Fact #90637

Maurice Kinn (owner/publisher NME) : In ‘66 The Beatles were booked for the Poll Winner’s concert and it was agreed in writing that they would close the concert after the presentation of the awards which was the normal thing. We’d do a first half with about five or six acts, then we’d present the awards and then the major attraction would close the bill.  The Stones weren’t due to do this concert at all. About ten days before the concert I got a call from somebody involved with the Stones. He said to me ‘the Stones would like to appear at the Poll Winner’s concert’ but they wanted to be a complete surprise, they didn’t want any announcement made in the paper or anything. They just wanted to walk up onstage and that was the first anybody was gonna know about it. I said ‘if that’s what you want’. Didn’t ask for any money. No money was involved at all. They didn’t get much, none of ‘em.  Even the Beatles only got £60.

Anyhow, the Stones made one stipulation about appearing and that their position on the bill. I had to agree that they would not appear immediately before The Beatles. They did not want The Beatles coming on immediately after them. I said ‘no problem, I’ve already got it in writing with The Beatles that they close the show after the presentation of the poll awards’. So I said ‘what I’ll do is put you on immediately before the presentation so there’s about a 15-minute break while everyone’s coming up to get awards before The Beatles go in. ‘That’s fine, okay, would you please put it in writing’.

(Source : interview with Simon Spence, 1997)

Keith Altham (reviewer, NME) : The Shadows walked on looking like four penguins caught out in the desert with their bow ties and tuxedos.

Mary Payne (audience) : I went on a coach trip to the concert with my best friends, Jenny Royal and Mozz Walker. My diary entry reads: "Concert was great except for screaming kids behind us. (I now considered myself too old at sixteen to join the ranks of 'screaming kids'). The weather was so hot it reached about 80 degrees."

It's incredible to think I went to see the above line-up of top acts, probably THE line-up of the decade, and wrote about the weather! Probably, at the time I thought the event was unforgettable and therefore, unnecessary to put into words.

Bob Harris (radio and tv deejay) : In 1966 when I first moved to London I went to the NME Poll Winners Concert at Wembley Stadium. It was an incredible bill with The Beatles, the (Rolling) Stones and The Small Faces. God knows how many bands played. It was pandemonium. And there I was in the audience after paying for a ticket. Six years later I'm on that stage with (tv producer) Mike Appleton holding aloft a cup given to us for Top Television Program for 1972 for Old Grey Whistle Test. From absolutely nowhere to that stage in six years was an unbelievable jump. (Source : Encore online magazine, February 2009)

Ian 'Mac' MacLagan (Small Faces) : It was a big party backstage. I didn't even get to see The Beatles on stage because I spent most of the time hanging out in the canteen with The Stones and The Who. There were so many stars on the show that some had to share a dressing room. I walked into one room where Paul Jones, Tom Jones and Cliff Richard were all elbows and bums trying to change into their stage gear. When it was our turn we walked on, the audience screamed, we played our two or three numbers and we ran off stage. It was fun bumping into Keith, Brian and Charlie, and Moonie and Pete but it was all over quite quickly really, and naturally I was very, very, very stoned at the time…

Spencer Davis (Spencer Davis Group) : We beat the Stones as the No1 r'n'b group that year, but there was no rivalry backstage. Those pollwinners' shows were euphoric occasions. Backstage, it was kind of like they way we would all hang out together at The Speakeasy or the Ad Lib, except on a much bigger scale.

The only modern equivalent would be something like the Grammies, except that we didn't have minders and bodyguards and hangers-on. It was just the bands and their roadies, and we all knew each other.

Muff Winwood (bassist, Spencer Davis Group) : You didn't have time to be nervous, because it was so frantic. Everybody would be borrowing amps and guitar strings from each other

Spencer Davis : I remember that when The Beatles arrived they were wearing those yellow-tinted sunglasses, but we didn't have much time to hang out, because we had to fly to Germany later in the day because the record had really taken off there. So, for us, it was a case of going on, doing a couple of numbers, I think it was Keep On Running and Dust My Blues, and then we had a luxurious 25 minutes backstage to hang out before we had to shoot outside where The Stones' driver Tom Keylock was waiting with Keith Richards' Bentley to whiz us off to Heathrow.

Chris Stamp (co-manager, The Who) : The Who by this time were very into their Union Jack period and looking incredible.. Pete did his feedback thing and we had smoke bombs going off. And we did this destructive ending with Pete's guitar. And Keith, who had knocked over a few drums here and there, really went for it.

Kit Lambert (co-manager, The Who) : He (Keith) more or less stole the show by building up into a drum climax, which finally resulted in the whole drum kit disintegrating and falling into the audience, which left Keith drumming on a single drum.

Chris Stamp : I think they even fell off the stage, he made a huge mess. He did it to be with Pete, to top Pete, and to also make The Who's presence felt, make sure The Stones and The Beatles had to follow this.

Maurice Kinn : (Owner, NME) : Come the concert, The Stones walked up and the place erupted. On top of what they’re already getting that day, y’know, to suddenly get The Stones unexpectedly, right out of the blue, what an extra bloody bonus. The Stones had done a couple of numbers when suddenly John Lennon and the other three Beatles appear at bottom of the stage.

At Wembley in those days we had no curtain, just a platform and a staircase running up to the platform. The four Beatles are at the bottom of the stairs with their instruments, ready to go on. I said to John Lennon, ‘John, you’re much too early, The Stones have got another 5 or 10 minutes, then there’s the poll awards after that, so it’s gonna be another 20 minutes before you go on’. He said ‘we’re not waiting, we’re going on now’. I said ‘John, you can’t do that’. He said ‘didn’t you hear what I said the first time?’ I said ‘are you telling me that if you don’t go on now, you’re not going on?’ ‘Simple as that’, he said. Epstein came over. ‘Maurice,’ he said ‘I can’t do anything with them, John’s insisted they go on. That’s it, it’s that or nothing’.

Now time is ticking away. I’ve got 10,000 people out there who are not just really 10,000 people who have come to this concert but they are 10,000 readers of the paper. You couldn’t get a ticket if you weren’t a reader. And I’ve got it in writing with the Stones that they go on and I’ve got it in writing with The Beatles that they go on at the close.

So I had to take my life in my own hands, I had no choice, I said ‘Brian, let me tell you the situation. The Beatles are not going on next. What is going to happen is I’m going send on (compere) Jimmy Saville to tell the audience that The Beatles are here but refuse to appear. There will be a riot, this place will be smashed up and not only will you be responsible for the thousands and thousands of pounds worth of damage that will be caused but in addition you will be sued by the NME not only for breach of contract but for the irreparable harm you’ve done to the reputation of the paper by not appearing. That’s it.’

He goes over to John Lennon and he came over to me and he gives me a bawling like you’ve never heard, you could hear it all over the backstage. ‘We’ll never fucking appear for you again as long as we fucking live, you can’t do this to us, don’t you know who we are?’  I said ‘sorry Brian, I have no choice. The Stones have got it in writing that they go on before the poll awards. There’s nothing you can do about it. I can’t change it. I’ve given it to the Stones in writing and that’s it’.”
(Source : interview with Simon Spence, 1997)



Tony Bramwell : They were busy around that time doing the Revolver album, It was pretty much an in and out job for The Beatles. By that time, they weren't playing as well as before, because they couldn't hear themselves through the screaming, and I remember that getting the opening feedback note of I Feel Fine always gave them trouble on stage, but luckily no-one heard it there anyway.

Alan Smith (reviewer, NME) : Suddenly The Beatles were there, dressed in beetle-black and standing by to give their first live performance of 1966. John stood astride in the familiar Lennon style, shoved on a pair of brown sunglasses with familiar Lennon panache, and belted straight into the vocal of I Feel Fine. The screaming seemed to reach the kind of level that only dogs and A + R men could hear.

Muff Winwood : We'd never actually seen The Beatles playing live before. We were sharing a dressing room with The Alan Price Set, and their trumpet player John Walters convinced us that this was a historic occasion because we'd never see The Beatles and The Stones on the same stage again. But we were stuck in the dressing room, so all we could do was pile boxes on top of the benches, peer out through these tiny slat windows just below ceiling level, and try to see whatever we could through the audience, who were seated directly outside the slats. So we saw The Beatles, but it was impossible to hear them.

John Walters (trumpeter, Alan Price Set) : The screaming was like a blanket of white noise. The only music I remember actually hearing was the guitar intro to Day Tripper, then it all disappeared into the screaming. When their twenty-minute set ended, The Beatles raced off stage with their NME Awards in their hands, and ran down the ramps towards the limo which was already revving up, and they literally threw their awards to their assistants who seemed to be waiting there for exactly that purpose. Then they were into the car and it moved off with The Doors still flapping.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, for Mojo Magazine)