe that Sailors Life is the premier example of the folk-rock idiom. It is noticeable that Fairport now still have to perform many of the songs from the set they did on that August afternoon.

The Nice, Traffic and Fleetwood Mac, all before they became "super groups".

The only concert in the Park that came anywhere near the early ones for me was the Canned Heat/John Sebastian concert in 1970. John
Sebastian with what appeared to be tie-dyed skin and Bob 'the Bear' Hite leading Canned Heat.

Looking back now if only we could have stopped time and gone around and around in that Summer of 1968 - travelling to concerts at the weekends and going to Windsor to hear Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band during the week. When the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band were still strutting their stuff, with Viv Stanshall doing his Head Ballet, and every time you saw John Mayall he had a different line up!
Most of the Bands were raw and fresh and played with feeling, without having to look over their shoulders to compare themselves with what had gone before.

I was lucky I lived in Bracknell, just outside London, I seem to remember we walked home from Sunbury after having watched Jethro Tull steal the show at the Nat Jazz and Blues Festival 1968.

Keith Mosley

I was at this one too. Not as good as the 68 one. It was, not surprisingly, very big. I was right at the back up a tree. No-one was very good that day, but, as one fan on the "ask Chappo" page commented, Family "blew the Stones off the stage". The Stones were messy. Don't know why. Maybe it was because Brian Jones had just died.

Graham.

Living in Leeds the nearest I got to hearing decent music was either at the University who brought in the big talent (The Bonzo Dog Band being the greatest visual experience) or upstairs at The Pack Horse where you could catch intimate performances by country blues singer/guitarists such as the superb Steve Phillips or visiting Londoners like Alexis Korner. Each week I bought the
NME and scoured the gig guide in the hope that someone I liked was about to come "oop North", but since the demise of the ABC circuit when you could see everybody from The Beatles to Diana Ross to Little Richard for five shillings on-stage at a city centre cinema, very few rock acts really bothered any more.

America plundered British talent in the late '60s and not surprisingly the groups who were capable of putting on a performance that lasted longer than 20 minutes jumped on the gravy train and headed West where the "real money' was.
When the NME announced that my favourite band were planning to headline a free concert in London's Hyde Park, I decided that I would be there along with my drinking partner and best mate Nobby who usually accompanied me to gigs. For two Northerners who usually decided on how far they travelled by the reputation of the local beer, the excursion to London just to see a "pop" group was considered a bit radical if not altogether stupid. I was rather secretive about the trip, telling my mother that I'd be a bit late back as I was going to a concert. I only let slip that it was in London as I was leaving the house at 6.30am to catch the early train to Kings Cross. I doubt if she gave it a second thought.

Kings Cross looked much the same in 1969 as it does today - a dirty, litter strewn, pigeon dropping infested shed where one could depart into oblivion and be accosted by a "lady of the night" in broad daylight! The journey had left us hungry and thirsty so we headed out of the station, ignoring the women who promised to show us a good time and searched for a Chinese restaurant and a pub, in that order but preferably the former with a direct connection to the latter. Somehow, when we finally arrived on the London streets beyond Kings Cross we felt sadly let down by the metropolis. There was no sign of the huge neon signs that flashed in our images of London as the centre of the universe, and only the unsmiling faces of the locals reinforced the knowledge that we were in England's capital city. Of course, once we had eaten our "three course special" in a reasonable down-market Chinese restaurant and washed our tonsils with Watney's Red Barrel we felt revived and ready to make the final leg of our journey. We went on foot as we did not trust
London cabbies at all! London taxi drivers will no doubt be sadistically gratified to learn that Nobby and I made that "two minute" journey on foot to Hyde Park in about three hours. Not bad eh! And we got to see Carnaby Street and a load of mad hippies with shaven heads, wearing mango-coloured sheets.

We had not realised that London had so many big parks close together, but we knew we had found Hyde Park when the familiar strains of a 12 bar blues riff played through a 100 watt Marshall amp distorted bv feedback and then deafened by a bass run that was struggling to keep pace with a demented drum solo wafted in our direction. As we quickened our pace towards where the "music" was coming from, I noticed how nice the Park was considering that it was in the middle of London. There was a lake where people were feeding the ducks and families were relaxing with their picnic boxes, oblivious to the vice and gangsterism that pervaded their city, according to The News Of The World.
When Nobby and I finally arrived we realised that we had set off too late to claim one of the better patches of grass. There were some great groups playing but from where we were sitting they all looked and sounded the same - Levi's and Howlin'' Wolf have a lot to answer for. At one point, both Nobby and I were so moved by whoever it was who was playing that we stood up to get a better view only to be pelted with empty beer cans thrown by a contingent of Hell's Angels who just happened to be sitting behind us. We let them off with the mildest of reprimands. But when the Stones walked on-stage everybody jumped to their feet.
The crowd cheered everything that the Stones did, and when it came to the finale everyone appeared so exhausted by the entire contents of the day that they retired peacefully, walking back through Hyde Park and helped to collect litter and restore the park to its serene beauty

Harvey M Brown. York

I was the social secretary at Ewell Technical College in Surrey. Family were my favourite group, so it was a must for me to go. I went with Chris Briggs, who now works at Chrysalis, and a friend of mine called Chris Jenvey who was also at Ewell Tech with me, and a girl called Jane who was seeing Greg Lake of King Crimson at the time. They'd played their second ever gig at Ewell Tech for &15 and were managed by David Enthoven who I ran into at the Park t( We drove up from Purley in Chris Jenvey's mum's car, a Triumph open-top. That Cockpit area was a fantastic place to have it in - a lot of the other concerts were in the round in the bandstand which was never as good. Family were fantastic, and when Crimson were on I took a boat out onto the lake. The Stones were magnificent. There was no pressure on you to buy anything; it was very relaxed. Absolutely remarkable.
Paul Conroy,


It is of course a memorable occasion among the many I experience during years in pursuit of musical diversion, although in truth I barely remember much of it at all. What I do vividly recall is a few days prior to the show during a lunch break away from the shipping office in Fenchurch Street where I worked at the time, of making my way to Tower Hill for amusement of a different sort.
At this time, the cobbled area outside the Tower Of London functions as a kind of lesser Speakers Corner, with all manner of religious and political ideologue holding forth and throngs of office clerks in gawping attendance.


On this particular day my attention is distracted by the placard I see on a news stand stating that the body of Brian Jones has been discovered afloat in his own swimming pool. Now this is shocking news to me, as only recently is it reported in the press that Jones parts company with The Rolling Stones and will not be performing with them at Hyde Park this coming weekend. At the time, the general public is kept ignorant of the Stones' use of hard drugs, and word is that the guitarist merely outgrows Muddy Waters riffs and now intends to concentrate his time producing esoterica like the recent Master Musicians Of Joujouka . Even without the full knowledge of the facts, this sudden news strikes me as a grim portent, as indeed turns out to be the case.
The free concerts in London's parks are a feature of the late '60s that do not outlast the decade. What perhaps is the first of these the previous summer when Jefferson Airplane announce an impromptu outing on Parliament Hill Fields precursory to their show at the Chalk Farm Roundhouse alongside The Doors. In the event, it is a day of high winds and rain, and the score or so of us who turn up are rewarded with a sound check and a glimpse of a sulky looking Grace Slick before we all troop disconsolately home. By now; however, these are regular if still low-key weekend events in Hyde Park attracting audiences of barely more than a few hundred souls, where I see dozens of untried acts like The Nice, Family, King Crimson, Third Ear Band, Jethro Tull, Clouds, White Rabbit, the ubiquitous Edgar Broughton Blues Band and the even more ubiquitous Roy Harper, as they go through their paces and the on looking crowd folic in the grass.
It is immediately apparent as I make my way across the park from Speakers Corner to the Serpentine this afternoon that today is very different. From all corners, streams of people converge like tributaries towards the lake, while huddles of scowling skinheads skirt its fringe. At the front, a sprawl of motorbikes effectively block the audience from close proximity; to the stage and a contingent of rocker denim guard these young men I recognize them at once as the same posse of would-be Hell's Angels from Wales who lately descend in force upon the Arts Lab in Drury Lane, lording it over the timid hippies who arrive there to see Jack Moore's art films and even usurping Jim Haynes as first in line for free pussy. They are hired as security by the Stones' torpid MC Cutler, the man who coins the phrase "the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world", and they while away the hours by consuming alcohol and snarling belligerently at anyone who strays too close.


Finally, the Stones take the stage to wild applause: Jagger wearing the white frock familiar from a thousand photographs since. He calls for quiet, wishing to recite a few lines I from Shelley's elegy to John Keats, Adonis, in memory of Jones, but the crowd cannot hear him above the din. He repeats his request, then repeats it again. Finally exasperated, he cries: "Cool it! Fucking shut up, I wanna read a poem for Brian." Unfortunately when the film of the concert makes it to the television screen I discover that the epithet recorded above is artfully edited out. What really dismays me though is the sight of my own face briefly glimpsed in one of the crowd scenes.
Had I known this in advance, I doubt if I would have turned up at all.
Penny Reel ©

(Penny Reel is a well respected freelance writer whose work appeared in the NME and Black Echoes , he has also written a book about the late fabled reggae maestro Dennis Brown titled- Deep Down With Dennis Brown -Cool Runnings and the Crown Prince of Reggae, which you can order online by clicking on the link.

The six of us were all 14, and none of us cared much for the Stones. They had peaked four years earlier and so were the sort of thing older brothers raved about. Brian Jones's death meant nothing to us - we viewed him as a sad old geezer. But it was free and we only lived a 4/6 return train journey from central London. We got there later than most. If there were 250,000 people there we must have been numbers 249,000 to 249,005. The group next to us used spoons and knives as digging implements to bury something or other seconds before the arrival of some policemen with a dog. We were asked if we were interested in a score (we didn't know or have the gumption to ask of what).
And on the way home we were chased by a gang of skinheads who apparently didn't like our shoulder-length hair. They were no match for us - our baseball boots gave us a strong advantage over their Doc Martens. Enough talking points to keep us going for weeks.

Kelvin Young.

I went to a public school which meant that, for our sins, we had to attend school on Saturday mornings. A couple of friends had skived off earlier in the year to see Blind Faith in the Park. I thought I'd chance my arm and go with them this time. Our favourite band at the time were Family, next down on the bill from the Stones, so it sounded like a great day out.
We got there in what we thought was pretty good time, getting the shock of our lives when we saw the huge crowds. The only place to stand (nowhere to sit) was under one of the giant oak trees surrounding the arena. That was fine for a while, then Family came on and the atmosphere started getting a little livelier. Whether it was anticipation of the Stones or drunkenness, we were increasingly getting abuse thrown at us, not to mention bottles and cans from people behind whose view we partly obscured, so when the next tree collapsed, with about six people landing on those underneath, enough was enough.
Family had just finished, so had we. Braving comments from those who we trampled over on the way out, we got out of the main crowd. We passed a gang of several hundred skinheads out for trouble with the Hell's Angels. Having run the gauntlet - "bloody hippy bastards" and hearing the distant chimes of the Stones kicking off, we made for home.
Now for it. Mum, unbeknown to me had helped out with teas for a school cricket match that afternoon. I'd told her that we'd not had school that morning, and of course she'd heard differently. Believe me, the bottles and cans and skinheads were nothing compared to the ensuing onslaught.

John Hastings, Bristol


Aged 18 and interested in any sort of music, the chance to see the Stones and other bands for free was an opportunity too good to miss. I'd checked out the Melody Maker and discovered there was a lot happening in and around London that week and, having organised accommodation for a week with my cousin in Maida Vale, I got an overnight bus from Sunderland to Victoria Coach Station, arriving at six on the morning of the event. A quick breakfast, then straight over to Hyde Park. By 2pm, in a state of some discomfort - not quite used to sitting on my backside on grass for a five-hour stretch - I was beginning to realize that this was some big event!!
For me the King Crimson performance was the most exciting of the day. I think tiredness had crept in by the time the Stones came on-stage. The memorable performances came from the other gigs I made while in London the following week: Free at The Country Club on Sunday, Otis Spann supported by Steve Miller's Delivery at Klooks Kleek on Monday and Soft Machine at The Marquee.
Charlie Reauely, Sunderland


King Crimson were the band that day. Robert Fripp was the first rock guitarist I had seen who had sat down to play. During 21st Century Schizoid Man, the large photo of Brian - Jones nearly fell on top of Greg Lake. Their music sounded majestic, and their reading of The Court Of The Crimson King fitted the occasion perfectly, as the music drifted through the trees.
Frances Constantine, London

In 1969 I was a film director making a documentary for the BBC about an earlier generation of bands and pop idols, men like Nat Gonella, Harry Roy, Jack Payne and Roy Fox. I thought that the Stones' Hyde Park concert would make a dramatic coda for my movie, but when I tried to get permission from the Stones' management I was told that they : had an exclusive deal with Granada to film the concert - they even read out a clause from the small print expressly forbidding the BBC to be present! I thought it would be fun to go along anyway - at least we could pick up some crowd scenes - so on the day we put together some good food and a few bottles and invited our crew for a picnic.
When the music started my cameraman, the brilliant Nat Crosby, wasn't prepared to let any small print stand in his way. He urged us to follow him down to the crash barrier at the back of the stage, guarded by one of a team of Hell's Angels who had been specially imported for the occasion. To my astonishment, Nat called this guy over, handed him the Arriflex and proceeded to climb over the barrier. My sound recordist Ron Crabb draped his Perfectone tape machine around the Hell's Angel's neck and began his climb. I followed, and soon we were all on the inside and reclaiming our gear with a cheery "Thanks, mate". Granada was using about six camera crews, and one of their people came over to warn us about the Angels - "I'd watch out for those guys if I were you, they've got a very low brain-weight ratio."
We were now inside the VIP area and able to work our way around to the stage, so that by the time the Stones came on, there we were bang in front of them. We got our shots of Mick and Marianne, the band and the butterflies, the crowds and the confusion. Nobody seemed to notice that Granada's six camera crews now appeared to have seven cameras. But that was typical of the day. Nobody was trying to make money, everybody just wanted to have a good time, and that was what made it all so special.
Later in the year when, along with many others, I helped Bob Dylan try to sink the Isle Of Wight, the mega-event had arrived and that initial innocence and magic were gone forever.

Charles Mapleston, Spilsby, Lincs

As for the Stones gig I was slightly nearer than you having got there first thing that morning. I recall a giant image of Brian Jones which formed the stage backdrop, coming loose and nearly hitting a Screw member. It may have been the front man, either way we all looked at each other and nodded knowingly that Brian's spirit was present. Later I recall the Screw's front man cutting his lip while playing the mouth organ and, being frustrated at not being able to play flinging it backwards over the stage canopy. Rumours spread through the crowd all afternoon, The Beatles were here and were going to play, no it was just Lennon and Mcartney who were going to jam with the
Stones (as if !)

John Lane

I must have spent hours waiting outside some barriers sealing off the backstage area. I witnessed an obviously legitimate photographer with half a dozen cameras hanging around his neck and several different coloured passes stuck on him, having the shit beaten out of him and being removed from the backstage area by one of the Hell's Angels security. This monster had his right arm in a plaster cast that he used as his beating weapon.
Later, I am standing on the stage taking a photo of a palm tree with Bill Wyman playing his bass behind it. My feeling told me that I should not be here. I spotted this big Hell's Angel climbing down the tower looking at me.
Like a shot I was off down the stage to the backstage area. I started climbing through the scaffolding underneath the stage, heading for a hole in the canvas covering the front stage.
Then I stuck my head through that hole and nearly passed out when I saw half a million people facing me.

George Kerlvinski, Munich

I swear Paul McCartney strolled past me in the crowd, and two men conspicuous in grey suits and metallic painted faces were surely an early version of controversial art duo Gilbert & George. A theatre group nearby delivered stirring anti-imperialist agit prop to a group of indifferent peanuts (skinheads).

As to the music, The Third Ear provided their customary mediaeval ambience, droning on from where they'd left off at the previous Blind Faith freebie in the park, pre-CCS Alexis Korner with his New Church, Family and King Crimson's Mellotron swathes all impressed; The Battered Ornaments and the never to be heard of again Screw didn't. The Stones too sounded ropy, and it took Ginger Johnson's African Drummers' percussive intro to Sympathy For The Devil to really get the crowd going.
My sister's freak dancing to Jumping Jack Flash or some such crowd-pleaser was captured for posterity by the cameras of Granada ! It's her performance rather than Jagger's posturing and poetry that made Stones in the Park for me.
Bryan Biggs, Liverpool

As I raced down from my 64 p a week garret in Notting Hill, I was bubbling at the prospect of seeing the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world, for FREE! I'd seen them in Dublin in '65, and for 13 shillings my life had been ruined forever. Jagger pranced on, sporting a gauche little number, the first in a long line of wardrobe mistakes. We solemnly sat through the poetry reading and some buffoonery involving butterflies. Keith had a great day.
After the opener, a slide affair, pilfered from one Johnny Winter, he went out of time, and never quite came back in. Damn trick- when you're completely off your onion. He later became somewhat befuddled in a preposterously turgid version of Sympathy For The Devil, bum notes sailing out over the Serpentine.
Meanwhile, Mick Taylor soldiered on slightly rattled, pretending nothing was amiss. After two hours, they actually became a mite tedious, the two Micks sprawling on the stage during a slow blues workout. Their cool had evaporated, Their Satanic Majesties emasculated by their own garden party.
Brady, London



There's something in the very nature of being a schoolboy that necessitates getting caught. In the summer of i969, I was boarding in the lower sixth at Cranbrook School in Kent, and I spent most of my time in detention. No matter that I dreamed of being a rambling boy, whenever I sneaked behind the pavilion for a cigarette I got nabbed. I was kept at school virtually every weekend that summer but once the Stones had announced that they were playing the Park there was no question that I and my future travelling companion Dave Roberts were going.
The previous summer I'd seen Jefferson Airplane in Parliament Hill Fields and Traffic and The Nice in Hyde Park, and marvelled at the colour and the glory of the gathering of the tribes. Although I was still a snotty, short-haired schoolboy, I knew that these were my people and that I had to be there with them. Perhaps it was the undiluted power of the call but Dave and I walked out of school that morning like charmed men. Already dressed in my purple jeans with the frayed creases, we sneaked up the hill out of town and away from the school and hitched a ride to Staplehurst.
We met our friends Susie and Sarah at Charing Cross around 12 and walked up to the Park, staggering in the heat and overcome by the sheer numbers of the faithful. Inevitably, we didn't get very close to the stage but we were simply so glad to be there.
We spent most of the afternoon hiding away from the heat, wondering at the beauty of our companions and worrying whether we were going to get run over by the Hell's Angels who kept riding through the crowd. King Crimson's Mellotron awed everybody on Court Of The Crimson King, the butterflies, the white suit and the Shelley poem were somehow more impressive than the Stones' set that followed, but we just kept hugging ourselves, delirious that we were there, away from the oppressors in Cranbrook.

The Angels and the heat kept everything on edge but the Stones had been around since I turned teenager, they'd actually been busted and they were the high priests of the newly politicised counter-culture. Just by being there we felt we were changing the world...
Once the Stones had finished, Dave and I left the girls, rushed back to Charing Cross and got back to Cranbrook just after tea and in time for rehearsals of the French play - I think it was Jean Anouilh's Antigone - that was supposedly keeping us out of trouble. We felt that the rest of the cast wanted to applaud as we strode into the assembly hall in dark, panelled Old School.
Euphoric with the heat and the excitement, we were swaggering like Jagger on-stage, emboldened by the knowledge that although we were still trapped in a timewarp from the 5Os here at school, out there in the sunshine, satisfaction was there for the taking. We whispered louder we virtually bragged - our glands must have spontaneously created the smell of patchouli. We must have been begging for exposure, detention, even the cane. But the correctly named Mr Tinkle, our witty, thirty something French teacher, clearly recognized that we had been touched by the hand of God, that momentarily we were no Ionger spotty schoolboys but inner circle members of the tribes of Israel who'd actually been to the Promised Land. Like the proverbial Good Fairy , he twinkled, he shushed us up and got on with the rehearsal. That's what I remember best about the Stones in Hyde Park; it was the day we didn't get caught.
Mark Cooper.

Keith Christmas was positive that Donovan performed

I was just looking at your website on the Rolling Stones' Hyde Park concert back in 1969 and I have a very definite memory that Donovan got up and did a short set
I remember he got half the audience to do an 'oooh' and the other half to do an 'ahhh' in time to a fairly ordinary song
the sound of so many people going 'ooh, ahhh' in time was amazing - you could feel the air move
I must have missed Crimson but I do remember the Stones were shite, but then they often were after that
I had just finished playing the acoustic guitar on David Bowie's first album and I remember they played 'Space Oddity' that day
--
Keith Christmas
contact@keithchristmas.co.uk

It is nearly 40 years to the day since this concert and I remember it as if it was yesterday. Myself and three friends travelled down from the Wirral in my Triumph Herald the previous day and slept under the stars overnight in the park. We were about 100 yards from the stage centre and had a good view and the sound was crystal clear.

The objective was to see my favourite band of the time (the Stones of course) but I had my musical head turned by another band on the bill who up until then, I had not heard of.

That band was KING CRIMSON who gave a dynamic display of musicianship surpassing all the other bands on the bill. I have been hooked on this band and its derivatives ever since.

I was knocked out by the tight rhythm changes and power of 21st Century Schizoid Man and Greg Lake’s majestic vocals. Ian McDonalds flute playing in Court of the Crimson King was just beautiful and when the band completed their set with a rendition of Mars which included 20,000 watts of mellotron sounds swirling around, I realised that this truly was new musical experience and the start of progressive rock.

For me, the rest of the show (including the Stones to some extent) was an anti-climax after Crimson.

I found the Stones lethargic, sometimes disjointed and clearly affected by the sad passing of Brian Jones and had difficulty keeping their guitars in tune in the blistering heat.

Anyway, I can categorically state that neither Donavon or Roy Harper were on the bill.

The line up in order of appearance was:-

Third Ear Band
King Crimson
Screw
Alexis Korner’s New Church
Family
Battered Ornaments
Stones.

Regards
Colin Gort

...Известная фотография - но уже после Брайана...

)))

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