Summer of Love - in London

In London

London, like San Francisco was also impacted by the popularity of psychedelic drugs, and due in part to the larger metropolitan area and smaller country surrounding it, as well as the fact that the drug laws enacted in the States as a result were slower in coming to the UK, a greater impact was felt on conventional middle-class British culture.

First held in the Irish Dance Hall on Tottenham Court Road, the scene was reopened at The Round House in Camden Town shortly after a police raid in late May. The city was also host to a number of similar events to those held in the United States, mostly around the outer edge of Soho, King's Road in Chelsea, and the Westbourne Park area. These areas were similar to the Haight-Ashbury district in the sense that the areas had already become havens to artistic and other creative people.

One of the anthems depicting the general feel of the times was "A Whiter Shade of Pale" performed by Procol Harum and some of the other major bands that played there included Pink Floyd, T. Rex, and Soft Machine many of whom played the UFO Club, equivalent to the Fillmore and one of the major music scenes during the time. Another large event was the International Love-In at the Alexandra Palace in July of 1967.

Although no funeral per se was held in London that fall, the mood was similarly grim when, just as in the United States, participants prepared to head off to university and eventually go about their equally humdrum existences into which they were expected to subsequently enter as they got on with their lives.

But all was not lost. In addition to all the above mentioned acts, Jimi Hendrix had been in London for over a year and had already garnered three Top Ten UK singles in preparation for the release of his first album Are You Experienced which was kept off the #1 spot of the UK album charts by The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's album, another groundbreaking British masterpiece.

Life was looking up, and, similar to what was happening in the States, the aftermath of the Summer of Love in London featured further merciless pushing of the social envelope, resulting in such an explosion of cultural change as well as such a greater acceptance of alternative lifestyles than in the States, that for the next eight years, London became the center of the counterculture until the decadence of disco invaded America.

Whereupon an entirely different battle for social acceptance was engaged upon by an entirely new group of disaffected young people, who subsequently were able to successfully focus an entirely clearer glass upon still further injustices present in British society.