Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Move, and Pink Floyd Package Tour Plays Coventry Theatre in Coventry

On November 19, 1967, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Move, The Pink Floyd, The Nice, The Eire Apparent, and The Amen Corner arrived in Coventry for two shows. The first show started at 6:30 pm, with the next at 8:30 pm. Jimi Hendrix Experience had a 40 minute stage time. The Move followed him with a 30-minute slot, then The Pink Floyd at 17 minutes, Amen Corner with 12, and the other acts playing whatever fit into their 8-minute time slots. The tour package created about as much excitement in Coventry since the visit by the Beatles a few years earlier.

Vintage Rock Posters offers a $15,000 reward for original concert posters of the Liverpool Empire Theater show. A British printer produced the 30 x 40 quad poster for advertising the band package in London. If you have an original Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and the Move band package poster for any of the cities listed above, please take pictures of it and send them to rareboard@aol.com.

Coventry Theatre

More than 3000 attended both shows. The audience rushed the stage when Hendrix and his band walked onto the stage. Those that did not stood on their seats. Hendrix's uninhibited showmanship and brilliant guitar playing amazed the crowd, playing with his teeth, behind his back, and laying on the stage. The Coventry Telegraph reported that "He can play guitar better with it behind his head than most with the guitar in the more conventional position." The Telegraph noted that The Pink Floyd was too experimental, and the audience got bored and did not appreciate the band's time on the stage. There is debate whether Floyd's guitarist Syd Barrett even played at the two Coventry shows. 

Birmingham's band The Move got a warm reception. They played their top hits "I Can Hear the Grass Grow," "Fire Brigade," "Flowers in the Rain," and their other top hits. Both The Nice and Amen Corner performed well. Amen Corner played "Gin House Blues," and "Bend Me Shape Me." Andy Low's vocals on "Word of Broken Hearts" brought the house down. The Nice, whose music incorporates classical influences, played "The Thoughts of Emerlist" and "Rondo."

The Tour package traveled to 16 towns in the United Kingdom between November 14 to December 5. All bands were popular at the time and well-received in each city they visited. These artists brought their music to the masses by turning up in their towns and cities to play at local concert halls.