Various Artists - NME Poll Winners' Concert, Empire Pool, London, Britain, 5-1-1966

I've already posted the NME Poll Winners' Concerts from 1964 and 1965. Here's the only other one known to be exist in the public sphere, the 1966 one.

This is arguably one of the greatest concerts of all time, just in terms of sheer star power. The last three acts were the Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles, for crying out loud! That was probably the one and only time those three acts appeared on stage in a row like that.

Unfortunately though... we're missing most of the good stuff, including all of those three performances! So sorry. And worse, of the remaining concert, we are missing half of that too. This concert was at least two hours long. So, to broadcast it on TV, it was split it two, and the two parts were shown on TV a week apart. It's pretty clear to me that only the second part survives, because all of the first part is missing. 

Here are all the musical acts that played in the first part: the Overlanders, Small Faces, the Spencer Davis Group, Roy Orbison, the Walker Brothers, the Yardbirds, the Seekers, the Alan Price Set, the Shadows, and Cliff Richard. If you add all those acts together, plus the ones we do have below (Sounds Incorporated, the Fortunes, Herman's Hermits, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, the Yardbirds, Crispian St. Peters, Alan Price Set, and Dusty Springfield), plus the three acts finishing the second set (the Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles), it's hard to argue this was the greatest collection of rock music talent ever on one stage in the 1960s. It's such a shame we don't have all of it!

Of course, the greatest loss is not getting to hear the Beatles' set. This would turn out to be the very last concert the Beatles performed in Britain, excepting the unannounced performance on top of Abbey Roads Studios in 1969. We do know the songs they played though: "I Feel Fine," "If I Needed Someone," "Day Tripper," "Nowhere Man," and "I'm Down."

To further frustrate you, these NME concerts continued until 1971. I couldn't find many details about the concerts after 1966. However, we know a bit more about the 1967 and 1968 concerts, because setlist.fm gives a list of the performers for each of those years.  

Here's a list of the known performers for the 1967 concert (in alphabetical order): Alan Price Set, Cat Stevens, Cliff Richard, Cream, Dusty Springfield, Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, Lulu, Small Faces, the Beach Boys, the Dubliners, the Move, the Spencer Davis Group, the Troggs. 

And here are the known performers for the 1968 concert (also in alphabetical order): Amen Corner, Cliff Richard, Don Partridge, Dusty Springfield, Love Affair, Lulu, Procol Harum, Scott Walker, Status Quo, the Association, the Herd, the Move, the Paper Dolls, and the Rolling Stones. 

Man, what incredible concerts those would be to hear! Unfortunately though, no known recordings of any of the concerts after 1966 exist. I strongly suspect they weren't broadcast on TV, but I don't know for sure. Let's hope that the remainder of the 1966 concert and all of the 1967 to 1971 concerts are sitting in some vault and will be released to the public one day. 

Now, let's get to why we don't have the recordings of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Apparently, there was a big argument backstage. The popular version is that both Mick Jagger of the Stones and John Lennon of the Beatles argued that they were the biggest band in the world, and thus demanded to go on last. However, it appears this wasn't true. In fact, most of the members of the Beatles and the Stones were friends with each other. 

I found what appears to be the more accurate story at The Paul McCartney Project website. It has an impressive webpage dedicated to this concert, with lots of photos and text. You can find that here:

https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/concert/1966-05-01/

That webpage includes an excerpt from a book that extensively quotes Maurice Kinn, who was the owner of NME at the time. Here's what Kinn claims happened: 

"Halfway through the Stones' set, the four Beatles arrived at the foot of the stairs to the stage, with their guitars in hand. I told them they were 25 minutes early, but Lennon insisted that they were going on. I said they couldn't and John shouted, 'Didn't you hear me the first time? We're going on now, or we're not going on at all.' In a rapidly convened huddle with Brian Epstein, I outlined my dilemma, that I had promised the Stones, in writing, that the Beatles should not follow them immediately onto the stage. I had arranged for the awards presentation to come between the two acts and explained to Brian that if the Beatles did not come on at the previously arranged time, I would be left with no option but to send MC Jimmy Savile on stage to explain to 10,000 NME readers that the Beatles were in the stadium but they weren’t going to play. I explained to him very clearly what would happen then. There would be a riot! Half of Wembley would be destroyed and Wembley and the NME would both sue Epstein. Brian conveyed this to the Beatles and John exploded! He gave me abuse like you've never heard before in all of your life. You could hear him all over the backstage area. He said, 'We'll never play for you again!' But he knew that he had no choice. Fifteen minutes later, the Beatles went on stage, collected their awards and played the show."

So it seems it's true there was an argument involving Lennon, but not Jagger. Jagger was performing on stage at the time and was probably totally oblivious about the conflict going on nearby. While I think Lennon is one of the greatest musicians of all time, he could be an asshole sometimes, and it looks like this was one of those times. Probably the Beatles were sick and tired of giving concerts by this time, and Lennon had lost all patience and just wanted to get this obligation over with.

Be that as it may, the Beatles didn't even allow the cameras to roll when they took the stage, due to the conflict mentioned above. I'm not sure how it came to be that the Who and the Rolling Stones also didn't allowing their performances to be broadcast either, but that's what happened. 

So anyway, while we can lament all the missing music, what we're left with is still pretty damn impressive. And we're lucky to have anything at all, since very few live recordings from 1966 survive. As for the sound quality, it's reasonably good, but not great. Consider this was probably recorded off a TV in 1966, so one has to lower one's standards a bit. I tried to improve it, but there wasn't much I could do, since I couldn't successfully separate the vocals from the instruments, or the instruments from each other. In the end, I just kept it the same. 

In case you're curious about who won the poll awards this year, there's a list at the NME website, which you can see here:

https://www.nme.com/nme-awards/awards-history/1966-606221

Also, note that I found a review for this concert from NME, thanks to the Paul McCartney Project website mentioned above. I included an image of it in the download file. It has comments about all the performances, including all the missing ones.

This album is one hour long. 

01 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
02 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
03 Zorba's Dance [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
04 talk (Fortunes)
05 This Golden Ring (Fortunes)
06 You've Got Your Troubles (Fortunes)
07 talk (Herman's Hermits)
08 A Must to Avoid (Herman's Hermits)
09 You Won't Be Leaving (Herman's Hermits)
10 talk (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
11 You Make It Move (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
12 Hold Tight (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
13 talk (Yardbirds)
14 Train Kept A-Rollin' (Yardbirds)
15 Shapes of Things (Yardbirds)
16 talk (Crispian St. Peters)
17 Send Me Some Lovin' (Crispian St. Peters)
18 The Pied Piper (Crispian St. Peters)
19 talk (Alan Price Set)
20 Baby Workout (Alan Price Set)
21 I Put a Spell on You (Alan Price Set)
22 talk (Dusty Springfield)
23 In the Middle of Nowhere (Dusty Springfield)
24 You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (Dusty Springfield)
25 talk (Dusty Springfield)
26 Shake (Dusty Springfield)
27 talk (Beatles & emcee)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/L5VqhUHF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/GvbEFGJxuHwyVLp/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Sorry if it's misleading to have a photo of the Beatles but no actual Beatles music on the album. At least we do have the recording of the Beatles accepting their awards. This photo was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.