Rain ! What a jolly bad show !
Stills courtesy Freddy Bannister taken from "Spirit of Knebworth" video
The Archive.
Best viewed at 800 X 600 res or higherThe Knebworth Park Festivals.
6-24-78.
Genesis,Jefferson Starship,Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Devo, Brand X, Roy Harper , Atlanta Rhythm Section.
The view from the mud .
Recollections of festival attendees .
A view of the crowd at Knebworth 1978, if you spot youself, please let us know :-)
Rain ! What a jolly bad show ! |
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Stills courtesy Freddy Bannister taken from "Spirit of Knebworth" video |
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Martin, who took the two photos above , has this recollection .
I actually didn't go to see Frank at Knebworth, as I decided after going to see the Starship at the June 78 Knebworth show that I had had enough of big gigs like that (and anyway, I'd seen Frank twice already that year). I had always been a huge Airplane/early Starship fan, but it was a very disappointing show; Grace Slick had fallen out (again!) with the band in Germany the previous week and flown back to America, so they played without her (I never ever got to see her, nor did I ever see the Dead either btw), and the sound simply wasn't loud enough. It was a windy day, and the music just drifted away with the wind............. as you can see from the photos we were some way back from the stage. I remember absolutely nothing about Genesis' set .........in fact until I checked your site I couldn't even remember who headlined that day! Anyway, I had given up on them after Gabriel left, so I really wasn't very interested.
Roy Harper was for me the star of Knebworth 78.
I went to see Jefferson Starship on their onlyUKtrip and Grace didn’t show due to a big fallout I think inGermany. The band played pride of Man the old Quicksilver track, but frankly were shambolic and unbalanced. Only wooden ships was up to standard. Genesis were superb playing in the fading summer light into the darkness but the unsung heroes for me were Tom Petty with some good straight uncomplicated rock and Harper who was the filler through the day.
Harper and his quintessential Englishness was the perfect backdrop for this festival. In fact his unheralded performances were a delightful surprise and captured the mood of the day perfectly, especially with One of Those Days In England.
I had seen Harper 5 years previously, in fact he played my school, Repton. I wondered what the fuss was about, but on this day and in this setting he was magical.
Bill Sowerbutts
hey, great stuff on your site...i was in the us air force and went to this concert....saw a clip on the tube about genisis and they flashed to knebworth and was looking for a poster from this concert...i was by the american flag you see in the pics on your site....was one of the best concerts i've ever been too.....we were so wiped out after could not even find the parking lot we parked in until the next morning...awesome tunes for sure every band there that day rocked...even starship......knebworth was really a fantastic concert and partying with the brits was the greatest...memories for a lifetime that day!
Thanks, Jim Pickles
That summer I went again to Knebworth for both the Genesis and Zappa concerts. The Genesis set was truly scary. In the middle of 150,000 middle-aged, middle-class, middle-middle fans all singing along with every word. Seeing as I'd seen them in the days of Trespass and Nursery Cryme when Peter Gabriel (A Flower ?) and the band were actually interesting, this was a huge turn off. Much more fun were Devo, although the crowd didn't think so and pelted them with cans.
Noted cartoonist Hunt Emerson's take on Knebworth was , as usual, pretty hilarious
© Hunt Emerson
Used with kind permission from Hunt Emerson who wrote :
I'm delighted that you want to use my strip from all those years ago - I just went and had another look at it. I was a grumpy sod back then...
Please take this as my permission, and go now in peace.
All the best
HUNT
We are short on recollections , can you help ?
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Knebworth Concerts 1974-79
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