Every now and then when I'm not in research mode, I'll stumble on a piece of information that fills a gap that I have expended a lot of time and energy on - and had come up short. So late last night as I'm trolling through some of my bookmarked sites a long sought-after piece of information pops up on my screen! I'm currently working on a new diary-type book documenting 10 groups of the British Beat Boom and British Invasion from 1963 to 1967. There are still considerable holes yet to fill but one that had been driving me nuts was a multiple show booking by Freddie and the Dreamers in New York to start off their Fall U.S. tour in 1965. I was alerted to this by a brief note in Variety that said the band would play three RKO Theatres in New York City in one day in a promotion booked by Murray the K. Now, New York generally is pretty easy to locate concert data because of the number of newspapers and magazines that cover entertainment there. But this was incredibly frustrating because it just didn't pop up in any of the research I had conducted. I was able to locate one appearance at the RKO Theatre in New Rochelle shown below.
But none of the others showed up. Leaving it on my to-do list, I moved on. I haven't actively tried to nail these dates down for several months as I continued research on other aspects of the book. So I was floored when perusing the UK eBay site last night and this ad popped up!
Naturally, this brings up a new fact - Murray booked the band in four RKO venues, not three as Variety had reported. So I could have easily missed one had I stopped at finding three shows. Talk about a long day for Freddie and the boys! It also reveals that these shows DIDN'T happen in New York City but in the state of New York, which explains why my searches in NYC papers and mags had not borne any fruit. Such is the life of a rock n' roll historian.
You are a fabulously dedicated historian! Thanks.
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