The Wimbledon Palais was one of the chief musical venues in South London in the 1960s. Opening in 1909 as a roller-skating rink, it became during the First World War an airship and balloon factory, and returned to the public realm in 1922 as a ballroom (the Wimbledon Palais de Danse). For good short histories, see this page and the page linked underneath the first picture below.

A very provisional list of the major bands that played at the Palais is given at the foot of this page.

For the main page on the early AC100s used by the Rolling Stones, see here.

This picture is from the Merton Council archives. Note that the stage faces out from the long wall - ie. the hall was used transversely instead of longitudinally.

On 14th August 1964, the Stones, who had already played the Palais on the 24th January, were photographed from back of stage. The shots capture an AC80/100 which seems to have served as the amp for Bill's bass and one microphone - in the picture both inputs are being used. The second mic went into the thin-edged AC50 beside it.

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The serial number plate is centre on the back panel. There are (unusually) two screws along the top edge. The mains connector, lower right, is a large round Bulgin. A rectangular Cannon XLR outlet abuts the plate to the left. Further over to the left is a circular Cannon XLR. Possibly between them is a 1/4" jack plug outlet. Also visible are two white connectors (?), unused and of unknown type.

Volume is all the way up; treble is down, as probably is the bass. The bass control on AC80/100s regularly works "backwards".

This may either be the brown-fronted amp seen at Longleat on 2nd August and New Brighton on 10th August(pictures below), in company with a small box AC50 and two AC30s:

Longleat

Longleat

New Brighton

- or a replacement, as seen on stage in September:

Hull, 21st September

Note that Bill's amp and two Foundation Bass cabs have black grille cloth. Brian's cab and AC50 have brown.