Chapter 2. 1981, Down by The Pylons.
The 1979 festival was a financial disaster unfortunately
and after 79 there wasn’t another festival at Glastonbury till 1981 but that
didn’t stop us going to Worthy Farm in those two years. There were some small
gigs in a barn up by the farmhouse. They hardly got any publicity, we heard
about them by word of mouth. There was a great atmosphere and they used to have
a bonfire going outside as well. I remember particularly one night seeing Roy
Harper there and, on another occasion, seeing Atomic Rooster. Other people have
told me they saw Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance as well, but I don’t remember that.
The most amazing of these gigs for me though was one Sunday afternoon myself
and Fred went down to Worthy Farm to see The Master Musicians of Joujouka.
These are a group of Sufi Trance musicians from the Rif mountains of Morocco.
They were brought to Glastonbury by a man called Rikki Stein (not to be
confused with the famous cook). He had a lot to do in later years with bringing
a lot of African music to Glasto such as Fela Kuti and many others. The
musicians from Joujouka were discovered in the 50’s by the likes of William
Burroughs, Bryon Gysin and Paul Bowles and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones
who recorded an album with them in 1968 which was released after his death.
It was an incredible and strange afternoon but what made it
even more magical was the fact that as we were leaving, on a perfectly clear
day an inverted rainbow appeared in the sky. You might not believe that you can
get an upside-down rainbow, but I saw it with my own two eyes. I have looked it
up since and it is a phenomenon known as a circumzenithal arc. Look it up for
yourself if you don’t believe me. For me it just confirmed that the Vale of
Avalon is indeed a magical place. The Master Musicians of Joujouka returned to
Glastonbury in 2011 when they opened the festival on the Pyramid Stage and they
also played up at the stone circle.
In the two years leading up to 1981 there had been two
major events. The Russians had invaded Afghanistan which brought Cold War
tensions to a new height and Emily Eavis was born. Both these events
concentrated the mind of Michael Eavis. Concerned about the threat of nuclear
war he had joined The Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament. He wanted to help them
raise funds. This had become extra important when the British and Americans
under Ronald Reagan had agreed to base Cruise Missiles with nuclear warheads at
Greenham Common in Berkshire. The festival of 1981 was the first Glastonbury
Festival to make any money and £20.000 was donated to CND. Glastonbury became
the single biggest donor to this cause over the next ten years and the festival
became known as the Glastonbury CND Festival. Eventually thanks to Mikhail
Gorbachev and his policies of Perestroika and Glasnost which led to the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty the missiles were all gone by 1991 and
with the ending of the Cold War Greenpeace, Oxfam and Water-Aid became the main
beneficiaries of Glastonbury. All this does show the big influence that the
festival has had in trying to make the world a better place.
1981 was also the year that the Pyramid Stage returned. It
was built from local wood and telegraph poles and covered with box-section iron
sheets that Michael Eavis bought from a bloke he met at Taunton market. It was
finished just in time but the huge CND logo that was meant to be at the apex of
the pyramid was too heavy to haul up there, so it spent 1981 in a corner of the
stage. That stage remained in place till 1994 when it burned down. Michael got
planning permission for it to be a permanent structure because in winter the
base of it was used as a cowshed.
It cost us £8.00 to get in. In those days you didn’t have
to park outside the fence. You could park anywhere you want. It was still quite
empty when we arrived. We got a lift there with Mike from Bradford On Avon who
just drove his car in there and parked up in front of the stage and we put our
tents up next to the car. It was hot that year. A good friend of ours called
Pete from Yorkshire came to that festival. He was a great cook and before we
set off for Glasto he made a lot of curry which he put in Tupperware containers
and said that would keep us going for the whole weekend. I stored it all away
in the tent. On the Monday morning when we were packing up to go home I found
all these containers of food and realised that we hadn’t eaten a single thing
all weekend. I wonder why that was. There was a family there that year who we
knew from Bradford On Avon. “I like your wigwam”. I said to them. “It’s not a
wigwam, it’s a tipi!”, shouted one of their kids most indignantly.
Bob Marley had died only a month before the festival which
might have partly accounted for all the reggae music pumping out all over the
site but musically in 1981 my main memory and for a lot of other people as well
was the punch-up on stage between Ginger Baker and Roy Harper on Friday night.
Ginger Baker was on last and the music had to end by a certain time. Roy
Harper’s set went on and on. Eventually Ginger Baker got fed up and came on the
stage and started setting up his drum kit and told Roy to F*** Off. A scuffle
broke out and Roy Harper ended the set being dragged off by the security. So
much for the love and peace, man. New Order played on the Saturday and the
singer/guitarist was so drunk he could hardly stand up and kept lying on the
floor. I also have a vague recollection of the great Taj Mahal playing on the
last night and I think he might have sung a song called CND Blues, but he did
play again another year, so I might have that confused. It was 38 years ago
after all.
On Monday some hippy guy offered to give me and my brother
Paul a lift home in his van, but we had to hang about all day in the blazing
sun while he dismantled his market stall. I was suffering with sunburn,
dehydrated, deprived of sleep and hadn’t eaten anything for days. It was a
relief to finally get home that evening. Glastonbury was over for another year.
