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Last update July 2008. New recollections.
The Knebworth Park Festivals.
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Knebworth Park Concerts August 4th & 11th 1979. |
The View from the Mud : Recollections.
Knebworth Park Concert .
8-04-79.
Led Zeppelin, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes,The New Commander Cody Band, Fairport Convention ,Chas and Dave.
8-11-79.
Led Zeppelin, New Barbarians, Todd Rundgren's Utopia , Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes,The New Commander Cody Band,Chas and Dave.
Hello my name is George. I attended knebworth on 8-4-79.I can't say whether there were 100,000 or 300,000 I can only tell you from where I sat there were people everywhere .I was stunned to hear it was not a profitable venture .There was a point during the festival where the crowd started to clap then stamping their feet , it felt like an earthquake. Maybe some scientist can calculate how many people it takes to make a sizeable place like Knebworth to shake . Regardless of all the problems I am so glad Zeppelin played and I was so lucky to be there. That concert is something I will never forget as long as I live. .I would love to see a video of it from start to finish , I guess I may have to wait another 25 years .Thanks for letting me talk about the concert of as lifetime . I'll be back to see what's new. George Vassil |
Knebworth 79 sweatshirt, click to see larger image |
Zeppelin onstage 8-4-79 photos © Ove Stridh |
Hello My name is Barbara
Bergman ( Gibson in 79) I just came across your site.I was at Knebworth
in 79 and 78 the most amazing experience of my life!.I lived in
Hertford Heath near Haileybury College until I married and moved to the
US in 85. I watched a DVD of Led Zep a couple of nights ago with them
at Knebworth the most wonderful memories came flooding back.Who knew it
would be john Bonhams last and that we all witnessed history. |
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Crowd 8-4-79 |
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click on the photos to see larger versions
We were there with Todd Rundgren, whose manager Eric Gardner was a friend. That Saturday, Todd was wearing a skintight fuchsia pink jumpsuit; I have some transparencies somewhere and if I can transfer those to jpg files, will send them to you one day. He was strictly vegetarian at the time, very slim and had a very, very thin model girlfriend - Eric's girlfriend referred to her as "Miss Biafra". Anorexia was not a word in common use back then.
I had seen
Led Zeppelin at Earls Court a few years before (which was possibly the only
time in my life I have actually been rendered speechless by a performance, thanks
to the mesmeric power of Jimmy Page's solos and the incredible depth and texture
of the sound). Knebworth, being open air, did not quite match that but it was
still an amazing show.I remember sitting at a table in the backstage restaurant
talking to Pete Thomas from Elvis Costello's band, who was just as starstruck
as I was by the idea that we were actually in the same tent as Jimmy Page and
Robert Plant. Were we trying to egg each other on to get their autographs? Or
is my memory playing tricks....
One thing stands out clearly; I never forgave my (ex-) husband dragging us away
before the Zeppelin set ended ......
IMPRESSIONS OF A FESTIVAL
, KNEBWORTH - 11th August 1979
I was in my forty-eighth
year and I had never been to a Rock Festival before. In 1979, my daughter and
son wanted to go to Knebworth. Driving the day before from North Wales, we stayed
overnight with friends at Biggleswade, and set off at about eleven the next
morning to cover the sixteen miles of the A1(M) to Stevenage. Despite heavy
rain in the night, the roads had dried quickly in the hot sun, and the clouds
shone clear and silvery, very high up. Traffic moved briskly. Tall sallow bushes
on the central reservation hid the cars rushing past on the other carriageway.
Suddenly, the normal road signs were obscured by sacking, cars jumped lanes
as the inside lane slowed down, faltered, stopped, started again and forked
off onto the huge industrial estate between the motorway and Stevenage.
Photo© Ken Walton 8-11-79 |
A long file of people was crossing the bridge over the main road, like pilgrims heading for a shrine. There were police in bright yellow jackets. The short dry grass on the verges was burnt dead and golden by the sun, with evidence that a small army had camped there the night before. Along the four-lane highway of the industrial estate, past British Aerospace and I.C.I. Plastics to a tiny car park - ‘Staff Only’, all with luck at home cutting their lawns on this sunny Saturday in August. We loaded our rucksacks with food, drink, torches, wellies and waterproofs and walked back down the long road to the bridge, with time now to read the notices - ‘Do Not Buy Tickets From Unauthorized Dealers’, ‘Ticket Numbers E15001 - 20000 Were Stolen...No Admission...’ Some quick calculations, at £7.50 a time over £35,000 worth, they didn't really think they could sell them, did they? But three swarthy youths lounging on the grass a few yards ahead hailed us - ‘You want tickets? Heh?’ |
Photo© Ken Walton 8-11-79 |
Ignoring them, we joined the pilgrimage and were shepherded across the first part of the road by a policewoman. I thought ‘Just like a Sunday School outing. Only they never made us walk this far.’Safe on the other side we were guided by white tapes past the campsite where many had been camping the night before. I guessed that some of them had probably been there since the week before, because there was a curious odour in the air (‘Like when the hamster cage needs cleaning’ my daughter muttered over my shoulder), not entirely masked by the sharp scent of wood smoke and the savoury smell of things frying in hot fat.
Stalls with badges, stalls with T-shirts - ‘Knebworth 1979' - stalls with cheap jewellery, Heineken in cans, cigarettes, fruit, and silver balloons. A ten-year old driving his brother up and down the dusty track on a small motor-cycle. It was hot. We sweated past several car parks and a wood, up a long sloping hill, and through a field of ripe corn through which the organizers had cut a swathe twenty yards wide, edged with pylon-mounted floodlights, each with its own petrol driven generator.
At last we could hear the music, blowing fitfully on a slight breeze. More ticket touts and finally the turnstiles, set in a wall of corrugated iron, a group of guards at each. My ticket was torn down its central perforation and half retained. As I inspected the surviving piece it was removed from my grasp by a second guard a few yards further on. Fantastic! Did they think someone was going to glue the bits together and sell them? (nb: security for the second Knebworth concert was taken over by Peter Grant . Led Zeppelin's manager , after doubts about the gate take at the first weekend concert, they were no doubt being super tight about ticket numbers - Ed ) |
Photo© Ken Walton 1979 |
We were inside at last. The music, records between the bands, was quite loud now and coming from an oddly shaped black and white structure with a background of trees at the lowest point of the amphitheatre enclosed by the barricades. This was the stage. Between it and us was an immense sea of colour and movement, broken here and there by flags fluttering from poles the tallest about sixteen feet high and held in place by four guy-ropes. About four fifths of the crowd appeared to be static at any given moment, sitting or lying on blankets, coats or sheets of polythene. The remainder was in a state of constant movement; a glance at the barricades near the main entrance showed two files moving continuously in opposite directions.
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Photo© Ken Walton 1979 |
We took up a temporary pitch in a group of trees where the shade and a slight breeze provided a welcome relief. A group of Indians had laid out a selection of wares on a blanket behind us. A queue, some fifty people long, waited to use the piped water tap whose overflow had turned the ground into a morass downhill from it. One overheated customer stretched the waistband of his jeans, stuck the pipe inside, and flooded the cool water down his crotch. Beyond the trees, but still in the shade, an immaculately set up tent; beside it a lady in a sun hat seated in a garden chair, placidly knitting. A man eyed me curiously for a couple of minutes and then approached, opening his fist to reveal a piece of angled brass piping. ‘Do you know where I can get a fill for this?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’ I said, in some amazement. He repeated his question, and I noticed a small label on the object which read £2. It suddenly flashed through my mind that he might be trying to sell me this device, and equally quickly I realized what it was. |
‘No friend, I'm sorry.’ He ambled off to try somewhere else. My daughter returned with a tinkling ankle-bracelet and I told her. She laughed - ‘Chillum pipe’ she said ‘they're selling them over there.’ She pointed to the Indians behind us. ‘At your age he probably thought you must be a dealer.’
We moved to the other side of the enclosure, negotiating the soggy flood from another tap which had spread fifty yards downhill, and took up a position where there were fewer people, and some space to move about. On stage, Commander Cody finished his stint and thanked his largely unresponsive audience. More records. We dozed, woke, drank cold beer and ate bread, cheese, apples and fruit cake, then dozed again. The breeze faded and the sun shone hotly. Next to us a dark-jowled and tidily dressed young man played with some small electronic game. He and his bearded companion were stretched luxuriously on a peach coloured blanket. I noticed that everybody who passed them, skirted carefully round it; obviously this was the way to stake out a pitch.
I visited the makeshift toilets for the first time - vast, reeking trenches surmounted by plywood booths, each shielded by sacking. Coming out I noticed that many of the men (it's a tough world, ladies!) never reached them, but simply strolled over to the barrier and soaked the ground at the base of it. Security guards inside conversed with those outside over its top; people rested their backs on it and ate hot dogs; in its shade a young woman stripped to the waist knelt on the ground chatting to a man who knelt opposite her. There were queues waiting for griddle-cooked hamburgers, a group of girls in neat blue uniforms selling Gauloises at a stall, a girl brushing her teeth at another tap, this one with a soak-away beneath it. I joined a group laid out in the shade of an oak tree and stood with my arms stretched out to cool down. A man passed me in tight peacock-blue trousers, a cream top, lime-green socks, carrying a pair of bright yellow boots. I took some photographs and read the printed T-shirts - ‘Status Quo’, ‘Sunday Times Classified’, ‘Thin Lizzy’ and, foretaste of things to come - ‘Led Bloody Zeppelin That's Who’. |
Photo© Ken Walton 1979 |
I rejoined our little group; more beer, another nap. We seemed to have been there all day, all week, always... It was four o'clock, the sun less fierce behind a cloud. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes took over from the records, tiny figures on the huge stage a quarter of a mile away, but the PA system carried the sound to us easily, good rhythm, a loud and accurate brass.
Giant jets floated noiseless behind the barrage of sound, gliding down an invisible slope towards Luton airport. Was the captain pointing out the sights to his passengers, packed in even more closely than we were? ‘Right below us, you can see the crowds at this year's Knebworth Festival...’ The afternoon dozed on; when I came to, we were back to records. More food, more beer. In the early part of the evening, the style of the music changed. Todd Rundgren hit us with a powerful, polished delivery, even evoking some enthusiastic applause, some whistles. The sun went below the cloud line at last, it was slightly cooler. Gallon jars of Sainsbury's vino were drained to the bottom; the young man with the electronic game snuffled with hay-fever. |
Photo© Ken Walton 1979 |
I felt sufficiently revived to go for a stroll, avoiding the dense carpet of empty beer-cans, melon rinds, chicken bones and broken glass. Five people dexterously lugging three insulated boxes between them; bikers with brass-studded leather jackets, just arriving with great armfuls of canned lager. I got lost on the way back, and stood gazing helplessly at a Morris Motors flag which had been to our left - or was it right? Luckily my daughter spotted me, and I was safe.
It was twilight by now and the stage lights went on. Promises, apologies for the delay, then they arrived - the New Barbarians - a scratch group, but fronted by the legendary Ron Wood and Keith Richard from the Rolling Stones, moving patterns of glittering lights as they stomped around the stage in metallic red jeans. For the first time I examined the stage through binoculars. Its dimensions were deceptive at that distance, but it looked to be the height of a five-storey house and the length of a small street. An impressive movie set of scaffolding and black canvas, its semi-transparent wings concealed loudspeakers in dozens. The result, even at this distance, was like sharing a small room with a disco. The
Barbarians played some beautiful rock - tightly organized, superbly timed,
loud but controlled. They bowed to well-earned applause, encored with
‘Jumpin' Jack Flash’, and were swallowed up by darkness once
more. An announcement warned us that it would probably take an hour and
a quarter to switch equipment. It was nine o'clock. |
Photo © Pete |
We
re-organized our encampment, pulled on woollies and dozed again. Sweet wreaths
of cannabis smoke drifted round us from nearby smokers, who had obviously been
keeping it in reserve for the main event. Two very young bikers climbed into
their sleeping bags. A girl with an abrasive, penetrating voice had a smouldering
argument with her boy friend as to whether or not they could make a final dash
for the toilets without losing their pitch. They went, and got back safely.
A few rockets burst against the fading sky. Across the crowd, heads, necks and
wrists glowed green with the cold fire of chemical lights, bought from stalls
during the afternoon. A Welsh dragon had one decorating its flagpole.
Another doze. Records.
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Photo© Ken Walton 1979 |
Then,
abruptly, out of the blackness, the speakers hummed, crackled into life
and without any preamble roared ‘Ladies and gentlemen - Led Zeppelin’,
and the entire crowd was on its feet, clapping and whistling. I could
see nothing but backs and waving arms. Then, just as suddenly, like a
field of corn blown by the wind, the whole tumultuous throng subsided
quietly from front to rear, and was seated. Clicks from the mike, mutterings,
and with a conflagration of lights and a screaming chord from Jimmy Page's
guitar, the show we had waited all day for was under way, with ‘The
Song Remains the Same’. |
For those whose world does not include this kind of music, the show would mean nothing. For enthusiasts, it arouses the sort of emotions only understood by those who have shared them. The group went through all their old standards. Laser lighting dazzled the eyes, smoke filled the stage, brilliantly illuminated by banks of floodlights. High above, to the left of the stage, a translucent screen some forty feet high relayed what could be seen by a battery of video-cameras onstage - Robert Plant's face in huge close-up, concentrated, intense - ‘Since I've Been Loving You’; Jimmy Page, dancing knock-kneed, his hands weaving intricately over the strings; John Paul Jones in washes of startling burnt-out colour. Somewhere, in the middle of the performance, the lights dimmed, and their suits glowed with an eerie, pale phosphorescence. Page played his ethereal piece on guitar with a fiddle-bow that glowed red and hurled a pencil-thin green laser light into the surrounding darkness. In what seemed an unbelievably short time, the stage lights dimmed leaving a network of light-beams, criss-crossing the canvas cupola, and the performers were gone. The audience were clearly familiar with this routine. Minutes of prolonged applause, and the players erupted onto the stage once more in an explosion of lights, and it was just as though we were starting all over again. They roared into a cut-down version of ‘Whole Lot of Love’, my own special favourite. As he reached the line ‘...now he's reached the age of twenty-four’, Robert Plant, with a nice touch of self-mockery left the audience to supply his real age. Two more numbers, including the timeless ‘Rock 'n Roll’ and they were gone again, this time for good. Right : Keef backstage at Knebworth 8-11-79 with a bottle of what looks like Southern Comfort , he still looked half human at this stage in his career. © Jenny Macfie |
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The stage was deserted, the mounted floodlights by the barrier sprang into life, and the magic was over. But we carried it with us out through the gate and past the struggling cars, now completely immobilised by a vast flood of humanity. In the bright moonlight, whole fields were alive with an army of perhaps a hundred-thousand people. We flowed round obstacles, stumbled over bodies already worlds away inside sleeping-bags, clung tightly, arm in arm as we were tossed and lifted bodily, four abreast, through a gateway. At last, the road, and lights, fires, tents, traffic, stalls (‘Only two left now; here you are’). Policemen steering us over the road, the wide avenues of the industrial estate filled with people. A patient policewomen, no older than my daughter, - ‘Will you try to walk on the pavement, please?’ The crowd thinning, piling onto late buses, swallowed up by underpasses, the music still throbbing and drumming in our very being.
Ken Walton
Had a lot of fun looking at your site so I thought I'd contribute!
I was at Knebworth on 4th August 1979. I was an 18 year old Zep freak and it was my first (and last!) rock festival. I'm not a fan of festivals but would have crawled over broken glass to see Led Zep at this time(not far from the actuality, as anyone who's been to a British rock festival will know what I mean I'm sure! At least the weather was ok so no mud..).
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Photo © Pete |
There we were fresh out of the 6th form, straight south London lads who didn't even drink much surrounded by older people doing substances of all kinds! Fairport convention were ok, but I couldn't believe Chas & Dave were on the bill, it must have been a piss take! I had to persuade one my friends not to leave! Southside Johnny was good, better seen in a small venue though and I didn't know his stuff too well then. Him & Todd Rundgren were the best support acts. The picture you have of the band with the guy in the yellow jumpsuit was indeed Todd Rundgren, who I remember quite enjoying, the first time we heard some rock guitar all day!
Photo © Pete |
Anyhow, after that we had a long wait before Zep came on just as it was getting dark. The opening chords of the Song remains the same rang out over the field, hails of beer cans came flying from the people behind accompanied by cries of 'sit down yer wankers!' so we all sat down and I was then on another astral plane for the next 3 1/2 hours. Having recently seen the DVD portions of this concert, they indeed were just as good as I remembered. The great thing was, they had stripped down their act a bit and were really tight apart from an extended piano solo from JPJ during No Quarter. Not too much jamming apart from that. Highlights
were many, Kashmir, with explosions of dry ice. Achilles Last stand, sounding
better than any of the bootleg stuff from the '77 US tour. The Rain song
and Since I've been loving you. It's still the best rock concert I've
ever seen and the memory will never fade. I'm just so glad I got to see
them, who knew that Bonzo only had just over a year to live? That night
it seemed they could go on forever. After encores of a stunning 'Rock
and Roll' and Whole lotta love we thought that's it and headed out. |
But
we were wrong, as we left we heard the unmistakeable opening riff of Heartbreaker.
After that it was an horrific journey back to London on the train and back home
for some much needed sleep. As far as I'm concerned it was worth the deprivation
and discomfort, but there's no way I could do it again now!
Regards
Keith Foster
Then from South London, now living in New York.
We are amazed, given that we opened this site nearly two years ago, we still have only a handful of personal reviews , this is weird, since there were hundreds of thousands of attendees to these shows, but the personal contributions we have so far are fewer than many other smaller festivals.
.We need your recollections NOW, so don't hestitate to send them along and we can build an archive of memories here like we have for all the other Knebworth Festivals. Contact email
Contents.
If you can add in any way to this material ,please Contact us
Offsite Links.
The events in this tangled chain can be read in Freddy Bannister's book, " There Must Be A Better Way " , which chronicles his adventures in promoting the giant concerts at Knebworth from 1974-79. More info about these concerts can also be found at the Knebworth House site and at Rip Gooch's site, which contains substantial portions of text from the now defunct book Knebworth Rock Festivals, by Chryssie Lytton Cobbold , and finally , at Kevin Shewan's Knebworth 79 pages .
PHOTOARCHIVES
We have been endeavouring to collect as many recordings of the artists that featured at these concerts as possible, so we can effectively review the performances, provide set lists and band line-ups. The intention is to also display as many personal histories of the festival as possible.
If you can contribute in any way, with tapes, reviews from the Music press, photos or personal histories, please Contact email
Knebworth Concerts 1974-80
Knebworth links
