The 14

The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, Alexandra Palace, London, April 29 1967 - Man Alive! What Is A Happening!, Broadcast, BBC 2, Wednesday 17th May 1967 At the time, The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream was described as a multi-artist event, featuring poets, artists and musicians. Pink Floyd headlined the event. other artists billed included - The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Soft Machine, The Move, Tomorrow, The Pretty Things, Jimmy Powell & The Five Dimensions, Pete Townshend, John's Children, Alexis Korner, Social Deviants, The Purple Gang, Champion Jack Dupree, Graham Bond, Savoy Brown, Ginger Johnson and his African conga drummers, The Creation, Denny Laine, The Block, The Cat, The Flies, Charlie Browns Clowns, Glo Macari and the Big Three, Gary Farr, The Interference, Jacobs Ladder Construction Company, Ron Geesin, Lincoln Folk Group, Mike Horovitz, Poison Bellows, Christopher Logue, Robert C. Randall, Suzy Creamcheese, Sam Gopal's Dream, Giant Sun Trolley, Simon Vinkenoog, Jean Jaques Lavel, The Stalkers, Utterly Incredible Too Long Ago To Remember Sometimes Shouting At People, Barry Fantoni, Noel Murphy, Dick Gregory, Graham Stevens and Yoko Ono. In the audience watching Ono's performance art that night was John Lennon who attended the event with his friend John Dunbar. Lennon had met Ono a year earlier when he attended a private preview of an exhibition of her work entitled "Unfinished Paintings and Objects" at Dunbar's Indica Gallery. There were two main stages inside the hall, with a smaller central stage designed for poets, performance artists, jugglers, dancers including The Tribe of the Sacred Mushroom), Philippine dancer David Medalla and The Exploding Galaxy Dance Troupe. The largest stage for the main events, constructed along the rear wall, was flanked by the large glass windows of the Palace. Light shows and strobes lit up every inch of available space from a massive light tower at the center of the hall. Underground films, (most notably the Flaming Creatures) were screened on white sheets taped to scaffolding. The center piece was a helter skelter which was rented for the night. Pink Floyd appeared right at the end of the show, just as the sun was beginning to rise at around five o'clock in the morning. The details of the set-list are rather sketchy; however, one source suggests that they played "Astronomy Domine", "Arnold Layne", "Interstellar Overdrive", "Nick's Boogie", and other material from their then unreleased debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Apparently, Pink Floyd members were exhausted from playing another gig in the Netherlands that same night and arrived at Alexandra Palace at around three in the morning. A film crew were on hand to capture footage of the event, some of which was shown as part of the BBC show Man Alive, about the concert. A short excerpt of The New Animals can be seen performing, as can John Lennon in the crowd. Photos of Pink Floyd's set clearly show that some of theirs was also filmed, but the footage has never been seen.

• published: 06 Jul 2017
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