last update Sept 2006 , new photo of bikers front of stage

The Hells Angel's at Bath.

Well, here they are in all their glory.The ''Hells Angel's "

    I was sent this little snippet  from a festival goer who throws doubt on whether all these fine bucko's actually were the real McCoy .
 

     The so called Hell Angels were really local bikers. My mate Dave who was a bit hard, shouted at them to sit down on the Saturday afternoon and they shouted some obscenities back , to which he replied 'come over here and say that and I'll smack your fookin' head in'. Fearing the worse we prepared for a good kicking. After some further name calling the greasers turned away and looked back at the stage with Dave shouting at them they were soft bastards, and reminding them - anytime you want pal, we'll be here!

    The real thing would have probably set about him with bike chains, so who knows, perhaps they were having a day off , or he picked some pseudo Angels to have an argument with .......
 

However, Malcolm Alsop who was on security down front of stage , refutes this ...... "...........and the fact that the Hell's Angels (Cheltenham) who'd briefly left the area, couldn't get back in. Oh, they were the real (British) article) allright. they gave some poor bloke a stomping right in front of me and big though I am I didn't interfere with 6 of them. "    Certainly the gentlemen on the right look tough enough to rip the heads off chickens with their bare teeth, I wouldn't say boo to them unless I was inside a Sherman Tank .There are enough eyewitness accounts of them kicking the bejeezus out of a few hapless bystanders to make me believe that even if they weren't real Angels they were to be kept happy at all costs.      Perhaps Dave was lucky that the lot he picked on to have an argument with were so placid. I remember seeing quite a few of the Angels near the front of the stage on Saturday and , coward that I am , I wouldn't have even looked their way .They looked a right tough lot of bleeders. However , they all had gone home by the late Sunday night and Monday morning. I was right down the front for the Hot Tuna set and they were nowhere to be seen.

Fairport Convention were given a lift to the front of stage by some bikers. I recently met Dave Swarbrick and asked him about this incident " Oh , it was very exciting " he said" we were offered a ride by them and we flew along through the traffic bottlenecks , we soon got to the festival".

The Angels were from Bristol and some of them were tough. Most of them were not. One of the leaders was called "Bear". They were up by the front of the stage on the left while Led Zeppelin was playing. I was grooving and boogeying with everyone. I remember Plant singing the oldies medley and in particular, "whole lotta shakin' goin on".  This was cool, and I was right up in front of the crowd. The Angels were mellow. I didn't get any bad vibes.
  Later, I went to a pub in Bristol where a lass named Mary kept smiling at me. She told me she had watched me dancing at the concert, and I found myself in her bed later. It was she who told me about Bear in the morning, for she was Bear's woman. I got out of there as fast as I could.
 I met 3 Swedish guys at the festival and hitched a ride to Pamplona with them for the running of the bulls.
I will always cherish my memories of that summer and that fest was a highlight.

Peter Bartlow

hi
I almost flipped when I found your site on the bath rock festival in 1970. The part about the hell's angels caught my attention immediately. We were 2 amercian girls who had landed in london a day before the festival started and had no idea it was going on. But we saw a poster for it and decided to hitch hike out to bath having no clue how far away it was. We were picked up by this motorcycle group and we rode with them for about the last 30-40 miles into the festival. My friend was freaked out as she was from a small town in pennsylvania. but I grew up in nyc down the block from the nyc hell's angels so they didn't bother me at all (maybe I was just very young and stupid..this is entirely possible!). There were about 30-40 guys in this group and the best part about them was that they rode us to the very front of the site without having to deal with the miles of traffic lined up to get in.

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