The Archive.

For information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk

Created December 2007

Updated Jan 2008

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The Reading Rock Festival.
Richfield Avenue. 
Reading 
August 27-29th 1982.

 

This release featured tracks from various years -not just 1982 .

   The twenty second festival possibly had a more attractive lineup than 1981, at least if one was a heavy rock devotee. The inclusion of hard rock guitar stalwarts Gary Moore, Randy California, southern rockers Blackfoot and erstwhile pub rockers Dave Edmunds and Wilko Johnson gave the lineup spine that was missing from the previous year.

   The headliners were also a tad more prestigious. The Scorpions/UFO former lead guitarist Michael Schenker, whose repertoire veered into the sort of metal jazz/rock territory inhabited by Jeff Beck- as well as delivering more predictable hard rock fare -gave Sunday night a touch of class .

   Budgie and Iron Maiden were guaranteed to deliver an exciting hard rock show, regardless of whether one thought of them as innovators within the genre or not. All three of these artists sets were recorded by the venerable BBC and broadcast on the Radio One Friday night rock show in 1983 .

Y & T onstage at Reading 1982

    Once again, Reading delivered a mid range experience for the punters , no top end acts like Pink Floyd or the Stones which needed a mega crowd to return the organisers a profit, but a solid workmanlike bill that would leave the attendees satisfied in the main . This was what Reading was about at the time, but the formula was about to change , as 1983 would be the last Reading for several years,at long last , the never ending story was about to come to a ( temporary ) stop.

 

The site in 1982, as one can see the arena was not full to bursting by any means ....

Friday 27th Aug.
Sat 28th Aug
Sunday 29th Aug
  • Against the Grain
  • Angels
  • Stampede
  • Overkill
  • Tank
  • Baron Rojo
  • Praying Mantis
  • Randy California
  • Trust
  • Budgie

  • Bow Wow
  • Rock Goddess
  • Grand Prix
  • Ore
  • Cheetah
  • Blackfoot
  • Bernie Torme
  • Tygers of Pan Tang
  • Gary Moore Band
  • Iron Maiden
  • Terraplane
  • Twisted Sister
  • Chinatown
  • Marillion
  • Spider
  • Bernie Marsden's SOS
  • Jackie Lynton's Allstars
  • Y&T
  • Wilko Johnson
  • Dave Edmunds
  • Michael Schenker Group
  • Djs :Jackie Lynton, Jerry Floyd

NB : Acts are listed in order of appearance as far as we can ascertain

Diamond Head ,Just Good Friends - Lew Lewis appear to have substituted for some acts, can anyone confirm who dropped out ?

Cheetah © John Spence

Twisted sister © John Spence

Fish of Marillion

Y& T.

Y& T.

Y& T.

 


Setlists and recordings

Audience recordings seem rare for 1982,almost all the sets out here seem to be sourced from BBC fm. If you know of any sets that exist we have missed please send us details.

Diamond Head 8-27-82

Am I Evil?
In The Heat Of The Light
Borrowed Time
Don't You Ever Leave Me
Sucking My Love
Play It Loud

FM

Released in 1992 - The Friday Night Rock Show sessions- Live At Reading.

Randy California 8-27-82

50 minute Audience and 25 min Fm recordings exist- looking for setlist

 

Praying Mantis 8-27-82

Nightmares.
I Know It.
Tell Me The Nightmare's Wrong.
Enough Is Enough.
Turn The Tables.
Flirtin' With Suicide.

FM

Praying Mantis Reading photos

 

Baron Rojo 8-27-82

Stand up
Flowers of evil"
You're telling me
Baron flies over England
Someone's loving you
Concert for them
Long live rock & roll
Rockers go to hell
Isolation ward
The Poor

FM ?

 

Budgie 8-27-82

Forearm Smash
Crime Against The World
I Turned To Stone
Truth Drug
Superstar
She Used Me Up
Panzer Division Destroyed

FM- Released as a legit CD together with Budgies set at Reading 1980.

 

Gary Moore Band 8-28-82

Nuclear Attack
I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow
Dallas Warhead
White Knuckles
Rockin' And Rollin
Parisienne Walkways


Charlie Huhn - Vocals/Guitar
Gary Moore - Guitar/Vocals
Neil Murray - Bass
Tommy Eyre - Keyboards
Ian Paice - Drums

Looks like this would have been a HOT band

Looking for cover of this disc

 

Iron Maiden 8-28-82

1. Murders In The Rue Morgue
2. Wrathchild
3. Run To The Hills
4. Children Of The Damned
5. The Number Of The Beast
6. 22 Acacia Avenue, Drum Solo
7. Transylvania, Guitar Solo
8. The Prisoner
9. Hallowed Be Thy Name
10. Phantom Of The Opera
11 . Iron Maiden
12 .Running Free
13 . Sanctuary
14 . Drifter
15 . Tush (with Blackfoot)

this setlisting may be compiled from a mix of audience and FM sources. The BBC archive disc is not the complete show.


Bernie Torme 8-28-82

No Easy Way Turn
Out The Lights
Possession
America
Wild Thing With Robert Godfrey (Enid)

FM 25 mins

Twisted Sister 8-29-82

What You Don’t Know
Bad Boys,
Shoot Em Down
Destroyer
Tear It Loose,
Under The Blade

FM 30 mins

 

Marillion 8-29-82

Garden Party
He Knows You Know
Three Boats Down From The Candy
Market Square Heroes
Forgotten Sons
Margaret
She Chameleon

FM

Marillion photos

 

Y & T 8-29-82

Hungry For Rock
Black Tiger.
I Believe In You
Open Fire
Guitar solo >
Rescue Me
Squeeze >
Drums >
Squeeze
Forever
Knock You Out


The Y & T set was filmed ( as were most of the evening sets at Reading as they were projected on screens on either side of the stage ) this show however, 'escaped ' whether legally or illegally ( we suspect the latter ) and is available in DVD format sometimes entitled " Forever " .

Some songs are viewable on youtube

Michael Schenker Group 8-29-82


Armed & Ready
Cry For The Nations
Attack Of The Mad Axeman
But I Want More
Rock You To The Ground (Heavy Blues)
Bijou Pleasurette
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Lost Horizons
Doctor Doctor

FM

Audio samples of this show are available on Youtube

For this MSG show, vocalist Graham Bonnet had been recently replaced by Gary Barden. Apparently Bonnet had collapsed on stage at a show only days before this recording and Barden was brought back to stand in for the indisposed Bonnett.

Recollections

I am reminded that it is 25 years since I went to my first Reading, just after our A level results about 8 of us went to the festival ground (by the river actually in the town at that time) and went wild for three days away from home unsupervised in that blissful carefree time before heading off to university. Fantastic.

Bow Wow incidentally were a Japanese heavy metal band not any one of the similarly named acts you will have heard of.
I ended up sharing my tent with a squaddie we met on the train down; the worst organised soldier in the world apparently as he didn't have a tent. In return for the occasional Spangle (a boiled sweet before you ask) or garribaldi (biscuit, fruit) he got a tent to sleep in. I got to sleep with my feet sticking out the bottom of my tent 'cos it was only 6' long (I was going to sleep diagonally across it) and caught a stinking cold as a result. Mercifully I had some Tiger Balm with me and enough money to keep me in vodka for the duration.

Celebaelin


Can we get a witness ?

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


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 date.

Reading in the 80s to date- Fat Regs excellent site covers Reading from 1982 onwards .


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 .
 
  1961
1962
1963
1964

Festivals 65-83

Most of these have fairly complete documentation .But new contributions of any sort are always welcome regarding any of the festivals.
Richmond 1965
Windsor 1966
 Windsor 1967
Sunbury 1968
Plumpton 1969
Plumpton 1970
Reading 1971
Reading 1972
Reading 1973
Reading 1974

 

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