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 |
Created December 2007
Updated Jan 2008
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Reading August 27-29th 1982. |
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This release featured tracks from various years -not just 1982 . |
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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.
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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 |
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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 |
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Twisted sister © John Spence |
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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
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Randy California 8-27-82 50 minute Audience and 25 min Fm recordings exist- looking for setlist |
Praying Mantis 8-27-82
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Budgie 8-27-82
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Gary Moore Band 8-28-82
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Looks like this would have been a HOT band Looking for cover of this disc |
| Iron Maiden 8-28-82
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Twisted Sister 8-29-82
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Marillion 8-29-82
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| Y & T 8-29-82
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Michael Schenker Group 8-29-82
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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 .
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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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