Back to top
172.
A poster designed by David Wills announcing the Oz Police Ball, a benefit concert for the Oz obscenity trial, held at 43 King St., Covent Garden (formerly the Middle Earth club) on March 6th, 1971.
Printed in pink and blue on white stock. 56.2x37.6cm. Illustrated with an old engraving of a Bacchanalian procession of semi-clad men, women and children with cattle and sheep (one of the men depicted has a policeman’s helmet added).
The poster prints the eclectic line-up (Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come, Viv Stanshall’s Seanhead Showband, Gene Vincent’s Houseshakers, the Pink Fairies, Egg, Roy Harper, and “Holding it all together”, John Peel), lists the various ticket outlets, and provides details of another benefit event to be held on the following day at the Rudolf Steiner Hall, near Regent’s Park (The Sensuous Muse, an Oz Benefit Erotic Poetry Reading, promising that “George Melly and Obscene Friends will guarantee aphrodisia”).
Richard Neville, preoccupied with Ink, didn’t attend the concert, but recalls in his memoir that “1500 supporters boogied till dawn and screwed on water beds.”
Fine.
