In the 1960’s Great Britain became the leading nation in the world for pop- and rock music. This change originated with The Beatles who took over the torch from the waning American music stage and their near-monopoly of rock music.

In the wake of The Beatles a stream of other British bands got the taste for conquering the world.

When a new British band needed some touring experience, Scandinavia was usually the first place that they were sent. The Beatles’ first tour abroad (besides the early night club shows in Hamburg) was to Sweden in the fall of 1963, as the Danish promotors had given the long haired guitar band a firm no.

The Beatles would only be the first of the big British bands to visit Scandinavia very early in their careers: Soon after and close on their heels were The Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Later in 1968, rock gods Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple actually played their debut concerts in Denmark. Black Sabbath and Queen were also sent to charm the Scandinavians early in their careers, as were a number of other bands like The Move, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, T-Rex and many, many more.

All these tours are barely mentioned in all the zillions of biographies written about these massive bands. It is to set this record straight that Flying V Books have launched the series Unseen Nordic Archives where author Søren Vangsgaard has excavated numerous rock archeological finds of exciting stories behind these tours.

The books are crammed with unknown and rarely seen photos from both professional and private photographers, interviews with people who met the stars and looked after them, reproduced memorabilia, as well as, newspaper articles and reviews from the time.

The series gives a fascinating insight into this, mainly, unknown or forgotten period of rock history, putting Scandinavia firmly in the centre of the world rock stage, when many of these big groups were being developed into megastars.

Two volumes have been published to date: Led Zeppelin: Denmark 1968 – 1970 and Jimi Hendrix: The Nordic Concerts 1967 – 1970, but further publications are planned on The Beatles, Pink Floyd, for Autumn 2019 and The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, The Who, Queen and Deep Purple in 2020.