Talkawhile's festival moments

[Sandra]

I suppose some of my festival moments have only become apparent with retrospect.
 
Being at the first and second Glastonbury, Bath Festival in '70 and '71, surviving Bickershaw. Its only talking to people now that I really appreciate what great bands I saw in a very short space of time - Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead ..... the list goes on. I only wish I could remember more of it all

More recently I have to admit that Beautiful Days in 2005 was, and still is pretty special as it saw two of my best friends getting together and now planning to get married. In fact, Beautiful Days every year is special for all sorts of reasons. Last year there was a pretty good band on just before the Levellers. I'd recommend them to you

as a ps, loos at festivals don't really bother me that much. In my day you were lucky if you had   ...................

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

I haven't been to that many to have good and bad moments.

I remember being ridiculously drunk at an all day mnusic events circa 1989. My mate's bad SuYu were playing and I believe I disgraced myself with the drummer and some cider. My (now ex) husband didn't talk to me for days, but I never really found out what I did.  

I think my best was the time I walked into the Cropredy field for the first time in 2004. I just felt at home and amongst friends. I can't imagine missing one.  

[Sian]

Stood in the field at Cropredy 2000 as the sun was setting, Fairport were playing something haunting (maybe Hiring Fair) just ace!

[Delfini (Diane)]

Now that's set me thinking, smiling and reminiscing.........here's a few........


Seeing Christy Moore at Cambridge a couple of years ago - one of those sets that sent a shiver down your spine

the first reunion, hearing Swarb do a solo in Sloth

my friend hooking her lantern over the ridgepole of my tent and putting it through the canvas - it was pouring with rain

Same friend spilling a bottle of milk in the boot of my car  

Tom Robinson at Cambridge, a few years ago - his reaction to the great reception he got

Being made to do 'door' on the club tent when Janis Ian was playing on the main stage

Just being on Cropredy field - it makes me smile to think of it

[madsue]

Mine not soo good!  Sitting outside the Guinness tent at Cambridge circa 1990??, just chilling.  Big dog running around, everyone laughing, me wondering at what.  Sudden warm and wet feeling through the back of my tee shirt  Big dog runs away

I have many many happier festival moments of Cambridge though, luckily!!

[Ollie]

I've only been to Cropredy twice and Ely once, so my moments are limited, but most of my best moments come from my first Croppers in 06. Being down the front for Feast of Fiddles was a fantastic experience as it was my first proper festival gig. Also, singing MoTL for the first time at Cropredy was pretty special. My worst moment was pouring salt all over my fish and chips last year at Cropredy and finding it allmost inedible.

[Neil]

Downer moment. Look at the line-up below.

The camera exploded after numerous snaps, particularly of Mr Harper Snr, had been taken. In my defence had drunk a lot of Old Growler beer and eaten a goat kebab and it was long before digital cameras.

Jet lag, a very understanding wife left home with a one year old, a 12 hour drive, forgetting any form of illumination, John Martyn riding his guitar on stage, Bert the Squirt in the portaloo, falling on Nick Harper, I think that was the moment the camera exploded. It wouldn't be such a good memory if the camera had survived though. My Dad finally told me it took the scouts hours to get the beer labels off the windows of the tent. Yes there was a tent with windows and curtains it was worth serious money to someone that weekend.

Worst Cropredy moment the warm can of Spam four of us had to share in the National Express bus terminal in Banbury one Sunday afternoon in 83, it was the only food we had left and then for the next 5 years deciding it was a tradition that had to be repeated every year.

Best Cropredy moment has to have been hearing Trevor Lucas sing Bring 'Em Down or hearing my friend utter the words, "Is That Bobby Radish up there" and knowing he meant Robert Plant, no it was definitely Trevor Lucas.

[simon emmerson]

Here's mine from early Afro Celt days. Infact 2 at the extreme ends of the spectrum from one festival: Glastonbury 1997. The 1st of the really big muddy ones of the 90's. 2 stages were declared unsafe, one actually slide off the site into a ditch! The Afro Celts flew back from another huge festival in Roskilder/Denmark straight to Glastonbury picking up the tour bus at the airport. We arrive to find apocryphal scenes from post Holocaust Britain. The bus aqua surfs it's way down into the Jazz World arena, the driver convinced 'out of it' punters are going to fall under the buses wheels as he can barely control the steering. We all agree as a band we are going to make it our best gig, we are going to remain focused, clear headed and give the crowd a performance they really deserve. Half way through our set the monitoring packs up through the mud and rain and we have to stop to re-cable some of the gear. N'Fally our African Kora player takes the only mike that is working and sings a song about hope in times of hardship that his village sings when the rain doesn't come for months. No irony spared here. I look up and see what seems like rays of light pouring out of his body into the crowd. Iarla our Irish singer, who belongs to the no nonsense Richard Dawkins 'all religion is ****' school of thought comes over to me and says:
"Would you look at our man N'Fally he's like some big radioactive heating unit with all that light pouring out of him"
We get the gear back on and working and have the best gig of our lives. In many ways it was the turning point for the band. I've never felt so much love and connection from an audience. Even if it was a trick of the light no one can deny me the pure poetry of that moment. The gig finishes and I am struggling to get back to the bus to put the kettle on get ready to celebrate with the band and crew (all of whom are still up on the stage de-rigging the gear) with a nice cup of tea, a few beers, a spliff and maybe a cake or two. I am wading through a liquid sea of mud that's up over my boots when I see my wife struggling towards me through the darkness:
"some one has overdosed on the tour bus" she says. My wife used to be a trained nurse so she knows about these things. I manage to struggle back to the jazz world production office and tell them. By the time I get back to the bus it's full of out of it ravers, some **** of a smack head has given a band members friend some super strong smack. Everyone is so out of it no one has noticed she's turning blue and about to o/d. The paramedics turn up within  minutes, they assess the situation, give her a small shot of adrenalin and save her life. They all turn out to be local Somerset lads, one of them an ex farmer.  When the drama is over one of them tells me about a voluntary self help scheme called 'the Responders' were people from isolated rural communities learn the basics of 1st aid, resuscitation techniques, how to use a defibrillator etc. A 1st Responder can get to an emergency call out within minutes, in case the paramedics are delayed. And that's what I am doing tonight, Monday night is my night as a 1st Responder as has been since I moved down to glorious, rural West Dorset. What goes around comes around.
simon

[ronnie]

As a young lad in '79, joining the crowd breaking in to Knebworth the night before the Zeppelin gig. Stonehenge festival listening to Hawkwind playing silver machine backwards (was it them or me or the sweeties?), in the early 80's hitching a lift into Glastonbury Festival on one of the travellers buses. Climbing on stage with Billy Bragg at an anti racism festival in Glasgow... short intermission of 15 years - marriage, children, divorce etc ... we find our man older, balder, wiser(?) at Cropredy 2003 with some dear friends, sitting on the grass with a beer in hand watching the kids dance. Cropredy 2004, a late night sharing some whisky with the guys from the tent next door at 2 in the morning, listening to their tales of Fairport and London in the late 60's. Glastonbury '07 Lost Vagueness in a marquee for the 'secret' Madness gig.

Boy, I've had some good memories just raking these few out...

ronnie      

[Ian_]

 My best Festival moment was Robert Plant playing with Fairport at Cropredy (er...92?); I almost forgot to breathe during their performance of 'Thank you'. The hair on the back of my neck tingled with pure electricity and I swear I was lifted a fingers-breadth above the ground...

     The worst moment was arriving at Cropredy saturday lunchtime in 1997 and being unable to get a ticket at the gate    my own fault, of course, but it was the first time in about six festival visits that I'd been unable to just walk in on the day.
     Watching every one else wandering into the field while the music played joyously and invitingly was just HELL. I went home in a taxi leaving the village and my friends behind in the heat and the sunshine, and vowed never to make that mistake again.....

[abby (tank girl)]

sooooo many, where to start??
a disastrous reading '92, my travelling companion had to go back home cos he forgot something so i hitched there on my own, it rained all weekend, my borrowed tent leaked, friend made it back on saturday and 'fixed' tent so it leaked some more, hitched home together, hole-in-the-wall ate my cashcard, no fags, no food, pitched the tent on the roadside in market harborough, finally made it from reading to gt yarmouth on about 34 hours...........
totally overdid it at glasto '93, ended up hugely dehydrated having drunk nothing but beer for 4 days and eaten nothing but, well they weren't bags of sugar, then fell asleep in front of main stage sunday lunchtime and ended up in the st johns with sunstroke................oh and the landy broke down and we had to wait for the aa to find a flatbed trailer to relay us home, we left the site at approx 2am on tuesday..........
more recently, seeing georgie bump into friend she made at crop 2 or 3 yrs ago, and watching them, both 11 yrs old, arms around each other singing meet on the ledge and vowing to meet up again next year...............
oh and daisy, 9 yrs old, asleep between the barrier and the front of the main stage while jonesy was stewarding there during the ozrics at solfest last year - as he carried her still sleeping he was met by a call of 'now that's proper hardcore!'.............
now i recall she slept with her head virtually in a speaker in front of kt tunstall too.............
georgie doing fire poi somewhere or other, and waking up next morning she said 'my eyelashes are all bobbly', as she turned and looked at me she had a big black smudge right in between her eyes - that'll be why then george!
and we won't mention this year's sunrise debacle..............

plenty more where they came from

[Waterloo Wonderer]

Downer moment. Look at the line-up below.
The camera exploded after numerous snaps, particularly of Mr Harper Snr, had been taken. In my defence had drunk a lot of Old Growler beer and eaten a goat kebab and it was long before digital cameras.

Jet lag, a very understanding wife left home with a one year old, a 12 hour drive, forgetting any form of illumination, John Martyn riding his guitar on stage, Bert the Squirt in the portaloo, falling on Nick Harper, I think that was the moment the camera exploded. It wouldn't be such a good memory if the camera had survived though. My Dad finally told me it took the scouts hours to get the beer labels off the windows of the tent. Yes there was a tent with windows and curtains it was worth serious money to someone that weekend.

The only people who spoke to us all weekend were from Huyton and they were equally unimpressed when the Strawbs came on and people yelled SIT DOWN.

I was so much older then I'm younger than that now!

[Tasha]

My worst ....Glastonbury 1981. Hitched there with my best friend. Her Aunty beverley Martyn was going to be playing there. Took bloody ages ended up having a lift the last part with dutch bloke in his V Dub- police stopped us on entry stripped down his van and searched us... We had to empty our bags and they went  through the lot tampax included - It was a really horrible moment. Later during the festval i saw the PC and WPC who had searched us sitting in Afghans "smoking" with a group. I managed to let one of the group know who they were sitting with and they all ran!

Second bad thing about this festival was the argument that broke out on stage between Roy Harper and Ginger Baker. Roy was on stage performing away when Ginger walks on and starts putting up his drum kit at the front of the stage saying Roy had tken too long. Roy asked him to stop - Ginger swore at him and the next minute they were fighting. Roy Harper was carried off and the crowd started throwing bottles at the stage I was near the front and scared stupid!   Then  somehow a couple of rocks came flying though. One of them hit Ginger smack on the head and blood started pouring down his face. By this point he was drumming and he didn't stop. It was scary! The next day my friends Aunty Beverley Martyn said that Ginger had come up to her with an enormous cut and bruise on his head and two gigantic dogs saying he was going to ******g kill Harper and the C**t who'd hit him with the rock.



My best moment well one was Liege and lief Cropredy 2007- Amazing!

[MikeA]

Someone mentioned surviving Bickershaw 72 - an unforgettable long weekend with the Dead/NRPS as highlight, but exhausting; unmissable, but  Beefheart,for example, appeared @ 0300 in the morning, just to test our stamina.
 Similar experience at Lincoln (Great Western?) Festival later that year...went to both but time takes its toll on the memory/detail. Rory Gallagher played twice 'cos the Friday storms were atrocious and Roxy Music played (debut gig?) mainly in anoraks. Stone the Crows, sadly post Les Harvey, with Steve Howe in tow rings bells; Vinegar Joe with Elkie Brooks; Sha Na Na were excellent...Beach Boys, Joe Cocker and Monty Python were prominent without blowing anyone away-the Night Assemblies Bill was an issue as I remember, so nobody slept much as the music never stopped
And the Incredible String Band were ace!We even took time out to enjoy Slade & Status Quo in moderation. Fine times, indeed.

[madsue]

MikeA, your post reminded me of the first weekend festival I ever attended!!!!!!!!  the music never stopped either

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/extra/series-1/weeley_festival.shtml

[James SftBH]

An odd moment at Glastonbury 1986. I was watching The Psychedelic Furs (made even more psychedelic with the addition of a swirling wind that made the sound go all wierd and erm....trippy, as did some blue sweets I'd bought from a man with a clown face who I'd found under a Mini Cooper on the 'Convoy' Field) and a fella came through the throng to me and my mate Liz, shook a stick in our faces and said "This stick is my wife and she won't give me any heroin!". That was strange. We ran away quickly.

Good moment - same festival; I absolutely hated, detested and reviled The Waterboys - couldn't stand their overblown, posturing 'big music' nonsense. Liz said "Nah, come and watch them, they're superb". They were, I was converted within 10 minutes and i've adored them ever since.

[issy]

I've obviously had a very sheltered festival experience compared to you lot  

The Not-So-Good...   git coming in my tent and going through my stuff while I was nearly asleep and alone, and most embarrassingly, losing all sense of balance and proprioception (cant think why  ) during John Martyns fabulous set at Crop and tumbling over some people who were still stubbornly sitting on their blanket in front of the stage while everyone was standing round them.  Managed to crawl away despite the massively increased gravitational attraction of the ground and deposit myself hopelessly at the periphery...  where I just wanted to chill and be left alone..  where I was apprehended by some wandering members of St Johns who had some other ideas and were concerned that I might be in a diabetic coma!  I rose splendidly and quite remarkably to the occasion to confidently reassure them that I was not in ketosis and should be completely ignored thankyou.   And then crawled away somewhere else...

The best...  the fabulous loved-up sublime vibe at Beautiful Days in ?2005 during the Michael Franti and Spearhead set.   Power to the Peaceful.   Unsurpassed.

Issy  

[simon emmerson]

"fella came through the throng to me and my mate Liz, shook a stick in our faces and said "This stick is my wife and she won't give me any heroin!".

Pete Docherty with Kate Moss??

[James SftBH]

"fella came through the throng to me and my mate Liz, shook a stick in our faces and said "This stick is my wife and she won't give me any heroin!".

Pete Docherty with Kate Moss??

 

[Goaty]

First sunrise fest, main drag through the camp site, some gangly hippy wearing nothing but sandals and shorts comes bounding up to us and says, loudly and in a very thick Welsh accent, 'Would you like to buy some mushrooms ?  I picked them myself in Wales, in my pants!'  It was such a hilarious delivery I couldn't talk for laughing for about ten minutes.

I remember Spearhead Issy, fantastic!