The Night Bob Marley Didn’t Play the Bouncing Ball
Penny Reel, May 2003
IT IS 1973, around the time of the release of Catch A Fire, that Bob Marley And The Wailers are booked to play at Admiral Ken’s Bouncing Ball Club in Peckham.
There is a bit of a buzz about it and tickets are distributed free among the local community in order to generate a strong black presence. Before the gig, his record company visit the Bouncing Ball and decorate its walls with the famous publicity photograph of the late soul rebel smoking a fat spliff.
When the crew arrive at the venue they notice that all these posters are since removed. Challenged about this, the manager of the club, not amiable Ken himself but his officious runaround in a suit, admits the disappearance of the posters as his own doing and says that they can’t have up a picture of a man smoking a spliff, what if police come down the club, rah rah rah.
The Wailers reach and set up onstage. Seeco arranges his percussion tableau, Family Man takes his bass from its case. Bob arrives and immediately notices the missing posters. On hearing the reason why, he declares that a club that refuses to display the poster on its wall is a club that he, Bob Marley, refuses to grace with his presence. Upon which, he leaves.
After he is gone, the club is obliged to refund all monies to the disappointed guests, including that sizeable number given complimentary tickets in the first place.
© Penny Reel, 2003
I was able to confirm that it was April 1973 that The Wailers were scheduled to play Admiral Ken’s Bouncing Ball. It would have been the first show of the Wailers Catch A Fire tour in England. Since the show was cancelled, the first proper show of the tour was at the Coleman Club in Nottingham on April 27, 1973.
LEGENDARY REGGAE 