The Social Deviants part 2 Live in Hyde Park 1969 Converted

EDIT VIDEO The Deviants (having long since dropped the 'Social' from their name) played at one of the Hyde Park free gigs put on by Blackhill Enterprises just prior to leaving the UK in 1969 intending to play a gig or two in newish guitarist Paul Rudolph's home town Vancouver and then return to London. It didn't work out quite that way. They'd recently released their 3rd album, imaginatively called 'Deviants 3' and the first to feature their new Canadian guitarist who had taken London if not by storm at least by blasting a more psychedelic breeze through their ranks than his mod-fuzz predecessor Sid Bishop who'd liked to be credited with 'interference guitar'. Deviants singer and main focal point Mick Farren found this to be a mixed blessing - some people began to take the band a bit more seriously and thought Paul could do no wrong, but it left Mick (whose freak politicising had been sort of the whole point up 'til then) metaphorically - and as one can see here, quite literally - sidelined banging a tambourine as the solos increased in length and intensity. Mick didn't want to bang a tambourine. In Canada the band found there were no return tickets booked and not enough gigs to pay the air fare back to London. In short order Mick freaked out on speed, got kicked out of his own band, and came back to London alone to muck about with Steve Took and Twink as a sort of semi-musical drinking gang under the nom-de-guerre Pink Fairies. The remaining Deviants plus legendary roadie and mover & shaker Dave 'Boss' Goodman made their way to San Francisco where they spent the next few months taking in the sights and the sites under the influence of the sort of hallucinogenic stew SF musicians took for granted. (Ironic that Mick had been tripping at the Hyde Park gig and thought of it as a genuine high point in the bands career so far, despite the Deviants usual proclivity for doing the new amphetamine shriek). Part two of this two-part footage from Hyde Park has the Deviants jamming a couple of older numbers together into a form that would later be recognisable as 'Uncle Harry's Last Freakout' - but that was after the Deviants in San Francisco had returned to London, re-christened themselves The Pink Fairies (this time with the focus more on music), and Mick, Took, and Twink had recorded Mick's solo album - confused yet? The fact that all concerned had already played on the up-to-this-point unreleased Twink solo album 'Think Pink' even prior to the Canadian trip surely only adds to the confusion. Part One of this footage includes Farren fave 'Midnight Shift' by Buddy Holly (though Gene Vincent was really his main man) - and twixt the two parts one can see, in retrospect, lines being drawn in the sand - but those lines would always be blurred and in 2013 when Mick died onstage his band was - The Deviants, albeit with some newer members but still with the original rhythm section as featured here in Hyde Park - the realities of friendships, loyalties, and the passage of time proving, as if it needed proof, that these guys are the real deal, and not a flag of convenience or profit. As Mick, and now Boss and later Pink Fairy George Butler leave the planet one by one it's worth remembering the humanity behind the music, Actually Mick was right - this gig in Hyde Park was a high point for the Deviants, and although the return from 'Frisco of the rest of the band only to utilise the Pink Fairy name (something Mick was very much against - he saw it as a 'club name' which could be an umbrella for a variety of ideas) it is interesting to note that behind the footage, Amsterdam Videoheads was in part run but Jack Henry Moore who had worked with the Deviants during their early days up to and including the PTOOF! album. He also filmed Quintessence and the Edgar Broughton Band.

Added 6 Apr 2026