New Year's Eve 1968 "Surprise Partie" with The Who, Small Faces, Booker T, Pink Floyd, Joe Cocker, Fleetwood Mac... Dawn of the Rock Revolution

“Surprise-Partie” (see clip below) was broadcast on French TV on December 31st 1968 from the ORTF Studios in Paris and features The Who, The Small Faces, Booker T and the MGs, The Pink Floyd, The Troggs, The Equals, Joe Cocker, Fleetwood Mac and French band Les Variations.

Nowadays New Year's Eve TV pop / rock specials are the norm - in the UK Jools Holland's Hootenanny has been running for nearly 20 years now - but back in the 60s Rock music was not accepted as mainstream family entertainment nor as prevalent on TV as it is now so this program is actually pretty cool and progressive for its time. Auntie BBC certainly weren't doing this kind of thing in the late 60s.

The Who

The Pipers at the Gates of Dawn
The program may have been a novel idea for its time but it also seems to show mid 60s pop culture in the last throes of its show-business trappings and on the cusp of the new age of rock. 1968 is remembered as a chaotic and revolutionary year - in France it almost brought the downfall of the government - but a musical revolution was also brewing which would affect all the bands here. 1968 can be seen as the last year in which rock'n'roll would still be seen as teenage "entertainment". The rock revolution of 1969 was about to turn it into an "art form" to be taken seriously and the hitherto "underground" hippy culture would go mainstream at Woodstock. The stage was set for change and some of the bands seen here, like The Who and Fleetwood Mac, would reinvent themselves and ride the new wave. Others, like The Troggs or The Equals, would soon find themselves cast adrift by the new rock cognoscenti who found their lightweight punk pop to be frivolous and ephemeral.

The transformation of The Who is perhaps the best example of the changes about to occur. They'd had a run of top 20 hit singles from 1965 to 1967 but had suffered a year long commercial dry spell in 1968. They were even starting to look washed-up. Yet at the time of this (mimed) performance of old hits they were just months away from releasing their rock opera Tommy, triumphing at the Woodstock festival and becoming one the great 1970s stadium rock bands.

It's also worthy of note that this show took place only 3 weeks after the band's stunning and show-stealing live performance in the Rolling Stones Rock'n'Roll Circus film. They didn't know it yet but The Who were about to have their most successful year ever in 1969.

The Small Faces

Unfortunately for the The Small Faces things looked bleaker. They were only weeks away from breaking up and this performance is possibly their last for TV. Singer and guitarist Steve Marriott, aware of the way rock was about to change and frustrated at being unable to shake off the band's Lazy Sunday / Itchycoo Park novelty "pop" image, went off to form rock boogie kings Humble Pie and conquer America. The Small Faces eventually cracked it by recruiting Rod Stewart and Ron Wood and reinventing themselves as the Faces.

Note - Look closely here, you can see Pete Townshend and Keith Moon sitting at the back of the stage - no doubt offering encouragement or the occasional acerbic witticism.

Fleetwood Mac were about to leave the blues behind and find considerable crossover success with chart hits like Albatross and Man of the World.

The Pink Floyd, however, were still finding their way after the loss of Syd Barrett 12 months earlier and were now on the way to becoming the premier live space rock band of 1969 - to which the live half of Ummagumma (recorded 5 months later) would be excellent testament.  

Joe Cocker, like The Who, was to find super-stardom the following summer when he put in a stunning performance at the Woodstock festival.  

The Troggs and The Equals, who might be about to find the new rock revolution a little tougher going, are certainly on fine form here and perhaps act as a portent of the late 70s punk era's return to the ethics of power and simplicity.

Fleetwood Mac

France's Les Variations are worth noting. This show was actually their TV debut and they soon left behind their rather splendid garage punk posturing here and started to write harder rock material that showed a strong north African and Moroccan influence. They became one of France's most successful bands of the early 70s and also the first French rock band to tour America and sign with an American label.

Booker T and the MGs

The Performances
All performances are live except The Who and The Small Faces who mimed for some reason. Did their gear get lost on the Channel ferry?

The Booker T and the MGs set is outstanding although there seems to be a bit of a mystery with regard to the date. The Stax / Volt tour of Europe with the MGs, Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, Carla Thomas and Sam and Dave was in early 1967. Did the MGs return on their own the following year?

The Equals, who were one the UK's first racially integrated bands, perform a frantic set of soul stompers. Fleetwood Mac are also on fine form with Jeremy Spencer, in full-on Elmore James mode, taking the lead on two of the three songs.  

Les Variations are simply classic 60s garage rock. Playing before an, at times, wildly enthusiastic home crowd this is an impressive TV debut. I'm sure many of those present would even have claimed that they stole the show.

Les Variations

All in all, this is great stuff. Like Hugh Hefner's "Playboy After Dark" it is another classic example of late 60s grooviness from a glittering day-glo era which was just about to change into a darker shade of denim and take itself far more seriously...

See below for artist order and tracklisting.

The WHO
01 - I’m A Boy
02 - I Can See For Miles
03 - Magis Bus
Roger Daltrey : vocals
Peter Townshend : guitar, vocals
John Entwistle : bass
Keith Moon : drums

The SMALL FACES
01 - Odgen’s Nut Gone Flake
02 - Song Of A Baker
03 - Rollin’ Over
Steve Marriott : guitar, vocal
Ian McLagan : keyboards
Ronnie Lane : bass
Kenny Jones : drums

BOOKER T & The MGs live at “Bibelot", unknown date”
01 - Green Onions
02 - Hooker Loo
Booker T Jones : organ
Steve Cropper : guitar
Donald “Duck” Dunn : bass
Al Jackson : drums

PINK FLOYD live at “Bilboquet" - Paris, Sept 7, 1968
01 - Let There Be More Light
David Gilmour : guitar, vocals
Richard Wright : keyboards, vocals
Roger Waters : bass, vocals
Nick Mason : drums

The EQUALS
01 - Softly Softly
02 - Equality
03 - Baby Come Back
Derv Gordon - lead vocals
Lincoln Gordon - guitar
Eddy Grant - guitar
Pat Lloyd - bass guitar
John Hall - drums

Les VARIATIONS
01 - Around & Around
02 - Everybody Needs Somebody
To Love
03 - Satisfaction
Joe Lebb : vocals
Marc Tobaly : guitar
Jacques “Petit Pois” Grande : bass
Jacky Bitton : drums

The TROGGS
01 - I Can’t Control Myself
02 - Peggy Sue
03 - Somewhere My Girl Is Waiting
Reg Presley : vocals
Chris Britton : guitar
Pete Staples : bass
Ronnie Bond : drums

JOE COCKER live at "Tour de Nesle" - Paris, unknown date
01 - I Shall Be Released
02 - With A Little Help From My Friends

FLEETWOOD MAC
01 - Homework
02 - My Baby's Sweet
03 - Dust My Broom
Peter Green : guitar, vocals
Jeremy Spencer : slide guitar, piano, vocals
Danny Kirwan : guitar
John McVie : bass
Mick Fleetwood : drums



Bonus tracks
Other artists who performed on the show but are not included in the clip above: Davy Jones, Marie La Foret, Jaques Dutronic, Aphrodite's Child, Antoine, Herbert Leonard, Johnny Haliday, Francoise Hardy and PP Arnold. The latter two are worth seeing though PP Arnold suffers from a bad sound mix.

Francoise Hardy - À quoi ça sert / Où va la chance / Suzanne

PP Arnold - If You Think You're Groovy
The Small Faces played on the recording but, funnily enough, are not here to mime to it.

More stranger than known

Hugh Hefner's "Playboy After Dark" 

Peter Green - "A Mind To Give Up Living" - The Blues of Despair and Salvation

The Faces BBC Sessions - 5 Guys Walk Into The BBC...

Parallax - The Pink Floyd BBC Sessions 

Amazing Journey - The road to "Live at Leeds". The Who Live in Philadelphia 19/10/1969

Amazing Journey - The road to "Live at Leeds". The Who Live in Philadelphia 19/10/1969

Live At Leeds
The Who's Live At Leeds is undoubtedly one of the most iconic albums of the rock era. If anyone from the future wants to know what 1960s and 1970s rock music was really all about, they will undoubtedly go no further than the recording of The Who's historic performance at Leeds University on February 14th 1970. It has precision, power and musical artistry. It set the bar then, and still does now, for what rock music could and should do. Everything that was magnificent about The Who is there - great songs, great riffs, exemplary musicianship (balanced with a sense of impending chaos) and there are even a few good jokes too.

In 1970 The Who were a live band capable of taking on all comers and seeing them off with a musical dynamism that combined brute force with artistic sensibility. Don't forget that only a year or so before the band had upstaged the Rolling Stones on their Rock'n'Roll Circus TV show. Such was Mick Jagger's dismay at coming in second best on his own TV show that it was quietly filed away and forgotten until its belated release in the 90s.

And Live At Leeds was no one-off. The Who were on a roll. The previous night's show at Hull University was just as good but technical problems stymied its release. Six months earlier the band had triumphed at Woodstock. Six months later the Isle Of Wight Festival would show the band as all conquering heroes. 1970 saw The Who at the peak of their powers. No other band came close. How did they get this good?



Amazing Journey
The answer is non-stop touring through 1968 and 1969 in the USA. Tommy was released in 1969 to massive critical and commercial success and anyone who went to see them at that time would have been treated to a performance of the new album in full plus razor sharp versions of the band's better known singles, some LP material and a handful of cover versions. So good were they that a potential live album was mooted as a stop-gap follow-up to Tommy and many of the autumn 1969 US tour shows were recorded for that purpose. Unfortunately for us, Pete Townshend couldn't be bothered to listen to them all and had all the tapes destroyed. An act that must figure as one of the great losses in rock history.

Well, almost all of them were destroyed. Partial recordings of a few shows seem to have survived. The 2nd show at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia on October 19th 1969 is one of them and it is a remarkable record of The Who at their incandescent best. It may not have the precision and finesse of Live At Leeds but all the energy and momentum are definitely there (see the YouTube audio clip below). This 38 minute long recording still remains unreleased in any official form.



Moon Rocks
One of the most outstanding aspects of The Who's sound was Keith Moon's drumming. The Philadelphia show is more evidence (if any more were needed) that Keith Moon really was one of rock's most original and pioneering drummers. He was very much part of what made them unique and this period from 1969 to 1970 is probably his finest. It is Moon's jazz inspired fills and effects that colour the music and give it that thrilling balance between chaos and art. Ginger Baker was capable of the same but was actually a more dependable drummer. Baker played jazz in a rock band. Moon was not a jazz drummer but often played like one. He took all kinds of risks and you were never quite sure what was going to happen happen next. This gave the band a tension that, when it worked, was exhilarating and awe-inspiring. Moon quite often leads and the others respond. He propels the band and demands they match him. Playing with Moon must have been like walking on a knife edge. Both Townshend and Entwistle would have needed to stay fully conscious and attuned to what was Moon was doing. Having built a bridge between musicality and chaos they then have to keep it up. And therein lies the art.

This knife edge tension is the first thing you hear when the Electric Factory tape cuts in. They are in the middle of playing John Entwistle's show opener Heaven and Hell and although Townshend is nominally supposed to be taking the lead, Entwistle and Moon are playing with Townshend, rather than just backing him up as any normal rhythm section would do. They all seem to be playing lead. Each musician is claiming his space within the band's sound-scape. However this is a sound-scape that the musicians are also creating by simultaneously interacting with each other. It's like jazz. The first 30 seconds of the Philadelphia tape sound like a rock version of John Coltrane's Chasing The Train. Brilliant and sometimes gravity defying. God they were good. I can think of only a few other rock bands who could do this. Cream and The Grateful Dead come to mind.

The Electric Factory, Philadelphia

The Electric Factory, 19th October 1969
The Philadelphia Electric Factory was an ex tyre warehouse and the kind of small size venue The Who would not be playing again in the wake of Tommy's success. This recording from the 2nd show that night (the first stated at 4pm!) has pristine sound quality and features highlights from Tommy. Especially noteworthy are the triumphant sounding Amazing Journey / Sparks (featuring the always transcendental amazing orgasmo-riff at around 19:00 onwards), a storming Summertime Blues and an extended My Generation which, although it may not have the pace and stucture of the Leeds version, certainly matches it for sheer aggressive in-yer-face Whoness. As the song segues into the instrumental section it almost sounds like it's about to go into sizzling feedback auto-destruct mode but then Townshend starts pulling out the stops and we get the Tommy revisited rifferama a la Leeds. This is Townshend in full command. Now he really is leading the band and boy is it ever his band. They've done Tommy and its his work and the world is at his feet and he knows it. It's an astonishingly assertive performance that just keeps peaking. It's full of Townshendesque swagger and in-yer-face-told-yer-so-up-yours-fuck-youness. Quintessential Who.

The Who at their peak. Sublime, glorious and affirmatory. Some of the best rock music ever recorded.



The Electric Factory in Philadelphia, 19th October 1969. 8pm Show
Heaven and Hell (fades in) /  I Can't Explain /  Overture /  It's A Boy / 1921 / Amazing Journey / Sparks / The Acid Queen / Summertime Blues / My Generation

Bonus
Sparks at New York's Fillmore East a few days later on the 22nd October 1969. Hear the always transcendental amazing orgasmo-riff tear through the very fabric of reality at 6:05.

More stranger than known
Cream live at the Spalding Bar-B-Que, 29th May 1967

Freak Out! In praise of Improv

Led Zeppelin at Southampton University 1973

The Grateful Dead - 1969 Dark Star set to vintage film ...

The Rolling Stones' finest hour - "Get Yer Leeds Lungs Out"...