For
information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk
The Archive.
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For
information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk |
Updated Sept 2007
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Reading August 22-24th 1975. |
The 1974 Reading Festival.
The View from the mud : recollections of festival attendees
Martin Starnes notes
Conspicous over-consumption ?Just a few of the cans left behind at reading 1974 |
We need more recollections, can you contribute ? Just to go back a bit in time to Reading festival in 74, these three days had some absolutely magic bands on, on the Saturday I remember Peel saying over the tannoy he’d got married that day and everyone cheered in the sunshine. Um, he also asked the crowd to stop chucking beer cans at Alex Harvey, the SAHB did a brilliant set in the afternoon, there were other big notables like Rod Stewart ending the Saturday night with the Faces brilliant live, earlier I think we saw Genesis with Peter Gabriel wearing that flower round his head. Guy Rowe |
Steve Austin has the following recollections about can fights
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I can remember several tin can incidents at Reading. Never on the receiving end and never on the throwing end I hasten to add.
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Nutz onstage -Reading 1974 |
The late lamented John Peel -Reading 74 |
The tin cans I seem to remember would be lobbed (not thrown hard) at people standing up and blocking the view (in the afternoon) . It seems you got a good pitch settled down for the afternoons entertainment and if some ignorant group of people pushed in and stood in front of you then first yell abuse, and if that didn't work a few lobbed cans got the message across. I can see that this could easily have got out of hand and may have caused a ruckus on occasion.
Having said that I am sure that when I saw it happen the ignorant group moved on or sat down and everyone was happy.
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Also I remember a giant Pyramid of cans being built and with incredible patience the crowd waited until the last can was put in place on top. Then without a word being spoken a hail of cans reminiscent of the arrows at Agincourt rained down and knocked the pyramid to hell. (Hippy humour) I cannot remember any crowd fighting ever and agree with your sentiments about the police and why football was never policed as heavily, I went to several football matches and stopped going because I hated the aggressive atmosphere and saw attacks on people. I never saw anything remotely similar at Festivals except at Windsor and that was the Police causing the violence. The
one incident I do remember was Alex Harvey stopping playing and making
a big thing about crowd fighting – but I think it was part of
his act. I am sure I remember seeing him again somewhere and he went
through the same routine. |
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Hi Suddenly the whole queue started hurling abuse at the van owner who proceeded to come out from behind the van with a sizeable kitchen knife. At this point a hail of cans forced him back into the van. The crowd which had miraculously grown to about two dozen then started to rock the van in an attempt to push it over. The owner started the engine and drove off as the chip fat spilled over and set alight to the inside of the van. The last thing I remember was seeing it drive out of the arena with a pall of black smoke pouring from the back. It was a strange weekend. I’m sure Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance was actually there but also remember that on Sunday Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel played before Focus as the rain started. |
Heavy Metal Kids 1974 Photo courtesy Keith Boyce ,the kids drummer |
I also remember the drug squad being present on a sunny Sunday afternoon. They stood out in the crowd due to their dress. A man and a woman, they looked like something out of a Cliff Richard film from the early 60s, white slacks, dark glasses and a headscarf for the policewoman would you believe. They were continually followed round by a half naked hippy telling everyone that they were the drug squad. Eventually the male officer cracked and said aloud "if you don’t shut up I’ll nick you". One of our party fell asleep so we painted his face with an indelible marker to look like Alice Cooper. He had tear drops on his cheeks and "slack alice" written on his forehead. We duly woke him up and took him to the beer tent where he got even more drunk and started to climb on top of the tent and leap off growling at people. He was oblivious of his face paint but seemed to like the horror stricken looks he was causing.
We
also met some monks from a "monkery" whom we plied with cider and
we cooled off by diving off the Caversham bridge into the Thames between pleasure
cruisers. Alex Harvey was sensational, Steve Harley was brilliant, Focus were
excellent, The Sutherland Brothers and Quiver (who wrote "sailing")
and Chapman Whitney Streetwalkers were our heroes. Lizzy and Traffic were as
good as I thought they would be. I loved the JSD Band – what happened
to them ? - and I vaguely remember Barclay James Harvest. It was a brilliant
weekend.
Matt Munro
J.S.D Band © Vin Miles |
Steve Harley © Vin Miles |
Les Holroyd of Barclay James Harvest © Vin Miles |
Procol Harum Reading 74 © Vin Miles |
By this time I had done Reading 74 and then followed it on to Windsor, and we were proper Hippies then. We had been soaked at Reading and spent a miserable night in a Salvation Army Tent with a free breakfast of cold beans on cold bread; we had done this because we had no tent and like the year before were sleeping rough. Morning saw us cold wet and undecided as whether to go on to Windsor as originally planned, the weather cheered up and after buying a copy of the Sun newspaper we saw our photograph in there, so we were famous and just had to go.
Steve Austin
Reading 1974. It rained for three days. Very wet. Woke up in three inches of water on the last morning. Sensational Alex Harvey Band were sensational. Traffic were underwhelming. Steve Winwood had to be carried onstage and contributed nowt ( some press reports contradict this ; ed ) . Focus were great, despite Thijs van Leer (spelling?) being constantly electrocuted as the rain provided a particularly good conductor between him and a badly earthed mike. What a trooper! Edward Collier |
Focus at Reading 1974 |
Reading 74 pages.
The early festivals.
You can find out the complete
line ups of the first festivals if you follow the links below ,as well as new
information recently received in 2004 .
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Festivals 65-83
Most of these have fairly complete documentation .But new contributions of any sort are always welcome regarding any of the festivals.
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