Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Bob Marley in South London

Robert Nesta Marley died on this day (May 11) in 1981.

Back in 1999, I was playing three-sided football in Kennington Park with the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (a long story) and somebody told me that Bob Marley had played football of the more traditional two-sided variety there.

I filed this away in my brain and then remembered it today - prompted via twitter that this was the anniversary of the great man's death. A quick google search shows that this was apparently true. In fact the wikipedia entry for Kennington Park states that in 1977 Marley frequently visited the Rastafarian Temple in St Agnes Place, next to the park, while he was in London recording the Exodus album, and that 'He also enjoyed playing football with friends in the park'.

According to Bob Marley Archive, he also played a number of South London gigs including:

1972 - July 22 - Grand Midnight Dance, Commonwealth Social Club, Croydon.
1972 - August 27 - The Telegraph, Brixton.
1973 April 29 - Mr. B's, Peckham.
1973 -May 13 - Mr. B's, Peckham.
1980 - July 07 - Crystal Palace Bowl (some photos of that below)



Can anybody out there truthfully say they were at any of these, or have any other South London Tuff Gong stories?

2 comments:

  1. there used to be this strange stoned guy that hung around palace; i had a chat with him early one morning in 2006 on the grass in front of the bowl ; he claimed to have been there i wrote a little about it http://drumzofthesouth.blogspot.com/2006/08/soul-of-bob-is-in-this-park.html

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  2. Yes, I was at the Crystal Palace Park concert. Should’ve been revising for my O’levels the next day, but wasn’t going to miss seeing him. Amazing. Still got my ticket!

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