“The Big Show” (1965)
In 1965, the Century Theatre in Newcastle hosted ‘The Big Show’. The lineup included major British artists of the time, such as the Honeycombs, Tony Sheveton, Manfred Mann and The Kinks.
Unearthed NBN Television Footage of the Kinks
The footage below, located within the archives of NBN Television and digitised by the GLAMx Lab, shows some of these artists firstly catching the Koondooloo, one of Newcastle’s famous ‘punts’, and then, being greeted in front of the Great Northern Hotel, by hundreds of ecstatic fans.
Ray Davies’ Account of Newcastle
Despite the warm welcome this is Ray Davies’ account of his time in Newcastle:
“But as tours went this tour was pretty dull really. There were more old queens in Australia than you would care to imagine. I remember after a gig in a small city – Newcastle I think it was called – there was such an absence of crumpet that a couple of members of our tour staff dressed up in drag and we had a party. I mean, these guys were on the surface very butch Aussies and a decade or two older than us, but one of them was dressed in a grass skirt and had lipstick on. He pinned me against the wall, put his lips right close to mine and asked if I wanted to do it with him’ All Day and All of the Night’. I mean, Aussie woofters, forget it. Much too serious to get emotional about. The only thing that sustained me was the thought of those wonderfully masculine childhood cricket heroes. It was a sad night at the hotel all round, I seem to recall. Manfred came in and complained that Paul Jones had been the only person who was capable of attracting a chick who resembled something other than a kangaroo, and after a walk around the town, Manfred had gone back to his room and walked in on another member of his group and interrupted the poor chap’s wank” – Ray Davies, X-Ray, (1994) p.210.
Davies, R. (1994). X-ray. New York: The Overlook Press, p.210.
Post curated by Camille Elettra Brogi (WIL Communications student)
Video Edited by Camille Elettra Brogi
Digitised by Phillip Lloyd in the GLAMx Film Digitisation lab, Cultural Collections, University of Newcastle (Australia)