Three days of rice pudding, rain and rock 'n' roll

During the so-called ‘Summer of Love’ of 1967, the Monterey International Pop Festival heralded the dawn of the age of the contemporary music festival. 

Two years later, Woodstock happened in upstate New York a week or two before vast numbers of my school friends had flocked to a similar but more modestly appointed event on the Isle of Wight.  Notwithstanding the successful movie and album that chronicled Woodstock, the financial and social mayhem and chaos that engulfed the festival elbowed its cultural impact into a corner.  It would be 25 years before Woodstock was to return.

Nevertheless, lessons had apparently been learned from the Woodstock experience by British promoters.  Rikki Farr put together a bigger and better bill for the Isle of Wight for the following August.  Freddy Bannister arguably trumped Farr with his programme for the geographically challenged Bath Festival that was to be held at Shepton Mallett in Somerset.

At the beginning of that summer, 1970, A levels grabbed me by the throat.  Three years of state-subsidised education – and fun – were within my grasp.  French Literature sat uneasily on the schedule for the first Tuesday in July.  The last weekend in June promised the ultimate trip.  The Bath line-up kept me awake at night just thinking about it: Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, the Byrds, Frank Zappa and another twenty or so others.  In the face of unrelenting parental disapproval at the interruption to revision schedules, arrangements were made.  Tents were borrowed, sleeping bags aired and somebody’s mum’s Triumph Herald loaded up with bottles of orange squash and cans of food.  We were on the road and, like all great movements of conquest, heading west. 

The first band was scheduled to start around Saturday lunchtime.  From recollection it was Maynard Ferguson’s Big Band.  I love a mixed metaphor – especially a musical one.  (I never did manage to work out why Ferguson had claimed a place on a bill that was otherwise entirely filled with rock acts.)  Having set off at around 8 am from home in Edgware, Middlesex we were confident of reaching our destination in plenty of time.  However, once we got close, the roads were jammed and traffic was at a stand-still.  I had had the foresight to check out the relevant Ordnance Survey maps from the local library.  I navigated a route along farm tracks and wooded lanes that brought us to a shaded bank no more than a quarter of a mile from the festival site.   Four of us, Stuart Sinclair, Paul Matthews, John Callaghan and I, schlepped our stuff along a series of paths.  We joined the throng that poured past unmanned checkpoints into a vast open arena bounded on one side by hills.

It was not particularly warm and there was more than a suggestion of rain in the air.   The brown-grey murk of a disappointing day was speckled with tie-dye and the flapping of blue and green tent canvas.  We found a decent enough vantage point to call home for the weekend.  After pitching the tents to the sound of the big band, the early afternoon entertainment hit a high spot with Fairport Convention.  I was a big fan at the time and knew every note of ‘Liege and Lief’ backwards.  Richard Thompson’s unique folk-rock guitar and the banshee wail of Dave Swarbrick’s electric violin had the crowd on its feet and jigging.

I can’t now quite remember the running order of the bands except that, as the weekend evolved, the traffic problems worsened.  By the time Frank Zappa & the Mothers were the first to be helicoptered in, the published programme was abandoned and gaps between bands were filled ex tempore.  I recall an extremely long and boring set by an unbilled Donovan.  I also remember a band called Jo Jammer playing at least twice.  No-one had ever heard of them previously and I don’t believe they were ever to surface again.

The weather became increasingly inclement and we had vastly underestimated the amount of food required to satisfy four continually hungry 18 year olds.  Cans of baked beans heated on a less than convincing fire and a couple of loaves of French bread soon disappeared – as did the orange squash which was ripped off.  There were usable loos although there was nothing on the festival site to buy to eat and drinks were at a premium.  The music on the other hand was awesome. 

The first highlight for me, Santana, were still playing the Woodstock set of their first album spiced up with pieces from the then recently released Abraxas.  The three-pronged percussion section and Carlos Santana’s soaring guitar delighted with ‘Samba Pa’ ti’, ‘Jingo’, ’Black Magic Woman’ and the show stopping polyrhythms of ‘Soul Sacrifice’. 

At an ungodly hour on Sunday morning, Pink Floyd hit the stage and ran through then current favourites such as ‘Astronomy Domine’ and ‘Careful with that Axe Eugene’.  They closed their set with the world premiere of ‘Atom Heart Mother’ complete with a dozen or more classical brass players and a thirty voice choir.  As the final crescendo woke cows and sheep in farms a mile or two away, a thick cloud of pink smoke billowed across the stage.  When it cleared, the band and its auxiliaries had departed.

For many, the four hour set that Led Zeppelin played on the Sunday evening was the event’s most memorable.  Not for me.  By the time Zep came on I had been up for thirty-six hours and not missed a note from the main stage.  I retreated to my tent and slept through the first three hours or so of their set.  When I came to, I wasn’t engaged by the rest.  I was more intent on claiming my share of the last of the food – a much coveted can of Ambrosia Creamed Rice.  At the risk of using a cliché I go out of my way to avoid, having not eaten much that day it was as it said on the tin!

Earlier on we had been treated to the gorgeous sound of It’s A Beautiful Day.  Featuring the near operatic tenor and classically influenced violin playing of David La Flamme, IABD also possessed every teenage male’s pin-up, the stunningly beautiful Patti Santos on co-lead vocal.  The rest of the band provided a sparkling West Coast sound that for me was the festival’s highlight and nicest surprise.  Largely playing what I was to subsequently discover on their eponymous first album, ‘White Bird’, ‘Bombay Calling’ and the seemingly illusory ‘Hot Summer’s Day’, their set was wonderful.

The band I eagerly wanted to see and who eventually materialised in the early hours of Monday morning was Jefferson Airplane.  Sadly, long awaited live performances of ‘Crown of Creation’, ‘Volunteers’, ‘White Rabbit’, ‘Other side of this life’, ‘Somebody to Love’ and the rest were cut short by a lightning storm and a sudden downpour.   It was time to pack up and find our way back to the car and head home, missing the Byrds’ legendary acoustic set that closed the festival.

Arriving home at around six o’clock on the Monday morning hardly thrilled my family who were getting up and ready for a normal week.  I slept for much of the day and made a token attempt at final revision for the following day’s French exam.  I got a less than distinguished E. 

The buzz and the vibe of the Bath Festival has remained with me for over 40 years.  Indeed, for quite a while afterwards the world was divided into two clear camps – those who had been there and those who had not.  However, once I had put that experience into perspective, I resolved that it would be a one-off.  The idea of sleeping in a wet field without food was not one I decided to repeat.  I have attended festivals subsequently but either for one day only or where, well ahead of time, I have booked into a strategically located hotel or B’n’B’. 

Twenty-four years passed by when – against my better judgement – I was persuaded to head for a weekend festival with a tent for only the second time in my life; but that is another story for another blog and one where there was a complete absence of even a single can of Ambrosia Creamed Rice.

‘The Monterey International Pop Festival’ is a 4CD boxed set released by Castle Communications in 1994; the Monterey albums include performances of artists who also appeared at Bath: Canned Heat, Country Joe, The Byrds and  Jefferson Airplane.   ‘Liege & Lief’ (1969) by Fairport Convention is an Island Records vinyl album; I also have the 2002 CD reissue with bonus tracks.  ‘Santana’ (1969) and ‘Abraxas’ (1970) are both CBS vinyl albums; I also have the 1998 CD reissue of ‘Santana’ which includes the extended version of ‘Soul Sacrifice’ from the Woodstock soundtrack.  ‘Ummagumma’ (1969) and 'Atom Heart Mother’ (1970) by Pink Floyd are vinyl albums released on the Harvest label; ‘Ummagumma’ is a double album.  ‘Led Zeppelin II’ (1969) is actually a vinyl reissue from 1972.  ‘It’s A Beautiful Day’ is a CBS vinyl album; I also have the CD reissue.  ‘Surrealistic Pillow’ (1967), ‘After Bathing At Baxters’ (1967),  ‘Bless Its Pointed Little Head’ (1969) and ‘Volunteers’ (1970) by Jefferson Airplane are all vinyl albums released on the RCA label; I also have a CD reissue of ‘Volunteers’ and Jefferson Airplane: The Collection (1988) released in 1988 by Castle Communications that includes ‘Crown of Creation’. ‘Untitled’ (1970) by The Byrds is a vinyl double album released shortly after the Bath Festival; I eventually caught up with The Byrds at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester in early 1971. Most of the vinyl albums mentioned in this Blog are in gatefold sleeves.

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/bA1.html is a website dedicated to the Bath Festival 1970