Fact #188613
When:
Short story:
Watford Gap, the first of Britain's motorway service stations opens. The station's restaurant, The Blue Boar, will prove conveniently located as a stop-off for rock bands travelling back to London after gigs in the north of the country, so it will be visited in the early hours of the morning by Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Status Quo, Pink Floyd, Small Faces, Spencer Davis Group, The Soft Machine and many others. In 1977, on his album Bullinamingvase, Roy Harper will include a song called Watford Gap with the chorus, 'Watford Gap, Watford Gap, a plate of grease and a load of c**p'.
Full article:
Barry Chaytow (music promoter) : It was a hang out for all the groups. It didn’t matter where the gig was, everyone seemed to meet there at 2am to discuss what they had been doing and where they were going next.
Carlo Little (drummer, Flowerpot Men) : We met the legend Jimi Hendrix - in cafe The Blue Boar on the M1! All the bands would congregate there on their way back and forwards from gigs, it was just before The Experience hit the big time and they must have been touring to get themselves known. Well, Mitch Mitchell the drummer, who used to come and watch me in the early days, recognised me. He came over with Jimi and introduced me as 'the guy who started it all off for me'.
June Bolan : You always went home after a gig because you couldn't afford to stay anywhere! You'd do Newcastle and back in a night. There were no motorways to speak of. They loved the Floyd out in the sticks… The highlight of the evening if you'd been to Newcastle and were coming back was to go to the Blue Boar, the service station. You'd see people like the Small Faces, Spencer Davies, the Soft Machine.
Chris White (The Zombies) : I have enduring memories of the Blue Boar in the early hours of the morning. Lines of musicians would queue up for their hot food before climbing back into ailing vans full of guitars. It was the feeding trough of the mid-Sixties beat-boom.
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Carlo Little (drummer, Flowerpot Men) : We met the legend Jimi Hendrix - in cafe The Blue Boar on the M1! All the bands would congregate there on their way back and forwards from gigs, it was just before The Experience hit the big time and they must have been touring to get themselves known. Well, Mitch Mitchell the drummer, who used to come and watch me in the early days, recognised me. He came over with Jimi and introduced me as 'the guy who started it all off for me'.
June Bolan : You always went home after a gig because you couldn't afford to stay anywhere! You'd do Newcastle and back in a night. There were no motorways to speak of. They loved the Floyd out in the sticks… The highlight of the evening if you'd been to Newcastle and were coming back was to go to the Blue Boar, the service station. You'd see people like the Small Faces, Spencer Davies, the Soft Machine.
Chris White (The Zombies) : I have enduring memories of the Blue Boar in the early hours of the morning. Lines of musicians would queue up for their hot food before climbing back into ailing vans full of guitars. It was the feeding trough of the mid-Sixties beat-boom.