the sabres

The Sabres – Early 60’s Eastbourne Seafront.

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supplied by Len Smith Eastbourne Bands From 1960 on.

Here’s when they played the pier in 1964.

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Andre Palfrey-martin collection

Roy Penfold… These teenagers and their raves…..I just don’t know what the world will come to!

Alan Esdaile… Lots of the gigs were called raves in those days. I wonder when it first appeared.

Glynn Brown… I have a feeling they were the support band when the Honeycombs performed on Hastings Pier in the early 1960’s.

Andre Martin… You are right Glynn when they changed their name to Shelly…. this week we have The HoneyCombs and the support from Brighton – Shelly – formerly known as The Sabres, who were about to embark on a future playing in Europe, and would become top names in both Denmark and Scandinavia within the next few years. This was to be one of the last appearance from the band in Hastings.

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Andre Palfrey-martin collection

Keith Flanigan… Anyone know the names of the guys in the Eastbourne band the Sabres, back in the early 60s.

Alan Esdaile… you were asking about The Sabres line up. Pretty sure its the same line up as Shelley????

Ken Copsey… Love the Wem Watkins Dominator, matching Copicat and Burns Sonic guitar.

Keith Flanigan… 1963?

Mike Archer… Just picked your post. Two of the members were Stuart Hinchliffe and Dick(?) Plant

 

Rolling Stones – Hastings Pier 1st August 1964 by Andre Martin

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all cuttings Andre Palfrey-martin collection, pier crowd photo Coz ‘Swoz’ Booth from Alex Chapman West Marina To Hastings Pier. 

ticket for sale… https://www.tracks.co.uk/product/rs613-rolling-stones-1964-hastings-pier-ballroom-concert-ticket-stub-uk/

Dateline – August Bank Holiday 1st August 1964, and here we are all poised for another great weekend in The Happy Ballroom – headline act this weekend The Rolling Stones, making their 3rd visit to Hastings, and this was going to be a good night, as they had just had 2 weeks in the no 1 spot on the UK Charts with “It’s All Over Now “ – a number penned by Bobby & Shirley Womack and had been originally released in the US by the Valentinos. The Stones had raved about this song when they first heard this on the Murray the K Show earlier that year. For those who like FACTS – it was The Beatles, with “ A Hard Day’s Night” that had pushed The Stones off the No 1 spot the previous week. Because of the popularity the prices had risen to 10/- admission. The supporting bands were The Worrying Kind and The Sabres – both of which were well know to the patrons of the Happy Ballroom. So nothing very different than a normal Saturday night in The Happy Ballroom – but as we all know things were about to change. Because of the very recent chart success of The Stones, more than normal crowds began to arrive at the Pier, also being a Bank Holiday extra visitors, looking for a long weekend added to the interest. Because of the numbers of fans it was agreed that to get the band onto the Ballroom, different tactics should be used, and in this instance the famous disused ambulance delivery would be used. I have attached with this amongst the photos, a copy from the after-action report from the Police giving more details of this activity. Well as we all now know, this was going to be the start of a very different weekend for Hastings, and one that would be branded – Second Battle of Hastings. The night before – 31st July – Ready Steady Go would include – –The Kinks – “You Really Got Me.”
–Manfred Mann – “Do Wah Diddy Diddy.”–The Four Pennies – ” Found Out The Hard Way.”
–Kenny Lynch – “What Am I To You” (or “My Own Two Feet”). -Simon Scott – “Move It Baby.”
–Peter Lee Stirling –The Shevelles -The Leroys
This had set the musical scene for the Bank Holiday. Along the seafront at the very recently opened The Witch Doctor, was planning a weekend that would have included Saturday night – from Coventry “ The Avengers “ and Sunday “ John Lees Ground Hoggs”.         Andre Martin

Clifford Rose……I’d like to have seen the Alex Harvey Soul Band. Same Alex Harvey before the rock band.

Andre Martin… The crowd photo,  just prior to the Rolling Stones Appearing in the Happy Ballroom, this was part of the build up to the second Battle of Hastings as the press and TV branded the Bank Holiday Weekend.

Sue Verrall… The Sabres supporting wow !!!

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Barron Knights – Hastings Pier 13th June 1964 by Andre Martin

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barron knights

all cuttings Andre Palfrey-martin collection

The month of June 1964 continues to be fairly warm if not a little wet, and here we are again on Hastings Pier eager to make our trip to the Happy Ballroom, for tonight on the bill be have the ever popular Barron Knights and support comes from a Eastbourne group who we have seen many times before The Sabres.
Hailing from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire when they started in 1959, they were a straight pop group, and spent a couple of years touring and playing in UK dance halls, before the obligatory trip and time in Hamburg, West Germany. In 1963, at the invitation of Brian Epstein, they were one of the support acts on The Beatles’ Christmas shows at the Finsbury Park Astoria in London, and later became one of the few acts to tour with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. They first came to fame in 1964 with the number “Call Up the Groups” (Parts 1 and 2). It overcame copyright restrictions and parodied a number of the leading pop groups of the time including the Searchers, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Dave Clark Five, the Bachelors, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. The song imagined the various artists singing about being conscripted, or “called up” into the British Army, although actual conscription had ended in 1960. The single released in the summer of 1963 entered the charts in July that year climbed to number 3 and remained in the charts for 13 weeks. As an example, the song “Bits and Pieces” by The Dave Clark Five was parodied as “Boots and Blisters”. It is quite on the cards that this number could have been introduced to the audience in The Happy Ballroom on this appearance, and as such we could have been some of the first to see the new format of Comedy from the Boys.
Back in the last 1970s, I worked many times with the group when they appeared in Cabaret in various clubs and service bases in this country, and their act by then included a lot of sketches and one liners that had been part of their Television Shows in the UK.
As with so many groups at this time, there were alway changes, and sometimes tracking down their histories is difficult, because, people at the time never kept details, photographs, datesheets etc. The Sabres, who for several years had entertained us in the south-east were about to reinvent themselves and become The Shelley and it was from mid 1964 that these changes would take place, and we would see this happen ……. But more about later in the year.

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Double Rave – Patrick Dane & The Quiet Five plus The Sabres – 1964

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10153788_10202685815164559_5973903564718621544_n all photos & cuttings…..Andre Palfrey-martin collection

Andre Martin… To many this weekend will be a Bank Holiday, for us back in the 1960s, this was just another weekend, even though it did include the beginning of May. The History of the Happy Ballroom on Hastings Pier continues. Here we are Saturday 2nd May 1964, and have a return visit from both of the bands playing tonight, this did seem to be a regular feature over the years, and when you think of the number of venues throughout the country, many of the groups appeared with regularity, just to meet the demands of a growing pop music industry.
Top of the Bill tonight are Patrick Dane and The Quiet Five – The Quiet Five formed in the early ’60s in London, first as the Trebletones before changing their name to the Vikings. As the Vikings, they did manage one side of a 45 single, the instrumental “Space Walk,” whose title was changed to “Gemini” when it was eventually issued by Columbia. The Vikings became the Quiet Five, however, in 1964 when they became the backing band for singer Patrick Dane, the Quiet Five split from Dane to go out on their own, signing with Parlophone, where they were produced by Ron Richards also responsible for production for the Hollies.
The supporting group, were well know and very popular from Brighton original members were Dick Plant from Eastbourne, James Hazeldene, Stuart Hinchcliffe and Geoff Cooper from Brighton, the group would later this year change their name to The Shelley, and embark on a impressive career working in Denmark and Scandinavia which would keep them working outside of the UK for the next 15 years.
That’s all for this week in The Happy Ballroom – somebody asked me the other week, when was this tag given to the Pier Ballroom, so far I have traced this back to publicity issued in 1956 and will keep searching.