麻豆社

Through the 1960s, '70s and '80s, the old Malvern Winter Gardens was one of the few places in Worcestershire where you could see decent bands.

The venue hosted everyone from prog rockers to punks, and you entered down a set of stairs into a hall that had bars set at opposite ends of the same room.

To get a drink between the support act and the main band, you needed patience and good elbows!

Many well known names played there.

The main hall had an air of decaying grandeur, but was big enough to attract good names, and small enough to let the audience feel close to them.

That said, if you were small and at the back, you weren't likely to see much if the audience stood up - though in the days of prog rock crowds tended to sit down and listen, rather than jump around and rave.

Roy Burton saw many gigs there: "I have lots of memories, including getting a ride home with the Troggs due to a bus strike.

"I saw The Who in November '64 and May '65 - one show was being filmed for the USA market and it's now out on part of a DVD - I'm leaning against the doorway!

"I saw John Mayall, with Peter Green before Fleetwood Mac, and I saw them loads of times afterwards.

"I also got to gigs by Pink Floyd, Cream, Family, Ten Years After, who opened for John Mayall (with Mick Taylor who went on to play with theRolling Stones), the Yardbirds with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, before they split and Led Zep came out of the set up.

"I also saw Deep Feeling, with Jimmy Capaldi (RIP JIM) - I knew him as well, as Dave Mason, both ex Traffic.

"Other people I've come across include Luther Grovesner (alias Ariel Bender of Mott The Hoople and Spooky Tooth ), Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, Mannfred Mann with Jack Bruce(later to play bass with Cream), Jethro Tull with Mick Abrahams (Blodwyn Pig), who I saw last week.

"When I saw Taste, with Rory Gallager, I saw him at a gig blind drunk, he fell backwards as he was playing and never missed a note.

William Atkinson from Cherry Red Records, promoted many of the gigs at The Winter Gardens, including Black Sabbath, The Who, Free, Hawkwind, The Strawbs, Status Quo, Leo Sayer and Fergal Sharkey: "We realised that we weren't going to make a fortune doing it, but we just did it because it was great."

"We've had a lot of near disasters, I mean, you take Status Quo. We only had 750 people for them.

"Leo Sayer about 400. I think we had less figures than we had higher figures, but usually it'd just tick over nicely about 800 or 900 we used to count for. 1000 was a blessing, 1200 would kiss them all goodnight."

Pat Grizzell found more than just a love for live music at the Winter Gardens: "The Winter Gardens gigs were a big part of my teenage years, in fact, I met my husband at a Barclay James Harvest gig on Saturday, February 16, 1974.

We celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary in April this year so it must have been a good gig!"

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