For
information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk
The Archive.
| |
For
information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk |
Updated Jan 2008- new photos
View at 1280 x1024 .
The Reading Rock Festival.
 |
Reading August 22-24th 1980. |
The View From the Mud : Reading Rock Recollections
Samson : Reading Rock 1980 © Paul Brannigan |
Photo of Gillan Reading Rock 1980 © Phil Ryan |
Krokus . Reading 1980 © Ferg Ranson |
Samson : Reading Rock 1980 © Paul Brannigan |
We need more info on this and the other 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 whats left of the aging braincells .Send your recollections and scans to us NOW ! !! Contact us
Recollections.
Will be updated as we receive new communications from you, the punters , so contact us and let us have your recollections NOW .
| Hi, I was in a young and new heavy metal band from Plymouth who drove to Reading on Friday morning from Plymouth and stayed for the whole weekend. We camped out in a park close by the river and around my old mark 2 Cortina. We had to park it up a bank as it had a leak near the front of the fuel tank. After the fantastic Friday night gig from Rory Gallagher (who was brilliant) we staggered back to the car and crashed in our sleeping bags on the grass around the outside. Being under the influence somewhat, we left the boot and doors of the car open. |
The Police woke us up at 3am believing the car had crashed and we were all lying dead and unconscious. Still fairly inebriated I remember saying how ironic it was that we had crossed two football pitches, stopped undamaged up a bank, had all been thrown out yet managed to land in our sleeping bags ready for a tidy burial. Not too impressed the young officer departed muttering something about not doing it again.
|
Highlights of the weekend included on Friday, Gillan with a bass guitarist on a wire, the excellent blues band 9 Below Zero and the magnificent Rory Gallagher. He had the crowd in his hand from the outset and I think we all appreciated we were in the presence of greatness as he mesmerized us with acoustic and electric sets. On Saturday Samson were great in the afternoon and the wonderful Pat Travers Band brought the place alive at that great time in the festival day when the evening arrives, things get a bit crisper and the right band wakes you up. |
PTB really kicked us into life with an uncompromising R&B based set featuring the wake up call "Boom Boom – out go the lights". Fully awake and ready to party again we enjoyed memorable gigs from the young and new Iron Maiden followed by the old rockers themselves UFO who I swear I remember seeing live in Neath ten years previously in 1970. UFO’s Doctor Doctor was undoubtedly the anthem of that heavy metal generation and the crowd responded to it well.
| On Sunday, after a bit of bridge jumping into the Thames we made our way to the site in time to see the excellent Budgie. Coincidently we played support to them in Plymouth 10 months later. I note that Metallica have covered "Breadfan" which was an old standard I remember from Budgie in the early 70s. Magnum played a great set on Sunday afternoon and although Ozzy couldn’t make it, Def Leppard was the band that my muso mates were really there to see. |
|
|
Around the same age, the Leps didn’t let them down before Whitesnake provided a polished finish to the show. I think that was the year someone showed up with a pig’s head they had found in a butchers bin. It probably featured in hosts of photographs.
1980 was the year the metal flew thick and fast, especially the cans.
I seem to remember the Hellions who were a punk outfit took a bit of
a battering. Punk had given way to Long hair, black leather biker jackets
and a generation that idolized Status Quo. |
Ironmaiden Reading Rock 1980 |
Hi. I was 16 when me & my cousin Martin boarded the coach from Manchester to our first Festival at Reading in 1980 and it has remained etched in my mind as one great experience. We had missed out on Led Zep the previous year as we were packed off to family in Canada for the summer - that was a great experiance too, for a fifteen year old but I've always regretted not making Knebworth in '79!Back to Reading in 1980. After hearing Tommy Vances radio broadcasts of Reading 1979, it was a real thrill for an impressionable 16 year old to be going to a festival that would be featuring some of the greats of rock and some of the new wave of British Heavy Metal who were later to become legends too. I remember the excitement at the prospect of seeing FOUR ex-members of Deep Purple, Ian Gillan on the Friday and Coverdale, Lord and Paice with Whitesnake on the Sunday. Gillan was a little off his peak due to over working his voice but the tape I made of the show proves how worshiped he was at the time, with the crowd shouting, "Gillan is God, Gillan is God" right through the performance. Saturday is a bit of a blur due to the effect of the hot sun and all the cider drinking but I do recall with amusement Samson with the drummer in the cage! and one very young Bruce Dickinson on vocals! |
Sunday
was memorable for one very special performance by a very unlikley band.
SLADE had replaced Ozzy at short notice. They came on at just the right
time, at dusk and after all the 'filler' bands but before the BIG NAMES.
They blew us in the crowd all away and the Tommy Vance broadcast of
the show is testement to that. Def Leopard were a let down and had to
endure a hostile crowd but Iron Maiden held the crowd well. I took a few photo's myself as well as recording Gillan and Whitesnake and still I have these as very special momentos. I'll send the pics to your site soon as I can - they are stored on another computer! |
Plod patrol Reading 1980 photo courtesy Pete |
Thanks for the site; if you have any further photo's of Slade or Gillan or Whitesnake or any of the bands at the Festival, I'd love to see them. Back to your web-site now to see if I can spot myself in the crowd pictures!
Cheers for now, Phil, Manchester
The truth of the matter is that Slade stole the show at Reading 1980.Def Leppard were boo'ed and recieved a barrage of cans by going on after Slade.Def Leppard said that they just couldn't top Slade.I am surprised that your website did not highlight this fact! There is also some footage somewhere to comfirm this also.The Slade set was filmed by a tv company with and S or Z logo on the cameras. Perhaps you can shed some light on this.
|
 |
Chilling between bands © Ferg Ranson |
Tygers of Pan Tang onstage © Stephen Vaughan |
Samson onstage Reading 1980 © Ferg Ranson |
Quartz onstage Reading 1980 © Ferg Ranson |
Unknown band onstage © Stephen Vaughan click on the link to see more of Stephens photos from Reading 1980 |
Reading 1980 pages
Thanks to photographer Alan Perry for allowing us to use his excellent photos of Reading 1980, you can purchase copies of these pix at his website where he has oodles of top photos of metal bands from the 70s to the 80s
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 .
| |
|
|
|
Festivals 65-83
Most of these have fairly complete documentation .But new contributions of any sort are always welcome regarding any of the festivals.
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
