It Was Fifty Years Ago.

When I got my invitation to re-join the recycling crew at this year’s Glastonbury it reminded me that it is now fifty years, half a century since my first ever music festival. The Great Western Festival. In 1972 I was twenty years old. If somebody had said that I would still be going to festivals at the age of seventy I would have thought they were bonkers. Old people didn’t go to festivals in those days when outdoor music events were still in their infancy.  How things have changed. This festival was held near the village of Bardney in Lincolnshire. The reason I wanted to go was that my favourite band The Beach Boys were on. I had been a fan since 1964 and this was the first chance I had to see them. My college friend Robin thought they were uncool but still reluctantly agreed to go. Five of us, me, Robin, Linda, Jacky, Bill, and Robin’s dog Dylan all piled into Bill’s old van and we set off. The organisers hoped it would be the biggest festival in Britain since Jimi Hendrix at the Isle Of Wight in 1970 and 100,000 people were expected, but It turned out to be a financial disaster. Only 30,000 turned up, mainly due to it being held on the last weekend of May which is much too early in the year for a festival. The fact that it rained all weekend didn’t help either. Also, although the line-up was strong in depth, it didn’t have a legendary headliner like Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones who would pull in a vast crowd.

It was badly organised. They didn’t even have proper car-parks. We parked in a cornfield. A lot of crops must have been destroyed that weekend. Unlike today, not so many young people had cars in 1972, so thousands of people hitch-hiked to the site with just a sleeping bag slung over their shoulder. You don’t see many hitch hikers these days do you. Another change from festivals of today is that there weren’t any proper campsites. Hardly anybody brought a tent. You just found a spot in front of the stage and that is where you stayed for three days. We made a kind of shelter from hay bales, but it eventually disintegrated. A lot of people sheltered from the rain under plastic sheeting. 

Another difference these days is that festivals have lots of different stages and you can wander from stage to stage. I can only remember one stage at Lincoln. I think there was meant to be a Folk tent, but it blew down in a gale the night before it started, so they abandoned that idea. Also, at Glastonbury these days there are beer tents and cider tents everywhere. People always have a drink in their hand, but back in 72 I can’t even remember a beer tent, although I suppose there was one. Young hippies in those days thought alcohol was for idiots. The place stank of pot though and lots of people were tripping on acid. They even had a ‘bad trips’ tent for people who were freaking out. The police were running up cricket scores of people arrested for possession of a bit of dope. These days most of the time they just turn a blind eye to it.

When we arrived on Friday evening the headliner was the great Rory Gallagher. Rory said, "I'm sorry about the rain, but we'll pretend that it doesn’t exist at all!". It was the only time I ever got to see Rory perform live. We were drenched by the rain, but we didn't care as Rory's battered old fender wailed and Rory sang the blues..I scored a tab of acid on the second morning, a purple haze microdot and spent most of Saturday sat there tripping my head off. I remember Humble Pie with Steve Marriott played a great set, and Lindisfarne who were one of my favourite bands in the early 70s. Stone The Crows with Maggie Bell performed although their guitarist Les Harvey had died a few weeks before when he had been electrocuted. The Strawbs also played that afternoon, but I don’t remember anything of their set. Slade were on in the evening who the hippy audience didn’t like much because they were seen as more of a pop group. They were followed by Monty Pythons, it was surreal, with the whole team on stage doing things like the dead parrot sketch.

Roxy Music.

I was really mellowed out by the time The Beach Boys came on. They were great, even though Brian Wilson wasn't with them, but they had Rikki Fataar and Blondie Chaplin in the band. Even our dog Dylan pricked his ears up and listened when they performed Surfin’ USA because I was always playing Beach Boy records at home. They were so slick and professional they made a lot of the other bands sound like amateurs. When they finally left the stage I said to Robin,

"Weren't they brilliant!"

"Only just", he replied.

Genesis.

The highlight for me on the last day was Don McLean. When he sang Vincent a rainbow appeared in the sky behind the stage, which was a great moment. Other bands on that day were Genesis, Roxy Music and Status Quo. The last band on were Rod Stewart and the Faces. They were all obviously pretty drunk, but still entertaining. Rod was a great blues singer in the early days before he went all show-business. He said at the end,

"One more number and we'll knock it on the head".

They finished with Maggie May. We set off on the long journey home, and that was the end of my first ever festival.