For
information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk
The Archive.
Updated Sept 2007
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For
information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk |
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Reading August 25-27th 1978. |
1978 Reading Rock Festival. |
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If you can help with more info please Contact us
Reading 78 - note thrown can © Paddy Mulvenna |
| The year that Punk arrived in force, courtesy of the likes of Sham 69 , Penetration and the Jam . Friday night was Punk night , with the "Old Fart " brigade dominating the Saturday and Sunday slots. According to some sources the bald headed hordes of the Sham Army apparently bottled some of the other acts and the Friday evening degenerated into something of a shambles towards the end (which if this did happen , was in some ways, highly symbolic ) . An extremely obscure 45 minute Punk orientated video was produced called " The Kids are United " ( which , given the circumstances , was a somewhat ironic moniker ) , this featured Penetration , The Pirates, Sham 69, Ultravox and the Jam . From what I have seen , it appears that almost all these bands went down well and there was a quite a bit of pogoing down the front. The audience was a mix of subcultures, no real hard core punks in evidence on the footage seen so far. Overall the punk bands were received well if not rapturously ,clips of most of the acts have recently appeared on Youtube. |
Still lots of long hairs in the crowd for Friday at Reading 78 , but Punk influenced music was to have an increasing influence over the next decade . |
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Paul Weller at Reading 1978 |
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Penetration onstage, Reading 1978 |
View
From The Mud
Headliners were The Jam ( who moaned about the sound system throughout -ultimately
with Weller declaring that '..someone had stitched them up'!!!) - Status Quo
( we went and made a campfire!!) and Patti Smith (brilliant!)
a strange mix, other acts included Sham 69 - with a bizarre Steve Hillage taking
the stage with them.
John Otway was as eccentric as ever !
David Birch
Hi, |
Sham 69 -"Borstal Breakout " |
Jimmy Pursey (sans tears) Reading 78 |
I thought
at the time that Pursey was crying because of all the fighting in the
crowd (lots) & he couldn't stop it, although in the video he claims
that it was because he couldn't believe how far he had come in 18 months,
I think my original theory sounds less likely as I never heard Jim once
slag off any of his fans at any gig, & everyone I attended ended in
violence. I too remember Weller
getting stroppy about the sound, but I thought they were awesome - one
of the best gigs I ever saw, they were plugging their upcoming album "All
Mod Cons" & it was the first time I heard "Tube Station"
it was phenomenal probably one of the top musical highlights of my life. |
My main memories are the building tension of the day leading up to the audience storming the stage for Sham 69 and bringing the set to a halt - hence Pursey's tears. I also remember a bunch of skinheads in front of me trashing a big Status Quo banner - can't blame them really, I suppose, but it seemed sad at the time. I remember the Pirates
coming on after Sham 69 and the whole day settled down with their great
brand of r&b. |
Crowd go ape during Sham 69's set |
I remember Spirit were amazing
and Status Quo were pants.
I remember enjoying Foreigner ( what a guilty pleasure that seems now ) and
I remember Patti Smith being just amazing.
My first festival it was.
Slept in a mark 3 Cortina for 3 days. Can't imagine it now.
Thanks for the memories.
Steve
Davies
Hi there,
Nice to see so many memories of these festivals - keep up the good work! Just
to add to them: I was at Reading 1978, and Slade definitely weren't. Patti Smith
was the headline on the Sunday night - a surprisingly good, tight, set. I adored
Spirit at the time, and was delighted to see them live. I remember a chap next
to me calling out for 'Looking Down', which I thought was pretty hard-core of
him as it wasn't released until their live
album appeared later that year. I missed the Friday (and didn't see any evidence
of violence), but I thought the Saturday & Sunday were a very good way to
see a lot of bands quickly (it was my first festival, y'know).
Cheers,
Jeremy Walton
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Hi There
was a group of skins who didn’t take much to this and were attacking
any long-hairs down at the front. I know , as I was one of them –
the longhair not the skin! It deeply upset Jimmy to have to watch this
going on and be helpless to stop it.
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Lindisfarne and Spirit onstage at Reading 1978 photos © Stuart Alexander
Hi
As I remember it Jimmy Pursey shouted out ‘ let’s see some action’, that’s when all the skinheads jumped onto the stage and kicked shit out of everything and Jimmy started to cry.
By the way there were lots of skins on the first day getting pissed on scrumpy, throwing up and laying on the ground, several people gave them a friendly boot for being twats. I remember one guy getting beat up by about six skinheads earlier in the day, then getting a motorbike chain and wading into a group of skins later.
It was warm because me and my mate Phil slept in our sleeping bags outside under the stars.
Patti Smith was fantastic as were the Jam, Bethnal, John Ottway and Chelsea. Saturday nights bands were shit.
Very big thanks to ‘Sally Army’ for soup tent as we spent all our money on booze, (as any self respecting 17 year old would).Gary Rogers
Status Quo onstage Reading 1978 photos © Stuart Alexander |
I was a reading punk/skin/mod (we were coming to the end of punk and we were just beginning to discover the ska/rude boy element) and my memory was on that day was for once we could see the bands we supported at a major rock venue. The day started and we were to the left of the main stage when all of a sudden someone caught a party four on his head and that's what caused the trouble that was to flare up that day. I can remember we needed to get through to the middle to meet up with our mates and some dirty grease ball of a hells angel sticking the point of an umbrella under my chin to which a local skin stepped in and helped me out (turned out to be the leader of the reading skinheads or suedehead as he liked to be known as) the same guy who just happens to be on the front of a Sham 69 t shirt taken at the time of the stage riot. |
Penetration were great, tight set (I always prefer Pauline to Siouxsie) . I also remember seeing The Tourists but thought better of it and Sham 69 through the cans, gob and fighting, mr Jimmy (im a ballet star on L W T) Pursey if it was to much for you, well try being a 15 year old at the sharp end of it mate! And
then The Jam -well, it was the first year they had the huge screens put
up and so from any distance you could see the group looking sharp in grey
mohair suits .I do remember the sound being fucked around a bit but what
an experience! A set list of performers playing to our generation! The
days of love and peace
had come to an end and things would never be the same.
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Chugging back export at Reading 78 © Paddy Mulvenna |
Pursey was totally hacked
off with the aggro and it must have been overwhelming performing in front of
around 15,000 people on the Friday.
It was my first proper gig, me and a mate camping, aged fifteen, miles away
from parental control. It was magical, I had already fallen in love with
Sham 69 and found it amazing that Jimmy Pursey would spend most of the day hanging
around with us idiots. He was, and remains, a really genuine bloke, always
accessible.
| The Jam
didn't get a fair deal on the sound front but they just drove straight past
their supporters into the back-stage enclosure, no talking, no autographs,
good socialism comrade Paul. They were always better suited to small
halls anyway, that type of band. The Pirates were brilliant, Penetration were superb (Pauline was gorgeous) but the Friday belonged to Sham. One Reading newspaper described it as a "Punk Invasion". I will try to scan the damned thing and get it to you when I can afford a scanner. That day it seemed like punk rock was going to change the world. Is every generation so stupid? We flogged out tickets on the third day cos we'd run out of money, fags and booze but, after the first day and Sham dominating proceedings, everything was going to be anticlimactic anyway. |
Bruce Foxton of the Jam Reading 78 . |
Reading '78 was one of the
best experiences in my life, mainly because of the great performance of Sham
69 a brilliant live band who always gave 100%
Peter Stitt
Great site - great memories!
I was at Reading in '78 and '79 and remember it as a great festival with a mix
of top-name performers as well as up-and-coming and, frankly, unknown acts.
It also offered a good mix of musical genres which was not always the case in
later years.
I am attaching a picture - with apologies for the quality - of the much talked-about skinhead stage invasion during Sham 69's performance in '78. Admittedly I was too far away to see Jimmy's tears, but as I remember it a bunch of blokes got on stage then stood around looking gormless because they couldn't think of what to do next. They did however succeed in annoying that most affable and unflappable of men, John Peel, when he was trying to play records from his position between the two stages. Sham 69 pretty much left me cold, but the spectacle was diverting and it was amusing to read the newspaper reports of armageddon that followed. I also remember Jimmy Pursey returning to the stage after The Jam had thrown their toys out of the pram and leading the crowd in a singalong of "You'll Never Walk Alone" to try and calm people down. It seemed to work. |
Trouble t' Mill lads ! Sham 69 onstage Reading 78
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The Jam were disappointing
for reasons well recorded elsewhere.
Of the other acts on Friday, the Pirates
were brilliant. How a simple rock'n'roll band can get a cynical festival crowd
jumping on the first afternoon I don't know - but they managed it. And I remember
the following year some time in the afternoon they played a short clip of their
'78 performance on the video screen - and even that got a tremendous crowd reaction!
© Paddy Mulvenna |
Ultravox
were a bit out of place. OK, but mainly I marvelled at the shape of John
Foxx's head.... must have been a difficult birth. Status Quo are much maligned for some reason. Maybe they didn't sit well between the hippie festival crowd and the punk/new wave crowd. But I enjoyed their set as, apparently, did they. And when Rossi introduces one of his own songs with "it goes on a bit, but we'll have some fun..." you've got to warm to the guy - if only for his self-awareness. They did what the Quo do best - heads-down, no-nonsense, mindless boogie. Lindisfarne were what you'd expect - and there's nothing wrong with that. The Motors were what you'd expect and there were a few things wrong with that. They floated an inflatable car above the stage (that's about as far as special effects went in 1978) and the biggest cheer they got was when a well-aimed can (actually the last of a sustained volley of cans) brought it down. |
I'm sorry, but Patti Smith was awful. The music wasn't too bad if you
like power ballads, but my God, didn't she go on? What was that about a long
tarmac road stretching off into the distance? We listened to her whine for a
while then started building human pyramids. Actually attracted a small but amused
audience of similarly unimpressed festival-goers.
On the Sunday TRB got people singing "Glad
to be Gay" - and this was 1978, remember. John Otway was special; when
his microphone packed up (he was halfway up the scaffolding at the time) he
simply cupped his hands and shouted... I always liked Squeeze as a band, good
musicians playing pop-rock and with ladies taking their clothes off. Does it
for me every time.
I can't remember when Paul Inder appeared, but he was comically dreadful! Apparently he's Lemmy's boy and that has to be the only reason he got on the bill. People were laughing hysterically. The only song I can remember was "I don't want to go to bed"; if I remember rightly he was in his early teens at the time so I think this was an anthem of rebellion against parents rather than a vow of celibacy! Anyway it consisted of the title shouted repeatedly and interspersed with dreadfully distorted crashing guitar. Call me an old fogey if you like, but it was just noise. Why
don't I remember Slade? We must have turned up late one day... (we were
local so travelled to the festival each day). Were they on early? I saw
them later in Nottingham at a small venue and they were brilliant. |
© Paddy Mulvenna |
You asked for reminiscences of Reading '78. Here are mine. It was my first festival, and because I was a student at Reading at the time, I walked over from my digs at the other side of town to the festival site every day. Because I'm a bit obsessive like that, I wrote down all the bands and running-order at the time, and luckily I still have a copy. They were:
Friday - Dennis O'Brien; The Automatics; New Hearts; Radio Stars; Penetration; Sham 69; The Pirates; Ultravox; The Jam
Saturday - Speed-O-Metors; The Business; Jenny Darren; Next; Gruppo Sportivo; Nutz; Greg Kihn Band; Lindisfarne; Spirit; The Motors; Status Quo
Sunday - After The Fire; Chelsea; Pacific Eardrum; Bethnal; Squeeze; John Otway; The Albion Band; Paul Inder; Ian Gillan Band; Tom Robinson Band; Foreigner; Patti Smith Group.
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The two faces of Reading 78, left: Sham 69 crowd , right: Paddy Mulvenna and friends For every punk /skin at Reading there were probably three or more longhairs . |
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I'm absolutely sure Slade didn't play that year.
What do I remember? Dennis O'Brien, who'd won some sort of competition in Australia (I think) with an appearance at Reading as the prize, getting canned off. His band all wore matching t-shirts with a tacky scorpion logo, so I suppose he was asking for it from the punks. He went off virtually in tears.
The guitarist with New Hearts trying to head away a beer can. It turned out to be full, and he had to be helped off stage for a while with a cut head.
The Sham riot, well covered by everyone else.
The Pirates went down well with the skins, but Ultravox didn't. John Foxx played "dodge the beercan" all set, including what looked like a full Party Seven.Saturday was a bit of an anti-climax after Friday. Friday was the punk day, Sunday was a bizarre mixture but Saturday was definitely a throw-back to earlier years. I got bored during Status Quo's set and went home.
Speed-O-Metors saying that three great bands had come out of Shepherd's Bush: The Who, The Pistols and them. Well, two out of three isn't bad.I really enjoyed Bethnal, who were punks with a violin and who did a good version of "Baba O'Reilly". Subsequently they vanished without trace. The Albion Band went down well, in spite of not being like anyone else on the bill, and did a superb song called the Gresford Disaster (although I've always had a soft spot for mining disaster songs).
I enjoyed Tom Robinson and Patti Smith (who had flyers with slogan "Outta Traction - Back In Action" and the lyrics to Ghost Dance handed out), was disappointed that John Otway didn't perform with Wild Willie Barratt and found both Ian Gillan and Foreigner ineffably tedious. But I thought I was a punk at the time, so this was compulsory.
Now, where did I put my band list from Knebworth the same summer?
All the best
Paul Steeples
1978 I remember as very hot – I bought a bootleg sex Pistols album which I still have. Friday night was brilliant with the Sham 69 fiasco (well documented on the site, I was busily trying to avoid the skinheads near the front) followed by The Pirates (really top class, whatever happened to them?) and The Jam. Weller did get frustrated but the set was right on it – the second album got panned, and then they came back with this set and All Mod Cons – they found themselves. Spirit were majestic on Saturday and then Patti Smith blew everyone away on Sunday. Stunning – one of the best gigs ever.
Andrew Hartley
Program of artistes ( in order of appearance . list courtesy Paul Steeples)
Sat 26th August
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Sunday
27th August
Compere John Peel
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Prize for band "most likely to be in the wrong place at the wrong time "goes to the folk outfit the Albion Band , totally out of place amongst this lot, yet apparently they went down quite well. Which is nice to hear .....
Recordings and Setlists
Sham 69 :Friday 25th ( video production "Kids are United ")
The Jam :Friday 25th ( video production "Kids are United ")
Audience recordings Patti Smith :Sun 27th
Spirit
Ultravox :Friday 25th
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Cooking up a storm © Paddy Mulvennah
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| Having
been at the 1978 Reading Festival I can certainly add a bit to who performed
what, as I taped two hours worth of Sunday, the 27th. Looking now at the tape, although these tracks were played in this order there are obviously some missing from each acts setlists. After recording most of Ivor Biggun's 'Winker's Song (Misprint)' blaring over the sound system to rural Berkshire, I caught the following: Squeeze - 'Take Me I'm Yours' Ian Gillan Band - Secret Of The Bells,' 'Getting Back In The Game,' 'Child In Time,' 'Dead Of Night,' 'Message In A Bottle,' 'Smoke On The Water' and 'Lucille.' Tom Robinson Band - 'Too Good To Be True,' 'Power In The Darkness' and 'Don't Take No For An Answer.' Patti Smith - 'Privilege (Set Me Free),' '?,' 'It's A Man's Man's World,' 'So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star,' '?,' 'Because The Night,' 'Gloria' and 'My Generation.' (In the dark I didn't realise that the batteries were running out so, by the time I got to Foreigner, after 'Double Vision' the other two tracks start 'speeding up' to oblivion. Doh! Foreigner - 'Double Vision,' 'Cold As Ice,' 'Feels Like The First Time' and 'Hot Blooded' Dec H. |
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Can we get a witness ?
We need more info on this and the other late 70s Reading festivals, we are now in the curious situation of having better documentation on some of the earlier festivals, so c'mon headbangers, get yer photos out and fire up the braincells .Send your recollections and scans to us NOW ! !! Contact us
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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