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The Plumpton Festival was set to feature Deep Purple, Family, Yes, Colloseum, The Groundhogs, Elton John and Peter Green.
It didn't draw a massive crowd like the festivals at Bath and the Isle of Wight. The following year the festival moved to Reading and so began the annual Reading Festival in the town that is still running today.
On the Isle of Wight, the festival promoters, having failed to secure the site of the previous festival in 1969 - which had witnessed Bob Dylan's return to the stage after a three year absence - found a new site at Freshwater Bay for the 1970 festival.
"If anything disastrous does happen (with the approvals process) we can switch to one of the reserve sites," said Peter Harrigan of festival promoters Fiery Creations.
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| Derek & The Dominoes unveiled |
"This could be the last year of the big festivals, so we want them to go out with a big bang."
It did go you with bang too, literally fired from a cannon on the stage during ELP's performance.
There are many stories and legends that grew out of the
aftermath of the 1970 Isle of Wight music festival.
There was the invasion by French anarchists; the stage meltdown by promoter Rikki Farr ("you go to hell!"); the way Joni Mitchell won over a restless crowd; the remarkable performance of Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix's last UK show, The Who playing on until dawn, ELP's breakthrough and many others.
It was five days of high drama. In the Melody Maker the week after the festival, an editorial said, "There can be little doubt that the events of last weekend will have a chastening effect on any other promoter considering putting on a similar event.
"What kind of lunatic will want to risk having to deal
with the French, Algerian and American revolutionaries who raised such
hell?"
And yet even with all of that to contend with, the festival was a musical triumph - bigger than Woodstock and featuring many of the same performers from Europe and America. Click on this link for the full report from IOW 1970, including clips of some of the performers.
The news section of the Melody Maker on 25 July featured the first picture of Derek & The Dominoes - Jim Gordon, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock and Eric Clapton - along with tour dates, including a festival in Nice, France."We did not want to do any festivals at all, let alone so early" said Clapton. "But this one seems unusual and more pleasant than many others."
On the same page is an item about how the single 'Ohio' by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was to be released in the UK, having been banned by radio stations in America.
The song refers to US president Richard Nixon and the killing of four Kent State University students by National Guard troops brought in to break up an anti-Vietnam War demonstration.Meanwhile, Eric Clapton talks to MM about his first solo album, due out in the UK in two weeks. "The biggest reason for it coming out is that it's just good music. I loved the sound of the whole thing and I never thought that was possible. I've had hang-ups about my singing my whole life. I've always been worried about whether or not I could sing."
Clapton said he felt he had to follow through with the album because "I couldn't let anybody down and I had to do it. The love that went around between everybody involved on the record was just so powerful that I'm really proud of it."
Hotlegs - the band that would later become 10cc - emerged with their hit song 'Neanderthal Man'. The band’s leader, Eric Stewart, said they were ready with an album and how amazed he was by Kevin Godley’s singing. At this point, it was just the three of them - Stewart, Godley and Lol Creme, before Graham Gouldman joined and they became 10cc.
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| Who's this Dave Bowie geezer? |
Bowie was at this point involved in his Arts Lab project and had formed a new electric band, The Hype, a vehicle for the new songs he had written for his 1970 album, The Man Who Sold The World.
The Hype was Bowie with Tony Visconti on bass, Mick Ronson on guitar and Ronson's mate Woody Woodmansey on drums.
Clearly, he was some way off gaining any kind of recognition for his efforts. Quite a contrast from Ziggymania in two years' time.
In other news, Kenny Everett was sacked by the BBC for making an innocuous remark about a politician's wife passing her driving test. He had been feuding with the BBC management for some time and had recently told the MM the BBC was awful, really revolting". In the interview, Everett said he wouldn't continue as a DJ forever. He already had a London Weekend Television Show, 'Nice Time' and home studio.
The sorry tale of the Yorkshire Folk, Blues & Jazz Festival at Krumlin unfolded in August 50 years ago. What could have been one of the biggest festivals of the era with better management, turned into a logistical disaster that had to be closed down because of unseasonably wet and cold weather.For the full picture of how a pleasant country festival turned into "an unmitigated disaster", check out the memories of those who attended on this site.
Also On This Blog:
Queen's 1976 Free Concert in Hyde Park
Memories of the Reading Festival, 1975
Five Days of High Drama at the Isle of Wight, 1970
From Pinner to LA - Elton's Big Breakthrough, 1970
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