WB: They were simply so enormous by then we knew that they’d bring in all the people. But Zeppelin were making it very big in America and we had to have Zeppelin. And Peter Grant insisted their name was double the size of anyone else’s on the poster.įB: As I’d already given my word to Bill Thompson that that wouldn’t happen, he was very cross with me. Led Zeppelin’s fee went up from £500 the previous year to £20,000. WB: All the bands’ fees were much higher for the second festival because we were now competing with the Isle of Wight and we wanted the biggest names. Then the day I collected the posters his manager, Herbie Cohen, rings up and says: “We’ll do it!” We had to reprint all the posters. But, typically, we didn’t hear any reply to our offer so we assumed he wasn’t doing it. It was a very druggy scene but terribly middle-class and correct in other ways.įB: We also put in an offer for Frank Zappa, who was enormous at that time – as big as Led Zeppelin. We had also become very friendly with Bill Thompson, who managed the Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead. People like Flock and It’s A Beautiful Day. WB: The majority were American groups that people in this country just hadn’t seen before – and a lot they haven’t seen since. They put up corrugated iron fences whereas we, like idiots, trying to be nice to the audience, just built up the perimeter fence – two miles of chain-link fence. But they went the whole hog and took on the kids. The Isle of Wight festival also got a lot of trouble that year from the French revolutionaries. And there were all these ‘revolutionary’ hippies from France there stirring things up. By 1970 they’d become, you know, ‘music should be free!’ and we had old Edgar Broughton singing outside – “Out demons out!”įB: Political militancy had grown enormously in just 12 months. The kids in ’69 were so nice, so relaxed. The feeling between ’69 and ’70 was totally different. It became a free festival because they knocked the gates down. But things had changed immensely between ’69 and ’70, because of Woodstock. WB: It was a bit of a panic by then because we’d already signed a contract to have Canned Heat and we hadn’t anywhere to put them! They were big back then and we were determined to get them. So I put together a programme that I thought would draw a lot of people – which it did. Crazy! It was a hell of a gamble but I think people did take more chances in those days.įB: We had to grow in size to compete with the Isle of Wight and I’ve always gone in for overkill. WB: We sold the house and a lot of our possessions to pay the bands in advance for the second festival. By that time, Led Zeppelin on their own would have drawn more than 30,000. The chamber of commerce thought it was great for Bath because it brought in all this money, but they were worried about that many people descending on the centre – and they were probably right. Canned Heat, Steppenwolf, Pink Floyd, Johnny Winter, Fairport Convention, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, Frank Zappa, Moody Blues, The Byrds, Santana, Dr John and many more were invited to join the fray…įB: We tried to do it again the next year and the town council was very much on our side. The bill had expanded from a primarily British affair to a fully fledged transatlantic line-up. Shepton Mallet on the weekend of June 27-28. “We just gave them re-admission passes,” said Wendy, “so they could go out into the town, which was about 200 yards away, and use the public conveniences.” When The Nice had finished, the second stage opened up and Zeppelin came on, and while that was happening I got the carpenters to repair the stage ready for Ten Years After.”Īnd toilets? They had none. “So I got four of my very largest stewards to lie under the stage holding it up while The Nice did their thing. “When they came on and started marching around, the stage started collapsing!” remembered Freddy. Everything went well until The Nice brought “four brawny bagpipers” onstage. There were two stages, about three foot off the ground, constructed the night before. “I think we bought some of them a drink,” remembered Freddie, “but there was no such thing as a rider then.” Inside you might have found The Nice playing table tennis with Ten Years After or Chicken Shack whipping Blodwyn Pig at darts. The Bath Pavilion across the road acted as the backstage area. Wendy cycled across the site from one table to the other, collecting bags of cash. Security wasn’t exactly tight: to collect money from the walk-up audience, they put a trestle table by each of the gates. Everyone had just discovered dope so they were very placid.” One of those wonderful 80-degree days, sunny all day. “It went very well,” was Freddy’s modest recollection.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |