1965

26 recorded events from 1965.

13

Wednesday

Casino

James King and the Farinas

London Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

A Wednesday midweek booking opened the Farinas' 1965 diary at Mecca / Rank's Casino Ballroom on London Road, opposite Leicester railway station. The Casino's Wednesday R&B night was the lower-fee cousin to its prime-weekend Friday and Saturday ballroom dances — paying less but circulating the band through Leicester's teenage-dance regulars every fortnight. The Casino and Il Rondo on Silver Street were the two principal Leicester ballrooms at this point; Lancaster Hall and De Montfort Hall carried the alternate Friday traffic. Line-up unchanged from late 1964: Whitney / King / Kirchin / Ovenall, the Fontana single six months behind them and no follow-up yet agreed with Fontana's Jack Baverstock.

15

Friday

Granby Halls

James King and the Farinas

Welford Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

+ The Searchers (headliner), The Primitives, Escorts, Twylights

Friday-night booking at Granby Halls, Leicester's indoor sports / events arena off Welford Road (demolished 2001) — the same hall that had hosted the June 1964 'Kinky Ball' multi-act package. Bills at Granby were typically promoter-branded multi-act affairs for the teenage-dance audience; no specific co-bill preserved for this January 1965 date, but the Farinas would have been among five or six acts rotating through the evening.

29

Friday

Lancaster Hall

James King and the Farinas

Leicester, Leicestershire, England

Friday at the Mecca-owned Lancaster Hall ballroom on London Road, Leicester — no relation to the Lancaster Hall on Craven Hill, London W2. Along with the Casino (a short walk up London Road), Lancaster Hall was one of the Farinas' two Mecca-programmed Leicester residencies through 1965 — the kind of late-week slot that paid the rent between the scarcer ballroom-package dates at Granby Halls or De Montfort.

20

Saturday

Benn Memorial Hall

James King and the Farinas

Newbold Road, Rugby, Warwickshire, England

Benn Memorial Hall on Newbold Road — the 1900-built Rugby civic hall whose big Saturday-night teenage dances were one of the central Warwickshire diary fixtures for regional beat and R&B acts through the mid-1960s. The Farinas would return here on 14 May (see that date). Bookings at Benn Memorial were run under Rugby Borough Council's civic-hall calendar, separately from the Phil Dix promotions that carried the Tamworth Assembly Rooms diary.

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4

Thursday

Oodly-Boodly Club, Victoria Hotel

James King and the Farinas

Granby Street, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

A Thursday-night R&B-club promotion at the Victoria Hotel on Granby Street, central Leicester — a pub-hotel whose ballroom ran two differently-branded club nights during 1965 (the Oodly-Boodly on Thursdays and the Hootananny on a different night of the week, see 18 November). The hotel was one of Leicester's established Victorian-era meeting-rooms venues that, like the Bell Hotel on Humberstone Gate, pivoted into the beat boom by renting its function room to weeknight promoters.

5

Friday

The Crown

James King and the Farinas

Westgate, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England

A Friday pub-club booking at The Crown on Westgate, Peterborough — a Victorian coaching-inn whose upstairs function room ran R&B nights through 1964–65 under landlord Terry Mullins' booking, a short walk from the Drill Hall where the Farinas had shared a June 1964 bill with Chris Farlowe and a young Rob Townsend on drums with The Beatniks. Peterborough rooms — the Crown, the Drill Hall, St Mary's Hall — were a regular East-Midlands swing for the Leicester R&B circuit.

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6

Saturday

Casino

James King and the Farinas

London Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

+ Quakers

Saturday-night Casino Ballroom booking with Leicester R&B locals The Quakers supporting — a typical Leicester city-centre weekend bill: prime local headliner (Farinas) plus a rising local four-piece opener. The Casino's Saturday calendar was the Farinas' most-played slot of 1965; Quakers would cycle through support billing on several further Leicester dates across the year.

2

Friday

Great Glen Youth Club

James King and the Farinas

Great Glen, Leicestershire, England

Small village-hall youth-club booking in Great Glen — the Leicestershire village south-east of Leicester where guitarist Charlie Whitney's family home stood at 12 St Cuthbert's Avenue (confirmed in the October 1967 Leicester Mercury profile). An informal local date for the band's own village-hall circuit.

1

Saturday

Dungeon Club

James King and the Farinas

Stanford Street, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England

Hal Carter's Dungeon Club — the underground room beneath a Stanford Street warehouse, running since 1963 — was Nottingham's principal R&B venue through the mid-1960s, and the East-Midlands answer to London's Flamingo or Manchester's Twisted Wheel. The Farinas worked into a Saturday-night Dungeon residency across summer 1965 (the 1 May date opened a run continued on 5 June and 3 July). The club sat on the same Nottingham R&B axis as the Beachcomber — the first of two same-named Beachcomber Clubs the band would play across the decade, the other being the Bolton venue.

8

Saturday

Lancaster Hall

James King and the Farinas

Leicester, Leicestershire, England

+ Rod Davies Blues Band

Saturday-night Lancaster Hall booking with Leicester R&B-scene regulars The Rod Davies Blues Band supporting — Davies' own outfit was part of the local blues-scene microbillings that also saw The Shades Of Blue and The Quakers circulate as Farinas supports through 1965. Lancaster Hall's Saturday calendar ran with the Mecca programme; the support-band rotation reflected the Leicester scene's small size.

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14

Friday

Benn Memorial Hall

James King and the Farinas

Newbold Road, Rugby, Warwickshire, England

+ The Rapids

Return Benn Memorial Hall booking twelve weeks after the 20 February date — the Rugby civic hall's Saturday-night teenage-dance diary running through the summer. Newbold Road, Rugby. (Note: the venue is sometimes confused with Leicester's Benn Memorial Hall or Rugby's other civic hall, the Benn Hall; this card refers to the 1900-built Memorial Hall on Newbold Road, Rugby.)

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5

Saturday

Dungeon Club

James King and the Farinas

Stanford Street, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England

Return Saturday Dungeon Club date inside Hal Carter's summer-1965 residency pattern — the mid-booking in a three-date summer run (1 May / 5 June / 3 July). The Dungeon's basement room held around 300 on capacity nights, its jukebox weighted to Motown and Stax imports; an R&B-serious room rather than a teenage-pop one.

10

Thursday

Essoldo

James King and the Farinas

Baxter Gate, Loughborough, Leicestershire, England

+ The Veeble Peeple

A Thursday-night booking at the Essoldo cinema-ballroom in Loughborough — one of the Essoldo chain's many converted 1930s cinemas that doubled as ballrooms on off-nights. The Farinas' Essoldo bill carried the same Veeble Peeple support as the following night's Lancaster Hall date (11 June, see that card) — a two-night local package with the same openers, a pattern typical of how Leicester promoters handled touring through the Midlands ballrooms.

11

Friday

Lancaster Hall

James King and the Farinas

Leicester, Leicestershire, England

+ The Veeble Peeple

Friday Lancaster Hall booking carrying the same Veeble Peeple support as the previous night's Loughborough Essoldo — a two-date local package in the Leicestershire belt. Lancaster Hall on London Road continued as the band's prime Friday Mecca-slot through June 1965.

3

Saturday

Dungeon Club

James King and the Farinas

Stanford Street, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England

Third and final Dungeon Saturday of the summer residency (see 1 May and 5 June) — closing a Nottingham run that had been one of the band's steadiest out-of-Leicester bookings through the spring and early summer of 1965. Hal Carter's Stanford Street basement would continue booking the Farinas through 1966.

28

Saturday

Casino

James King and the Farinas

London Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

+ Beat Donors

Saturday Casino booking with Leicester locals Beat Donors — the medical-pun-named R&B covers group out of the Leicester hospital-student scene — supporting. The Casino's August Bank Holiday weekend programme ran with heavy local-support bookings; the Farinas' end-of-August slot preceded a quieter September before the Walker Brothers Marcam Hall support on 2 October took the band out of Leicester for their biggest booking of the year.

25

Saturday

'Rugby Scrum', Bell Hotel

James King and the Farinas

Humberstone Gate, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

'Rugby Scrum' is the event name — a Saturday-night promoter-branded teenage dance at the Bell Hotel on Humberstone Gate, central Leicester city centre. Not a Rugby-town booking. The Bell was one of Humberstone Gate's pub-club dance rooms, adjacent to the Palais de Danse at the same end of the street — the Humberstone Gate cluster (Bell, Palais, neighbouring coffee bars) was Leicester's weekend teenage-dance quarter through the mid-1960s.

26

Sunday

Casino

James King and the Farinas

London Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

+ Broodly Hoo

A Sunday booking at Leicester’s Casino. Tim Kirchin left the Farinas during 1965 and Ric Grech replaced him on bass, but the surviving evidence does not establish that the change occurred on or immediately around this date.

2

Saturday

The Marcam Hall

James King and the Farinas

March, Cambridgeshire, England

+ The Walker Brothers (headliners), The Quotations

The Farinas' highest-profile booking on documented file — supporting The Walker Brothers at the absolute peak of their UK chart run. The Walkers' 'Make It Easy on Yourself' (Philips BF 1428) had reached UK #1 on 23 September 1965 and held the top spot for a week before slipping to #2 in the week of this booking. The Quotations (Leicester beat act) also on the bill. Promoter Ken Wallis's typical Marcam capacity estimate was around 800; Marcam Hall, March, Cambridgeshire had been one of the East-Midlands circuit's larger rooms. Three months later, on 31 December 1965, fire would destroy the building, ending the Farinas' Marcam Hall relationship cleanly.

6

Saturday

Assembly Hall

James King and the Farinas

Market Square, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England

+ Barron Knights

Assembly Hall Aylesbury — the Buckinghamshire market town's civic hall, running a Saturday-night teenage dance programme through the mid-1960s pop boom. The Farinas returned to the Home Counties circuit in January 1967, playing the Hermitage Ballroom in Hitchin on the 13th and Blaises in London four nights later. An out-of-region weekend booking, indicative of the band's growing reach outside the Leicester / East-Midlands belt.

13

Saturday

Lancaster Hall

James King and the Farinas

Leicester, Leicestershire, England

+ The Rapids, Tony Esquire

Saturday Lancaster Hall booking with Leicester beat act The Rapids and solo singer / Leicester club regular Tony Esquire supporting. The Rapids were one of the Leicester small-club R&B acts that would cycle through the Farinas' support list; Esquire's billing as a stand-alone vocalist (without named backing) was typical of the crooner-plus-beat-group format still carried by Mecca halls.

18

Thursday

Hootananny Club, Victoria Hotel

James King and the Farinas

Granby Street, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

Thursday-night R&B-club promotion at the Victoria Hotel on Granby Street — same building as the March's Oodly-Boodly Club card (4 March) but a separately-branded promoter running the night. The folk-inflected 'Hootananny' branding (borrowed from ABC TV's US folk-revival series) sat alongside the more R&B-leaning Oodly-Boodly and the Bell Hotel's 'Rugby Scrum' — Leicester's mid-1965 promoter-branded weeknight club circuit was thick with evocative one-off event names.

20

Saturday

Casino

James King and the Farinas

London Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

+ Seven Seas

Saturday Casino booking with Seven Seas (Leicester beat act) supporting. The Casino's Saturday-night residency remained the Farinas' most-worked Leicester venue through late 1965, booked directly through Mecca's regional programming rather than an independent promoter.

5

Sunday

Orford Cellar

James King and the Farinas

36 Red Lion Street, Norwich, Norfolk, England

Jack Woodroffe's Orford Cellar — opened 1963 as the city's principal R&B club, a cellar under an electrical-goods shop on Red Lion Street, Norwich, capacity around 150 — the Farinas' first documented Norwich booking. The club would become a regular Family / Farinas / post-Farinas destination across 1966–67 and beyond.

17

Friday

Orford Cellar

James King and the Farinas

36 Red Lion Street, Norwich, Norfolk, England

+ The Joysticks, The Blackouts

Return Orford Cellar booking twelve days after 5 December, carrying The Joysticks and The Blackouts on co-bill — the same two bands that had supported the Farinas at Tamworth Assembly Rooms on 3 October 1964, suggesting a recurring East-Midlands / East-Anglian touring pair on the Farinas-adjacent diary. (Venue context 5 December.)

Personnel Change

1965

Ric Grech joins the Farinas

During 1965, Leicester multi-instrumentalist Ric Grech replaced Tim Kirchin on bass in the Farinas. Grech, born 1 November 1946, also brought violin to the developing group. The available histories establish the year but not a defensible month or day.