A FULL-HOUSE of 1,100 screaming teenagers attended Darlington's Civic Theatre's first beat concert last night, said The Northern Echo on December 9, 1964. "Outside there were Beatle-type crowds as police, time and time again, cleared a way through for the great guitar heroes."

This was the night of the Five By Five, which saw "Beatmania" reach its peak in south Durham amid quite extraordinary scenes. It was the night when five of the area's best beat bands - each with five boy members - took to the stage for a night of rock 'n' roll.

"It was just unbelievable," remembers Jim Blenkhorn, gig organiser and bassist with the bill-topping Concordes. "When the night finished, we couldn't get out because Yarm Road was so full of people."

The Concordes began when Jim met Phil Kershaw (singer), Doug Yates (rhythm guitar) and Dave Coulthard (lead guitar) beneath Darlington town clock. They were a band in need of a bass guitarist; he was a bass guitarist in need of a band. After a couple of practice sessions in Gainford, he drafted in his drumming friend, Roger Tyrrell, and a local beat legend was born.

Records were listened to, lyrics were written down, chords were worked out.

"I can still remember the night when Dave walked in with the Beatles' Please Please Me LP," says Jim. "He said: 'Whatever you're doing, stop.' He put the LP on and it was 'wow'! Everything changed."

The Concordes' first paying gig was on October 25, 1963, at the parish hall, Barnard Castle. They were paid £6 to perform three one-hour slots - about 50 songs in all - at Barney cricket club's annual do.

From there, south Durham was their oyster.

"We played the school hall in Middleton-in-Teesdale," says Jim. "We had to push the van up the bank in the snow, and we blew the main fuse in the hall.

"Roger did a drum solo in the dark while someone took the silver foil out of a cigarette packet, twisted it up and put it in the fuseboard and jammed the power back on. It must have been a ten-minute solo."

"I was young and fit in those days," adds Roger.

"And fast," says Jim.

On June 5, 1964, they played a Zetland Hunt ball in a marquee at Selaby Park, near Gainford. Also on the bill were the Spennymoor band the Downbeats (featuring Alan White on drums who found international fame in Yes) and the Swinging Blue Jeans, who the previous December had reached No 3 in the charts with Hippy Hippy Shake.

A month or so later, the Concordes played an old pitheap in Shildon along with the Vipers, a local group, and the Searchers, who had just topped the charts with Needles and Pins. This, as Echo Memories has been telling recently, was "Fab Friday".

"It was very cold on the night," remembers Jim. "We didn't get to see the Searchers because, after we got off stage, we piled into the van and shot off to Barforth, near Gainford, to play a barbecue with Acker Bilk."

Acker and his band were staying at the Queen's Head in the village where, naturally, the post-gig party was held. "Acker had just done a commercial for cornflakes and he said the only way he could eat them and munch away happily for the cameras was by putting whisky on them," says Roger.

The next big gig was the Five By Five. The original bill included The Three Pin Square (featured here a fortnight ago), The Vipers, Jet Storme and the Cyclones, The Concordes and The Foot-Tappers. But the Square split before the show, and The Foot-Tappers fell out big time with the rest.

"We draw the line at getting involved in a situation where due to lack of co-ordination, petty jealousies become the crowning issue over entertainment value," they wrote. There was also some muttering about them not wishing to play with "inferior groups" and Darlington's teenage fans were split into two rival camps.

Derek Saint and the Sinners and the Black Nights completed the bill. "Fans go wild at big beat bonanza", was the Echo's headline, and its reviewer's verdict: "Wonderful, wonderful fare for the kids."

The Concordes turned pro. They'd been the semi-resident band at the Majestic in Bondgate for several months, playing Saturday afternoon shows for the youngsters and backing the night's main attraction: Manfred Mann, Unit Four Plus Two, The Merseybeats. Turning pro opened up the Top Rank circuit to them and they played from Edinburgh down to South Wales.

But driving nine hours from a gig in Scotland to another in Monmouthshire and then back to Darlington for bed was tiring.

"It had started out being fun," says Jim, now a transport consultant working in London but somehow still living in Darlington.

"We were young lads on an ego trip, and having a pile of teenage girls screaming at us was very flattering. But we got so hacked off with the travelling, the fun went out of it."

Roger, who now restores vintage cars in Staindrop, agrees. "It became a job," he says.

The Concordes split in September 1965. It was the local equivalent of Take That breaking up. Young fans got up a petition, demanding they re-form. More than 700 signed it in a week.

But the Concordes' minds were made up. College and careers beckoned. "We had reached the end of our natural life," says Jim.

They did a couple of charity gigs in 1985 and, by the wonders of modern technology, recorded a couple of CDs in the late 1990s. But there are no plans for Darlington's first supergroup to re-form.

Published: ??/??/2004

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.