GUEST POST The night the Walker Brothers played a Market Harborough club

Jo Colley was there when teenage girls ripped off the Walker Brothers' shirts - and she still has a thread to prove it.

Among my CD collection are three late period Scott Walker albums, including And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And Who Shall Go To The Ball? which came out in 2007 with the excellent 4AD. Tucked into my vinyl stash is a Walker Brothers album that I found in a charity shop recently - all their hits, the soaring over orchestrated ballads that I loved at the time, although these days I am much more of an avant-garde minimalist. 

But in 1965 I did go to the ball. The Walker Brothers played the Frolickin' Kneecap in Market Harborough. It was insane, really. They must have booked the venue just before Make it Easy On Yourself hit the number 1 spot. The lads must have been stunned to find themselves in a less-than-one-horse town in the East Midlands, where I was mocked for wearing a beret and a maxi skirt. 

I don’t think I was a huge fan. At age 14, My favourite artists were The Who and Bob Dylan. I was alternately a mod and a New York intellectual. The venue I most frequented in the town was the Peacock Folk Club. But there was no denying these were handsome lads, although didn’t they look old? And so unfashionably well fed. 

I don’t honestly remember how any of it worked. Did we buy tickets or just turn up? It was also my first time in this venue although later I saw Family (a really excellent band). How wonderful to have a venue like this in the town! 

My main memory of the 'concert' is of utter chaos, screaming, and the poor Walker Brothers being nearly torn apart by frenzied teenage girls. They literally lost their shirts. We did not hear any of the music at all - which 

annoyed me even then, as it had earlier at the De Montfort Hall at the Stones concert. I went for the music - and the sex of course, but the music was where the real excitement was. And we did not hear a single note. 

I’m surprised nobody got hurt. I was too far back to do any ripping, and anyway that wasn’t my style. Also I was (still am) very short sighted and was not wearing my glasses. There was ear splitting screaming, a massive press of overheated girls. It was over very quickly and a friend of mine, clutching her hard won bit of fabric, passed me a thread, which is still somewhere in my attic. I have no idea which 'brother; was the wearer of the shirt. 

Jo Colley is a Writer, editor, blogger and maker of poetry films. You can follow her on Twitter.