Remember when The Who came to town?

And 50 years ago on Saturday, The Who played what is believed to be their one and only concert in Leigh.

The band – singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon – topped the bill at Leigh Beachcomber.

To younger readers this was a cavern type club behind Bradshawgate, (down the side of the Halifax building society).

Leigh’s music scene at the time could match any venue in the country.

Here we show just one week’s bookings, previous and future bookings would be Them with Van Morrison, the Drifters, Spencer Davis and many more super stars of music.

Space precludes me from naming more, older readers will doubtless have their own memories.

One Friday 21st we had The Baskerville Hounds. It is believed that this was a Manchester Band and not the American band of the same name, although this is unconfirmed, someone out there may know more.

The on the 22nd there was The Richmond Group, a Liverpool rock group who played the Cavern Club on many occasions.

They disappeared in May 1966, as lots of groups did, and reappeared under different names with a slightly different line up.

Neither of those groups would seem to have had prominent musicians but this cannot be said of the group which performed on Sunday 23rd, Revrend Black and the Rocking Vicars.

A rock group from Blackpool, Ian Willis will not be a name familiar but Lemmy will be instantly recognised by many, as the recently deceased star of Hawkwind and later Motorhead.

On the 26th were The Warriors from Accrington, regular visitors to the Beachcomber.

Lead singer Jon Anderson left the group and became to join supergroup, Yes playing alongside Rick Wakeman.

Jon’s brother Tony became lead singer with Los Bravos (Black is Black) and drummer Ian Wallace joined King Crimsonand later Bob Dylan’s group, all massive bands around the early 70s.

The Who of course do not need any explanation other than to say it was probably this night in Leigh when drummer Keith Moon started his drum smashing antics when he stuck his drum sticks in the polystyrene ceiling!