The Archive
Formatted at 1280 X 1024- created Feb 2002.
Updated Feb 2008
 |
Cumbria Free Festivals 1982-84 |
|
Blue Moon Fayre Pry House Nenthead, Alston. Cumbria 29-31st May 1982 Nik Turner Tibetan Ukranian Mountain Troupe. The Instant Automatons# click to visit their site Dutch, Ogre , Trevor Reed. |
 |
The pyramid stage. Photos © The Tortoise of Time
Set high in the Pennines ( Nenthead is the highest village in England at an elevation of 1500 feet) this series of festivals flourished briefly from 1982-84 and then ceased to be. This is bleak and often hostile country and the organisers were lucky that these festivals were blessed with reasonable weather.The Krumlin Festival of 1970 was rained out due to gale force winds and torrential rain, and it was quite a bit further south than The Moon festivals, which were only 30 miles or so from Carlisle .
The photos are of the 1982 festival - courtesy Mr T Tortoise, who quoth thusly regarding the festivities
"one of a few festies
held up in Cumbria by local freaks in the early eighties - this is 1982 ,
they were called Blue Moon, Silver
Moon etc - I can't remember the name of this one (its all fading into the
mists of my memory - oh woe . . .)
Cumbria 2 - a good pic of Nicky Turners pyramid stage that I was carrying
around and helping to put up that summer - the pay was a place in his new
band - Beanwind - "
A photo of Nik Turner playing at the 1982 festival can be viewed here
 |
Stage manager Big Steve got dosed......
Cool
and crazy recollections from back in the day. I remember the Blue Moon Fayre
1982 yes the moon was really blue. We set up the pyramid stage or should that
be re-erected the pyramid which had been put up but without a base on site
, so we built the base and ramp and erected the pyramid and co-ordinated the
stage, lights and PA. There were a lot of people from the divine light mission
there. It seemed like that there was a bit of a purification vibe, balancing
the hippie excesses that were undergoing their own evolution through the transition
from hippie to punk to raver through the generations. A bit of new wave social
consciousness engineering as the hard core turned more hard/soft core, punks
and hippies fused with the gururism and spiritualism of the new age movement.
And the rest that were totally oblivious. There had always been a bit of that
from Gong and Thandoy with the Baghwans granite sannyasin disciples to the
Hari Krishnas. Something like the Majarishi effect on the free festi scene.
Give peace a chance....
Back to organics and the original ethos. I remember great veggie food and hot home made wholemeal bread. Some heads brewed up a huge pot of tea and someone must have chucked in a load of legal mushrooms. Somebody offered me a cup with a tablespoon of eucalyptus honey. They said it would warm me up from the cold. It was a bit light colour and didn´t seem very strong. I thought nothing of it and some young hippie elf kept coming round with the huge tea pot topping every one up. Time seemed to drift away and the liquid seemed to get darker and darker.
 |
I suddenly
realised I had to get a Dutch band on stage on the other side of the field.
They had three beautiful young girl singers all heavily made up, in tight
mini skirts and glittery costumes, the wind blowing there long flowing tresses
in the wind. I was hypnotically fascinated. Someone passed me an Indian chillum
with a picture of Shiva on it wrapped in a safi and with crys of boom balay
ali ali... I started to feel rather strange, everything swirling around, the
music, the girls and with an increasingly strong nauseous feeling coming in
waves.
Suddenly it became obvious I had to rush out the back of the stage and run to the fence to be sick and ended up nearly throwing up over a startled sheep. I felt much better after that, though slightly wobbly on the legs. I walked over to the Tibetans marquee where a jam was about to start, I walked on stage and started playing the congos in a totally inspired way with great energy.
All
the Tibetans and Nik Turner were there all of us playing together, at the
time we seemed like the best band on the planet!!!. It was one incredible
long jam which lasted all night with everybody applauding wildly every time
we finished another out of site cosmic improvisation. Eventually the sun came
up and we stopped, purged and purified and I wondered round the site picking
up rubbish with my girlfriend at the time Sandy, an incredible juggler who
went on to marry Joe Rush from the Mutoids.
We crashed in the farmhouse as the divine lighters woke and preambled around
site doing their morning satsang and meditations. OM Baba..............
Steve
There is a Wystic Mankers music release recorded at the Blue Moon festival which you can purchase ! See details below
 |
The Wystic Mankers onstage Blue Moon Festival 1982 © Igor Malaprop
Wystic
Maker Member Igor Malaprop remembers the Friday afternoon gig on the Pyramid
stage thus;
"This was quite
a memorable and special gig for us in more ways than one! For a start it
was fairly unusual for us to play on someone else's stage, we usually just
played in our own venue. It was also quite unusual to be doing a main stage
gig in the middle of the afternoon, the type of music we were doing in those
days tended to be more of the late night/all night vibe type thing. But
what really made it extraordinary was the fact that a well travelled mate
of ours had just returned from India and was sat in one of our busses about
an hour or so before we were due on stage with this cluster of Manali Fingers!
So there we were gassing away, spacing out, blowing chillums and devising
a game plan. I can't quite remember if we had a drum kit or any amps with
us that afternoon but it didn't matter because what we decided to do was
turn up at the stage with what ever we could find to carry over there, plug
directly into the PA what we could, and play everything else in to what
ever mics they had available! So when it was time a whole bunch of us grabbed
our various instrument type things and strode off across the site in a glorious
Manali sunshine haze, we actually picked a couple of random bods up on the
way (one clearly audible on the recording with the rousing "does anybody
out there want to rock!") It's actually quite amazing the sound guy
managed to get any sort of mix at all under the circumstances but who ever
he was he did a splendid job, the way some things drifted in and out of
the mix was inspired. All in all an absolutely classic, if not totally typical,
Wystic Mankers performance."
There was this whole number when
we arrived at the Blue Moon site that involved not being able to get the
Beast on site, parking on the grass verge by the road, getting a Police
Notice left on the windscreen (which I still have!), then painting a red
cross on the side of the beast to disguise it as an Ambulance and claiming
it was a mobile Asylum! We did eventually get the Beast on site and when
I've pieced together the whole story I shall let you have it.
Igor
|
Photo © Trevor Reed |
Hi I'm Trevor Reed (the street singer) and I introduced the performers at the Blue Moon festival. That's me on the left filling in between the acts. The Blue, Green and Silver moon festivals were the brainchildren of the Nenthead alternative fraternity. The original idea of the Blue Moon was conceived over an intoxicated period of time in intoxicated meetings in Hayring cottages, Pry house and Moorlands. Richard Crabtree offered Pry House for the venue as that was the ideal site, and so it began. Blue Moon was special in that, as well as having the vibe of harmony and peace that only comes from concepts new born, it also went a long way in cementing relations between the local people and the alternative incomers. It was a heady three days that ended with a feeling of well being and satisfaction. The Green Moon had a totally different vibe, it was far more spiritually militant and drew devotees of Anarchy, Witchcraft, Christianity, Divine Light, to mention but a few. The vibe was different, not so peaceful but possibly more stimulating, as was the storm that brought it to an end. The hail stones were as big as marbles and they collapsed many of the tents. I was in one of the cafe tents and the sound was awesome.
|
Finally we come to the Silver Moon, sadly the final festival of the trilogy this was held on Hags bank. This festival was more of a schedule A market than a festival, culminating in an invasion by the convoy who proceeded to attack the local police force and basically destroy any good will there was between the local populace and the incomers. However watch this space- there is talk of a revival.
Photo © Trevor Reed |
Gosh,
I was 19 at the time. What a fest!
Got a lift up off someone, myself & a few others, Andy & Kermit from
Stockton. As I remember, which isn't a great deal, there were some coppers
parked at the top of the hill in a transit van watching over the fest, who
became the target of people pelting them with eggs!
After having consumed a loveheart
& a pink panther.......I watched the sun set in one quarter, the moon
rise in another & observed it's path thru the night as we partied till
it set in the other quarter of the sky with the sun rising again in it's original
quarter......wow methought !
Cosmic....which of course it was.
 |
Photo
© Trevor Reed
The loos had been dug out of the
ground square & had two sides, I think, anyway, the next morning there
were stories about a guy who had jumped into the 'mire' smashed out of his
head, to retrieve his hat!!!!!Yeuch....Were you this guy, or do you remember
that story if you were there? As was the usual in those days, I didn't have
a tent, so slept, more like chilled out, under the stars by the fire in my
sleeping bag.
I have recollections of someone
chasing a pig thru the camp for some reason in the middle of the night, that
must've been a sight, & we had a log by the campfire that was called 'The
Guest' !?!!!
Gotta say, I didn't wear a watch for years after that fest.
Someone had asked us early on in
the evening after having consumed our goodies, what time we had got there?......bet
he wished he hadn't, cos the reply he got was along the lines of.....wow man,
what are you saying....time? what's time? we've been here FOREVER!!!!! Haha!
Ah, those were the days!
Ellie Skidmore (nee McLintock)
Newspaper cutting from the 1982 festival courtesy Simon Danby |
Blue Moon shines on Nenthead Hills. First impressions on arrival at the first ever ' Blue Moon Festival " last weekend was of being caught in a time warp and being spirited back to the heady days of the sixties. Memories of peace and love, oriental fashions and psychedelic music were walking around alive and well on the hillside at Nenthead, including the original teepee people numerous naked children and the Tibetan Ukranian Mountain Troupe . Within five minutes or arriving I found myself involved in a discussion about the meaning of peace. |
" You've got to be able to be at peace even when you're at war y'know" ,watched the evenings vegetable curry being prepared over a wood fire in the " Chi and Chapati Cafe' , visited the shrine to the Guru Mahara Ji and been assured that everything was ' cool '.
However this proved to be only part of the story , as the weekend developed into a somthing for everybody event .
Cross-section
Cool was one thing it wasn't , as the sun blazed down on the dramatic scenery and one staggered from one Samoza stall to another ,gulping home made ginger beer and listening to the many different " sounds' coming from the main stage. Peaceful it certainly was , however , and enjoyed by an incredibly broad cross section of people , with everybody there from groups of bikers to local farmers out with the family.Children made the biggest difference between this and toher festivals I have been to , as there were literally hundreds of them .They quite happiliy mingled , although there was a special children's area complete with a large inflatible to bounce around on , and one very determined young man spent all day dragging his kite through the good humoured crowd .
Hard Edged
 |
Photo © Trevor Reed
The music varied in quality as well as style, with the inevitable Bob Dylan impersonators being sandwiched between heavy metal and R & B , but at its best it was very , very good. Of those that I saw the best was undoubtedly a brand new Newcastle / Gateshead band called Dutch playing only their second concert. In a very professional performance on Saturday night they delivered a hard edged Springsteen sound , complete with excellent saxaphone and guitar breaks and fronted by an energetic Johnny Hutton .
The heavy rock band Ogre were also very impressive and gave a rendering of 'Hey Joe' reminiscent of the great man himself. For the more esoteric tastes " events' were going on all day in the marquee at the top of the site, with acts like " bedazzled", "Bits and Bobs" ,"Moving Lines" and the Tibetan Music Band who played on late into the night ." Everybody enjoyed themselves and thats the main thing" said Mr Richard Crabtree of Pry House , Nenthead , who was one of the organisers . He said that there had been fewer people than had been hoped - an estimated 1.500 in all - but added that there could well be another " Blue Moon Festival" at Nenthead next year . Surprise Local reaction as a whole semed to be one of pleasant surprise. "In the first instance I was opposed to it "said Mr Kenneth Dowedeswell, landlord of the Miners Arms at Nenthead '" I thought there would be a too many people, but as not all that many turned up , there was no bother ". But the Crown Inn was not so lucky . Landlord Mr Ray Hall said that for the most part all those who came to his pub were well mannered and reasonable, but he did have a cash box from the juke box stolen , while the pub was open and said that this had spolit the weekend. A small number of arrests were made in connection with possible drug offences" said a police spokesman afterwards. But he added that generally , people had been well behaved andf that there were "very, very few problems ". John Davidson |
Photo © Trevor Reed |
Hiya
I
remember that one. I was there as a punter.
As I recall, the same bands played the same sets 3 days running. Not that
we cared.
But who were the bands? There was one all girl rock group who did a song
that Jimmy Buffett later recorded as 'Cairo' - "can't get no giro,
smoking in a bar in Cairo" - thing is - in 1999 when Jimmy Buffett
records it, would that mean anything to a US audience?
I've discovered this morning that the Alston Moor Historical Society holds
a set of plans for the site layout.
http://www.alstonhistory.org.uk/archives.htm
Andy
 |
Photo © Trevor Reed
Wow
mad to see these photos after all this time.. It's like yesterday
Fantastic to Pete's old Bus Pranarm and Levi's Bus, Cid's Truck and Jerries
Albert.. Tree Beards Library Truck and that Pyramid stage we all took down
is the most amazing thunder and hail storm.
never forget the end of festy party with all the mushrooms either... mad
even the dogs where off their heads
So Hi from Leyline Tom
www.spiralwave.co.uk
Recordings
The Wystic Mankers
Tibetan Will " The Lugless Slog " who graces our pages holding the "Don't Panic" sign has sent us this information
The Blue Moon recording
isn't from the night when Big Steve joined in. It's of the opening gig on
the Friday afternoon on the pyramid and I've just finished rehashing the
original edit tape. The story is told in the sleeve notes thusly -
|
ONCE AT A BLUE MOON
on the Friday afternoon a dozen or more of them invaded the stage and someone went up to the man on the mixing desk and gave him a stereo tape deck with a tape in it and said can you record the band for us and he tried his best but it wasn’t easy trying to work out what these mankers were doing up there on which mic or instrument and to whom and with what purpose AND keep an eye on the recording so if a channel peaked he just turned it down sometimes a long way down and then forgot to turn it back up again while he was trying to work out who was doing what to whom and with what and to what purpose and out of all this came a very serendipitous recording...and Glenda saw that it was good and edited a tape from it on Janet’s twin deck and then made some copies of it that others might also see that it was good and Janet kept the original edit for 25 years until Will found out and said can I have a look at that and he turned back up the bits the man on the mixer had turned down and did some other stuff with it but not too much because it was the very fact that the man on the mixing desk couldn’t work out who was doing what to whom with what and to what purpose that made it such a delight in the first place.... |
Any info to add ?-well don't just sit there , Contact email
Free rock festivals of the 70s and 80s