Plumpton Race Track.
Streat.
East Sussex.
The Archive.
updated June 2021
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Plumpton Race Track. Streat. East Sussex. |
Big thanks goes to Kieran McCann for the donation of his collection of cuttings from the local press. Although there is the usual litany of complaints , fears by locals that they will be murdered in their beds and Tory MP's complaining about the noise and drug taking, there are quite a few details about the bands , festival logistics and the sound problems that dogged the first night.
The Ninth National Jazz , pop and Blues festival ended in spectacular fashion at Plumpton racecourse last night. The British pop group The Nice wound up the three day open-alr extravaganza accompanied on stage by a 40 piece symphony orchestra.
Joseph Egar, famous conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra , flew in from the states to conduct .The 40 piece outfit was was made up from various orchestras including the London Symphony.
During the closing two, hours thousands of fans went wild . They lit
rubbish. bonfires around the ground faster then the the festivals 2OO-strong
security force could put them out and the fire brigade wars asked to
stand by.
At one stage officials feared the marquee might go up in flames.
and the fire brigade were told: "Be ready for a call."
In another incident. compere John Gee
was pelted with tin cans and various flying objects. Youngsters had been shouting
for another encore by Family
, but compere Gee told them there time didn't permit . And the fans let fly.
There
was an incident too involving the cast of the hippy musical "Hair"
After performing numbers from the west End show the cast walked off the
stage without waiting for applause. During their act, organ plugs had twice
been pulled out by mistake. One of the principals , Linda
Kendrick said
"It was a disaster. Everything went wrong, the microphones, everything, even the piano was out of tune. It was an embarrassment ".Earlier In the day the festival was without water for several hours. Demand exceeded supply and the pressure dropped to nil. Thousands of hot, thirsty youngsters descended on Plumpton village in search of water. BUCKETS
"Drinking water. Take a glassful if you are thirsty."Outside another house a villager stacked up crates of milk bottles full of water and put up a notice saying . "Help yourself, but please don't break the bottles."The Mid Sussex Water Company sent out men who opened a valve from the Oldham reservoir. And water was restored to the festival ground. |
Chicken
Shack's Stan Webb ,
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Although no final figures are yet available , festival publicist
Brian Sommerville estimated last night that the
total attendance had approached 70,000- which would be ten thousand more then
last year when the festival was held at Sunbury.
The festival went off without any signs of violence. But a number of people
left rather poorer than when they arrived. Then, was quite a bit of pilfering
, said Brian Sommerville. Aynsley Dunbar
,one of the stars of the Saturday night , had a 400 pound bass guitar stolen
from the artists drawing room.
DRUG
SQUAD
Throughout the festival , plain clothes
drug squad detectives mingled with the youngsters. On Saturday night the concert
was 50 minutes late finishing, it finally ended at 12;35 am . Two people rang
the police to complain , one of them Mr
Martin Maddan, Conservative MP for Hove
, who lives in the village.
CHARLIE WATTS .
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One member of the Saturday night audience who watched The
Who and whotook more than average
interest was Peter Tree
of Inholmes Park Rd, Burgess Hill. Peter was one of the original members
of the group five years ago , when they used to play Brighton's Florida
Rooms. He pulled out after a clash of musical taste and now
the Who are one of Britain's top three groups, while Peter works as a settler
in the bookmakers in Haywards Heath. How does he feel now. "I've no regrets "he said, "I know the Who have hit it big, but I'm not sorry I quit .In the early days the group were struggling and I only earned 10 pound a week. Now I earn 30 pound a week so I'm not complaining . The group are still good friends of mine ."Peter who is 26 said he may now try to break into the pop song market. Among the groups appearing Last night were The Affinity, which include three former Sussex university students ? Lynton Naif ? organ , Grant Serpill ? drums and Mo Foster- bass. In their University days the three were in the the University of Sussex jazz trio. Now they have teamed up professionally with guitarist Mike Jopp and singer Lynda Hoyle and Plumpton was their first festival booking. |
You can view many great photos of the acts at Plumpton by visiting the Repfoto site .
The early festivals.
You can find out the complete
line ups of the first festivals if you follow the links below.
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Festivals 65-83
Most of these have fairly complete documentation .
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