The Mind Stretchers

AWSoP blots out those examination blues

[The Daily Express, Saturday 7 June 1969, reporting the previous day's Procol Harum gig, their second English concert after two years in America, coinciding with the release of A Salty Dog]

 Students notoriously turn a whiter shade of pale when it comes to exams.

So last night it was fitting that they should relax to the sound of The Procul Harum, the group that made A Whiter Shade of Pale a hit parade success.

More than 3,000 students abandoned their studies to hear the group, and three others, at a concert aimed specifically at blowing away those examination blues. The students, mostly from Manchester University's Institute of Science and Technology, gathered on the lawns outside the Institute to hear the three-hour concert.

The groups even gave their services free to help the examinees, many of whom are in the middle of taking their final degree examinations.

The Procul Harum lulled their audience with numbers like Season of the Witch and, perhaps less appropriately, Blues for Everybody. [surely some mistake here?]

The students themselves took to the occasion with gusto. One of them, a third year Optics man, commented: "It is a great way to let your mind stretch before they herd you into that little exam room."