Tour Program: 1966 Show Number unofficial UK tour programme Bob Dylan Beatles Stones etc

This Show Number unofficial tour programme dates from late December 1965 or early 1966 * and was sold outside the UK concert venues where the artists featured inside played until approximately mid 1966. Making the contents relevant involved some research - consulting advance tour dates in the music press, etc - but also a certain amount of guesswork. The emphasis of the coverage was on established and reliable name acts and recent big sellers who looked like they had what it took to maintain that success.

It would have been an earlier version of the booklet - see 'More info' below for how these items evolved - that went on sale outside venues on the Beatles' final December 1965 tour of the UK.* The band are acknowledged alongside their picture as 'still the top pop group in the world today'... but there is just the one photo (earlier programmes had featured several) and its positioning towards the back of the programme reflects the fact that the Fabs had been cutting back on UK live shows for over a year by this stage. The programme makers were probably still hoping for a 1966 UK tour: one was discussed, but as we now know, it never happened.

Right up front on pages 2 and 3 are Bob Dylan and Joan Baez; Dylan because he'd toured in April-May 1965 (as documented in DA Pennebacker's film Don't Look Back), and Baez because she'd not only accompanied him on his jaunt but also made high-profile UK appearances in her own right. Dylan was due to tour again in May 1966 with his controversial new electric band, and this programme would have been sold outside the venues played.

The Rolling Stones had been touring heavily and steadily - two or three tours a year - as headliners i n 1964 -1965 , and the programme compilers will have expected them to be out on the road again by spring 1966 at the latest... As it happened there would be no new tour until the September. But as the UK's number two band, the Stones got the inner back page and are the only act included to get their name in the equivalent of lights: contrasting red lettering.

The Walker Brothers had become the UK's new teen hearthrobs during 1965, and were due to experience the full onslaught of Walkermania on tour with Roy Orbison in spring 1966. They get the back page.

(Sellers could make the programme look more relevant to whatever show they were hawking it outside by turning it back to front, say, in the case of the Walkers, flipping the inner front page over for Dylan or the inner back page for the Stones, thus giving the impression that the artist appearing that night was on the front cover and that the whole booklet was devoted to them.)

Other established artists included: the Kinks, the Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, Herman's Hermits, Cilla Black. Other breakthrough artists: Donovan, Unit 4 + 2.

Condition: Intact. Some superficial creasing. Small mark to top left of front cover.

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More in fo:

In the 1960s, and on into the 1970s, it was common to find people selling booklets like this outside UK concert halls. Even though some of them (like this one) had 'not a programme' in small lettering on the front, that's exactly what the sellers hoped the inexperienced, unwary and over-eager fans queueing to get in would think they were. Only when those fans got inside and saw the official tour programme would they realise that what they had just bought wasn't it.

There were three main titles and three main producers... Show Number, initially by JK aka Joe Smith. He was based in London and started printing and selling this kind of programme in the trad jazz era. He maintains he was the first to do so, and that the others copied him... This is probably true, as those others have suspiciously similar titles and design. Show Souvenir, which wasproduced by Jack Vale of Blackpool, also responsible for Valex postcards. Show Book, by the mysterious Mybry of Pegwell House, London... who later switched the name of their programmes to Show Number, too, just to really irritate Joe Smith. This is a Mybry Show Number: so, a doubly knock-off item!

For all that they were cynical cash-ins, these booklets often had more content than the official programmes... though not all of it strictly relevant to the show taking place at the venue that night. Joe, Jack and 'Mybry' would choose as many of the most popular artists of the day as they could cram into 10-20 pages, and source free or cheap photos of from record companies, publicity departments or direct from photographer contacts. Every few months, they would update the list of artists included to reflect what was hapening on the concert circuit at the time. Sometimes the photos of the artists that kept their place would be updated, too. But not that often...

As the Beatles dominated the charts and toured the concert hall circuit regularly from early 1963, they were pretty much a constant in these 'programmes'. As time went on, the band's photo also started to appear on the cover, and they were given more and more space inside. This one catches them at the other end of the cycle, on their way out of the live venue exit door.

(* Dating this programme: all the artists featured had had successful 1965s and had toured the UK that year and/or were scheduled to in the near future. The Walker Brothers photo shows them holding up the cover of their album Take it Easy with the Walker Brothers. It was released on 26 November 1965, so its unlikely that this programme was printed before mid-December.)

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