1965, The Kinks, The Who, Manfred Man, The Hollies and Gerry and the Pacemakers all appeared on the TV pop show Shindig!
1966, Pink Floyd and Soft Machine played at the UFO presents Night Tripper at the Blarney Club, London, England.
1967, John Lee Hooker performed at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, Michigan.
1967, The Beatles scored their 15th number one with “Hello Goodbye.” Gladys Knight and the Pips were at number two with “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” and The Monkees in the third spot with “Daydream Believer.”
1968, Led Zeppelin appeared at Gonzaga University Gymnasium, Spokane on their first North American tour supporting Vanilla Fudge.
1969, Peter Tork quit The Monkees, buying himself out of his contract, which left him broke.
1969, Yes played at the Van Dike Club, Plymouth, England.
1971, Hawkwind appeared at Public Hall, Wallington, London.
1972, Seventh Sojourn by the Moody Blues is the number one album entering the final week of the year. It resided for five weeks there until being knocked off by Carly Simon’s “No Secrets.”
1972, Brownsville Station, Sha-Na-Na and Bruce Springsteen (who was the opening act), all appeared at the Ohio Theatre, Columbus, Ohio.
1974, Wishbone Ash and Brownsville Station played at Palmer auditorium at Palmer Junior College in Davenport, Iowa.
1975, Aerosmith performed at the Sports Arena in San Diego, California.
1976, Elvis Presley appeared at the Omni Coliseum, Atlanta.
1977, Rush played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
1978, Emerson Lake and Palmer announced their official break up.
1980, Molly Hatchett played at the Lakeland Civic Center, Lakeland, Florida.
1982, ZZ Top appeared at the Convention Center in Tucson, Arizona.
1985, The Grateful Dead performed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, in Oakland, California.
1986, Members of the Neville Brothers sat in during the second set of the Grateful Dead’s concert at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, California.
1999, Former Beatle George Harrison is stabbed four times in the chest during an attempted robbery early in the morning at his home at Henley-Upon-Thames, near London. The 56-year-old musician and his wife Olivia struggle with the intruder and are able to subdue him until the authorities arrive.
2002, The funeral of former Clash singer and guitarist Joe Strummer took place in London. Strummer had died of a suspected heart attack on Dec 22nd, aged 50.
2012, A rare copy of a Beatles LP signed by all four members sold for the sum rejected at auction in Sussex a few weeks earlier. Chris Collins, from Eastbourne, and his sister, Liz Chambers, from Worthing, initially turned down a £12,000 for a copy of the album, Please Please Me. They had hoped to get £15,000 for the LP, which was given to their late father during a drinking session. However, the siblings later accepted the £12,000 from private buyers. The album cover was signed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, after they used it as a drink coaster during a card game in 1963.
Born on this December 30: Bo Diddley (1928); Del Shannon (1934); Kenny Penifallo, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (1940); Michael Nesmith (1942) Davy Jones (1945): Patti Smith (1946); Clive Bunker, drummer, Jethro Tull (1946); Jeff Lynne, ELO (1947); Jon Theodore, The Mars Volta, Queens of the Stone Age (1973)