""Pink Floyd in ROMA

May 6, 1968

The first "big Rock Concert" in European history.

'Hip' campaigners push music fete

ROME, May 2 - Girls in mini-skirts handing out leaflets and boys with flowers painted on their cheeks are pounding the streets of Rome in an enthusiastic campaign to publicize the pop music festival which opens here Saturday night at the Palazzo dello Sport. Donovan, Buffy Ste.-Marie, Odetta, the Byrds and a new Beatles'-protegee group called the Grapefruit are among the 23 artists and groups appearing during the four- night festival, which ends May 7. For the benefit of those who have been in Rome too long, Donovan is one of the hottest properties on the Anglo-Saxon pop scene, and Pink Floyd, Move, Soft Machine and Blossom Toes, also on the program, are all selling big in places where the San Remo song festival does not reign supreme. There are a few names on the list which may not mean much even to local experts, but according to organizers the Samurai are the "Beatles of Japan" and Jiri Bre Bek's group is tops In Czechoslovakia.

For confirmed Italophiles I Giganti and I Camaleonti will also be playing. But the main point of the festival, promoters say, is to bring together a sampling of what is happening in pop and rock all over the world Psychedelic music, a "mind- bending" light show and other special effects will insure, they claim, that "what comes out of the Sports Pa- lace will not even be remotely related to what you hear on the car radio."

According to Allan Zion, director-general of this ambitious project, the lack of advance publicity was due to uncertainty as to whether it was actually going through, Though planned since last year, and originally announced for February, the festival's existence was actually in doubt until private West German TV company Bavaria Film agreed two weeks ago to sponsor the event. Bavarials offer came In the nick of time, Zion said. The festival's original sponsors, a young San Francisco couple named Jerry and Patricia Fife, had gotten things rolling but were unable to obtain enough money to carry it through.

"We had to bring some professionals Into the act," Zion explained. "Everybody involved was long on enthusiasm, but short on the classic bits like money and experience. People in the industry wouldn't take a chance on a thing like this."

Zion, himself, who joined the committee in February, is a Paris-based film director who directed the controversial Picasso production "Desire Caught By the Tail" outside St. Tropez last summer.

Despite a series of problems which for a while made the project sound like the pop festival most unlikely to succeed, original enthusiasm has prevailed and promoters are optimistic about the outcome. "Five hundred provos are marching down from Amsterdam and kids from all over Europe are pouring in,' the committee said today. "Everybody's pushing for all they're worth."

The four nights will be emceed bv John Peele, BBC I announcer and once a well- known voice on pirate radio. Donovan. Buffy Ste.-Marie, Julie, Driscoll and the Brian Auger Trinity and French singer Hughes Aufray open the festival on Saturday night. While Traffic, Captain Beefheart and his Majic Band. Samurai, Yugoslav Rovoti-Five Up, Grapefruit. Ten Years After and Fairport Convention follow on Sunday. Association, Odetta. Pink Floyd, Move. I Giganti and Jiri Bre Bek are set for Monday and on Tuesday the Byrds, Soft Machine, Blossom Toes, I Camaleonti, Nice and Family wind things up.

Ticket prices range from 1,500 to 3,000 lire, and subscriptions to all four concerts from 5,000 to 10,000 lire. These are reductions for students. All Orbis agencies are selling them and they may also be obtained from the Sports palace box office.""

La descrizione continua:

“Original ticket stub punched for the two days the show was at the Palazzo dello Sport, a modern indoor sports arena. An article from the "Daily Amercian" newspaper. After a low turnout the show was moved on to the Piper Club for the 7th. An historic recording of The Byrds was made at that time. Rome wasn't yet ready for Woodstock.”