Blackpool - Music

Music

Blackpool was notorious for having imposed an indefinite ban on the Rolling Stones from performing in the town in 1964 after a riot broke out among the audience who had found their performance suggestive during their concert at the Empress Ballroom. The ban was lifted forty-four years later in March 2008.

The Jimi Hendrix – Experience video and DVD features concert footage of Hendrix's performance at Blackpool's Opera House in 1967. The Kinks' song "Autumn Almanac" contains the following lines: "...I go to Blackpool for my holidays/Sit in the open sunlight..."

The Jethro Tull song "Up the 'Pool" is about Blackpool, singer Ian Anderson's childhood home. Another Tull track about the beach attractions of Blackpool is "Big Dipper", from the album Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die!

Track 1 of the Manic Street Preachers Album Everything Must Go is called "Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier". It contains the lyrics "20ft high off Blackpool Promenade" amongst others.

The White Stripes recorded their first official DVD, Under Blackpool Lights, at the Empress Ballroom in the Winter Gardens on 27 and 28 January 2004.

Blackpool is the hometown of Robert Smith of The Cure. More recent musical exports of Blackpool include Karima Francis, Litterbug, The Locals, and Goonies Never Say Die. Aiden Grimshaw came ninth on the 2010 series of X Factor. Little Boots topped the BBC Sound of... poll in 2009.