Which meant it was more than likely the young rock fan was going to having to sit through 90% of rubbish to see just one group that were of interest. Once over that was it for another week.
They were austere times in the extreme. No wonder such fascination built up around those groups that had made it to the television (BBC) studios.
Mercifully in 1968 something new emerged for the rock fan who considered themselves a proper music fan, in the space of a half hour slot aired later in the evening.
Colour Me Pop with it's unambitious title came at the advent of colour broadcasting on television and however much the title uninspired it was the first show to just concentrate on one or two artists a program rather than then the mash of pop chart single acts. These CMP performances gave the chance for a band to play part or most of their album material.
For the serious young rock fan this at last was a way to sample the lesser known names live in the studio. This new look at modern music was not the centre piece for some banal self publicising DJ that the Top Of The Pop's format was focused on but just the presence of the group with often just titles announcing the next song. A bliss one might think even today.
Over one year Colour Me Pop had a regular once a week half hour slot and had a list of some 51 groups appearing on the show. They included some of the most contemporary groups of the time -
Fleetwood Mac, The Kinks, Spooky Tooth, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, Jethro Tull, The Nice, Julie Driscoll and The Brian Auger Trinity, Chicken Shack, Ten Years After, Caravan, Free, Family.
In 1969 the program was ended, but after the obvious rise in this new young audience the format was soon to be extended and renamed to The Old Grey Whistle Test.
It's a complete travesty that the BBC lost or wiped all of the episodes of Colour Me Pop apart from just 4 which are kept in their archives.
The Old Grey Whistle Test was to reign during the 1970's years on and had a very different life.
Colour Me Pop was just one year of broadcast but it captured a complete slice of 20th Century pop culture and the artists at the end of the 1960's.
Fortunately some videos still surface and can be seen on YouTube.
Here is one. The Moody Blues (14 Sept 1968).
And if you can get over the fact that with the band having one of the most 'turned on' audiences the singer actually does the performance dressed in a tuxedo, that aside, The Moody Blues could really deliver a good song.
