Dunstable Yesteryear - The Searchers at the Cali
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The Glastonbury Festival last week marked the final performance by The Searchers, the group which became famous in 1963 with their hit record Sweets For My Sweet.
That year they embarked on a hectic concert tour of the UK.
One dance-hall which was packed for their arrival was the California at Dunstable. Their concert on August 5 had been advertised in the Dunstable Gazette as a “huge bank holiday scoop” with the entrance fee fixed at four shillings and sixpence. The photo here, taken during the show, shows part of the audience on the dance floor and on the balcony above the stage.
A trawl through the backfiles of the Gazette reveals, perhaps surprisingly, that the paper did not find space to publish this photograph. But pop groups which later became so famous were quite common in the great days of the Cali. Four days after the Searchers’ concert the dance hall hosted an up-an-coming group called the Rolling Stones, giving them second billing to local favourites Russ Sainty and the Nu Notes (entrance four shillings). The next day there was an appearance by Gene Vincent (seven shillings and six pence).
The Rolling Stones returned in September when the ticket price to see them had increased to six shillings and sixpence. No photos were published of any of these events.
Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society.
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