It was a successor to the UFO Club, which had closed down due to police pressure and the imprisonment of its founder John Hopkins.
Groups that played there included Pink Floyd,[1] The Who, the Jimmy Page-era Yardbirds,[2] Roy Harper, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, July, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band,[1] David Bowie's folk trio Feathers, The Move, The Pretty Things, Fairport Convention[3] and Jefferson Airplane, Eric Burdon and Captain Beefheart.
The main groups playing on a regular basis were Soft Machine, Tomorrow, Sam Gopal's Dream, Tyrannosaurus Rex with Marc Bolan and Steve Peregrin Took (whose 23 September 1967 concert at the venue was released as the 2000 live album There Was A Time), Social Deviants, the pre-Yes Mabel Greer's Toyshop and the Graham Bond Organisation who was a regular visitor and performer.
Others included The Exploding Galaxy dance group, and The Tribe of the Sacred Mushroom, who, headed by Lin Darnton, had performed a play based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
[citation needed] The club was closed down in mid-1968 and after holding events at a few venues settled at the Roundhouse where it put on The Doors and Jefferson Airplane for four performances over two nights in September 1968.