Festivals – what are they good for!

As I write this we are in the middle of Festival season throughout the UK and it seems that there are as many as ever before, although I am not sure that I know  what a Festival is, as they can range from 100,00 people at Hyde Park to witness Paul Simon’s last UK Tour, a month of events at different venues in a major city or an afternoon in a pub or friend’s garden, as long as you have Festival or ‘Fest’ in the title then it is ok, although anything that celebrates music, comedy or the arts in general and brings communities together in person should be welcomed and embraced  in my book.

Growing up in the South East of England my first Festival experience was Reading Rock Festival which is almost a rite of passage for teenagers in the area and this is still the case today. After that it was Glastonbury Free Festival long before it became the monster of all Festivals it is today, a friend and I made the long journey South West not knowing at the time the Festival itself did not take place in Glastonbury but a few miles away in Pilton, with no evident signs of public transport and armed with our rucksacks and a tent we purchased from the back of a cereal box that was no way suitable for a seven day event , we put our thumbs out and attempted to hitchhike the rest of the journey eventually getting a lift on the back of a bright blue tractor. One of the bands we specifically went to see was Sphinx led by former Hawkwind sax player Nik Turner who had just recorded their album in the Giza Pyramid in Egypt and he would come onstage wrapped in bandages with his flute crossed over with his sax like a Egyptian Mummy, they also provided the stage for the event which was a scaled down model of Giza so that they could harness the cosmic energy or some such thing, in subsequent years this would become the now permanent and iconic Pyramid stage. I recently looked at the Glastonbury Festival archive page for the Free Festival  which shows a picture of the stage and also includes the blue tractor driven by the lands owner, so I can safely say that for my first Glastonbury experience I was driven to the event by none other than Michael Eavis MBE no less.

In later years I have been involved in a number of Festivals on different levels, and one of the biggest problems putting on an outside event is that you can spend the best part of a year organising, planning and booking in artists but at the end of the day the success of the event will be dependent on the weather. A few years back I was asked to organise a small free event for around 500 people, the location was perfect and the sun shone all day, so instead of a few hundred people five and half thousand turned up, which sounds like a success , but the queues for the bar and toilets were endless and people ended up parking in front of residents houses, which then resulted in angry letters to the council and papers. It needs to be said that there were only a hand full of people who complained and most people appreciated and were thankful for a free event, but it did mean the following year we had to fence off the area, provide security, hire a field for a car park and supply attendants which then meant we had to add a ticket fee and the whole event took on a different feel.

The other issue for all Festivals is getting the right acts to headline which is becoming more of a problem as most of the iconic acts of the 60’s and 70’s are literally dying out and with no real investment in the grassroots music scene and music venues closing down there is little done in the way of developing new artists and allowing them to build a following which would be sufficient to headline a Festival. After last year’s Glastonbury there was a large number of people moaning about Ed Sheeran topping the bill saying that he was a solo act and not a band, but with no real band circuit similar to yesteryear and as most grassroots venues consist of acoustic and open mic nights it is likely that that those sort of acts will become a trend and a regular feature of Summer events. So it is vitally important that as well as enjoying this  years’ Festivals and sunshine that people take time out to support existing music venues this summer as it will be them that will be developing the Festival acts of the future.

Graham Steel 29th July 2018

Graham's Music Blog

1977 ... The Death of Classic Rock?

Growing up in the 70’s I got into music by listening to my older brothers record collection, whilst he was out going to gigs and generally being cool, I was devouring all the notes on album sleeves and reading weekly editions of Melody Maker from cover to cover and when he went to the Windsor Free Festival I was deemed to be too young by my parents to go with him, instead the rest of the family went on one Sunday afternoon with all the children sat in the back of an old Ford Zephyr , with our sandwiches and thermos flask of tea to watch the hippies in their natural environment with strict instructions to keep the windows wound up as if we were in a Safari Park.

It was my brother who eventually took me to my first gig which was Hawkwind quickly followed by Led Zeppelin at Earls Court, he and his friends were the epitome of cool with their long hair, flared jeans and cheesecloth shirts I wore my Clarke's shoes, Flannel trousers and Parka, but none the less they all welcomed me and made me feel part of the gang. The more I got into music the more I yearned to see bands on my own or with my mates and started making lists of acts and shows I wanted to attend like The Rolling Stones, The Who, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer etc, but just as I was getting to an age where I could do this, out of nowhere came the Punk explosion of 1977, my worst nightmare. Suddenly gone were the days of Love, Peace and Understanding which were quickly replaced by Hate, Anarchy and Confusion, the media had a field day and virtually overnight all the bands that I had ambitions to see were now classed as “Dinosaurs” and “not cool”, the fashion was Mohicans and Safety Pins and the Punk Explosion was deemed to be the new voice of music to take over from the old guard.... or so we were told. ....forty years on and history tells us another story.

Even now it is easy to believe the hype that in 1977 Punk changed the face of music for a generation but a quick Google search will tell us otherwise. That same year Led Zeppelin announced they would play the Knebworth Festival with a capacity of over 200,000 people and at a time before the internet and mobile phones the only way to get tickets was through selected Record Shops across the country which would open especially on a Sunday I remember having to travel to London to get mine, even so they all sold out in a matter of days and a second date was added. Also that year Fleetwood Mac released  Rumours one of the biggest selling albums of all time, other albums released in 77 include Hotel California by The Eagles, Pink Floyd’s ‘Animals, Even in the Quietest Moments by Supertramp, as well as releases by Foreigner, AC/DC , Status Quo, Judas Priest, Alice Cooper, Genesis, Thin Lizzy and many more. The following year over 300,00 people attended Blackbushe Aerodrome to see Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton & Joan Armatrading, although Reading Festival made a disastrous attempt to appeal to punks and hippies alike by putting together a line up of Sham 69, The Jam with Status Quo & Lindisfarne, I remember arriving as thousands of people were trying to exit as they were being chased by a few hundred skin heads, I was also mugged later that evening by two guys with a crow bar. Overall it is easy to see that far from being the nail in the coffin of classic rock, 1977 produced some of the finest music we were to hear which even now well outsells some of the more fashionable bands from the time. So perhaps all these years later maybe I wasn’t the “not cool” one after all?

Graham Steel

July 2018