Pink Floyd – The Earliest Known Pink Floyd Concert Poster (October 1966, four months before their debut single)
The only known example of the earliest known Pink Floyd concert poster. Previously undocumented, this poster advertises seven events (including two shows featuring The Pink Floyd, with Syd Barrett) presented by the London Free School during October 1966 at the All Saints Hall in Powis Gardens, London.
These were probably The Pink Floyd’s third and fourth shows under that name, and took place 4 months before the release of their debut single, “Arnold Layne”. They were benefits for the London Free School. Other performers advertised include the British free improvising group AMM, future Pink Floyd collaborator Ron Geesin, and Joel (listed on the poster as ‘Joe’) and Toni Brown, recently arrived from Timothy Leary’s psychedelic community at Millbrook, billed as providing light projection on October 14th.
The London Free School was a community adult education project inspired by American free universities. The organizers of the LFS included Floyd managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King, and the producer of their first single, Joe Boyd. Though short lived, the London Free School helped give birth to The Notting Hill Neighbourhood Service (an early drug and legal advice center in London), the Notting Hill Carnival, the International Times underground newspaper, and the UFO Club (an important venue in the development of Pink Floyd).
The poster is printed on thin green stock, measuring 20” x 30”. In excellent condition, with a name written small and neatly on the back. From the collection of a London Free School participant.
(Note: on page 38 of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s book Inside Out, there is a tiny photograph of a different poster advertising these same Pink Floyd shows, printed by Floyd co-manager Andrew King’s girlfriend, Wendy Gair. As the poster listed here includes two dates prior to the Pink Floyd shows, it’s likely it was created before the poster in Mason’s book, but it’s impossible to say definitively. We know of no other example of either).
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