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Last update Jan 2012
The Knebworth Park Festivals.
Knebworth Fayre .
June 22nd 1985.
Deep Purple , Scorpions, Meat Loaf , UFO, Mountain, Blackfoot , Mama's Boys, Alaska.
The View From The Mud : Recollections and photos Knebworth 1985.
As we have only created this site recently,as yet, we have few recollections, can you help ? I wasn't impressed that Purple only announced one British gig, but went anyway. It wasn't a bad line up, but I felt a mixed bag would have been more appropriate to the Knebworth tradition. The weather was horrendous and bucketed down for days beforehand, the site was a Somme re-enaction. Unlike the "old days" festival crowds (especially the metal/rock ones)had basically given up on the sitting down for the day, not that anyone could have sat down for this bash. It was one long day! Standing for the duration, wet, attempting to forget the weather by drinking 'Bow etc etc! The
whole shebang was recorded by the Friday Rock Show and broadcast pretty
much in it's entirety a short while afterwards (except the Scorps who
refused, "World Wide Live" was in the pipeline and they obviously
didn't want to affect sales), Anyway, the bands! |
Soaked to the friggin skin the sodden crowd awaits the Purple messiahs .
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Alaska-Had Bernie Marsden on guitar, totally forgettable. Mountain-Fantastic, riffs abounding and a good solid band. I recall the crowd were apathetic at first but by the end they'd been won over, I saw them in Swansea a few years ago in front of a couple of hundred, still amazing but at home in a festival !
Mama's Boys-Good band, and seemed to be lower-mid bill fayre at a few fests around that time. They had a few memorable songs and a crowd pleasing "Mama Weer All Krazy Now" chucked in.
Blackfoot Knebworth 1985 photo courtesy Monty |
Blackfoot-Possibly
stole the day for a lot of people, a welcome dose of southern rock and boogie,
the weather was temp forgotten! Also a throwback to the tradition of southern
bands at Knebworth, warmly received by the crowd, "Highway Song" perhaps
my favourite live moment of the day.
UFO-Did the business, only Phil Mogg
(I think) was a mainstay at this point, however they churned out "Lights
Out" "Only You Can Rock Me" etc to an appreciative (and getting
restless) crowd. Meatloaf was terrible, a good backing band but his voice was
shot to bits and he had a dodgy leg, which certainly made the mud throwing interesting
! This was during his sharp decline from '83-Reading Festival '88, he should
have pulled out and saved history showing how crap he was at this point.
Rainsoaked festival services slowly soak into the mud as Knebworth house lurks damply in the background. © Henry Cobbold Knebworth House |
The Scorpions-Probably the best set of the day, no arguments! A highly polished and professional show from the Scorps (always a superb festival band) who had just hit the big time in the States. All the "hits" got the crowd going. They also wiped the floor with Ozzy the next year at Donington. I remember thinking "Purple can't follow this", and I was right......
| Deep
Purple-Rain and a delay in hitting the stage (at least an hour late) meant
any atmosphere the Scorps had built up was lost. The sound was nicely loud,
but Blackmore was WELL off form and frankly looked as if he wanted to be
elsewhere. They hit the ground running with "Highway Star" and
were greeted like the returning heroes they were, in fact most of the crowd
were on their side throughout, but most people will tell you in hindsight
they were bloody awful. It was a cracking set list with the best of the
superb "Perfect Strangers" album aired which I actually thought
sounded fresher than the rest of the set and the crowd loved it, but Gillan
wasn't hitting the notes and Blackmore just seemed to be in a completely
different key to Lord/Glover/Gillan. I must admit "Smoke on The Water"
and a seemingly heartfelt little speech by Gillan was a highlight, but otherwise
a disappointment. I saw them 2 years later in the NEC and they rocked! |
Looking
back, I should have gone to Milton Keynes for U2/REM/Ramones that was held on
the same weekend.
Regards
Jase
The punters at least got to be close to the stage in 1985, but no video screens ? © Henry Cobbold Knebworth House |
The report of the 85 show with Purple is spot on - especially the urine filled bottles. let's not forget the urine-fueled mud-wrestling and the overflowing urinals though! IIRC Tommy Vance was up there on the Friday night egging people on to come over early and join in the fun, which we promptly did, 5 guys in a Mk 1 Escort, sleeping over in the car park and getting in to the field at 6am, just to make sure we got wet all day.
Rob
Hi,
I remember my parents taking me to knebworth in 1985 to go and see deep purple,
I was 4 at the time so I only remember snippets, but I know the concert was
bloody good despite the rain!! my dad Dave pushed an empty stall over so we
could have a little shelter for the kids, I would like to say my dad is a legend
and he still has his rock long hair! still worships deep purple and loves talking
about the time we spent at knebworth, He is my main influence in my musical
life and im very proud of him!
Cheers,
Kitty Brown
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Contents.
Welfare
agency Reports (under construction ) |
Purple at Knebworth links
( external sites )
Brian McPherson's pages on Knebworth 85
Deep Purple Net Collection of images.
Charlies Deep Purple site has some nice pics of crowd and band onstage .
More info about this concert 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
Can we get a witness ?
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. Any info displayed on these pages or which is sent to us for review remains the copyright of the contributor and the Archive makes NO PROFIT from its use. The intention is to also display as many personal histories of the festival as possible for the benefit of readers of the site and we welcome all written contributions, no matter how long or short.
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Knebworth Concerts 1974-85
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