Confusingly
entitled the North Country Fair in its first incarnation in 1976, this small
festival was actually held at Rivington Pike, situated near Bolton . The Pike
is 361 metres high and is a well known tourist spot, sporting a tower at its
top, rather similar to Glastonbury Tor, although considerably more windswept.
A
number of well known Northern bands played at the festival in 1976-77, but
eventually it faded away after 1978, possibly due to the latrines on the site
polluting ground water that was used for local conurbations.
Thanks go
to Julian Bond who has provided a first hand account of all three festivals
Rivington-1976
This weekend was probably the best
festival I ever went to. It started with My Mentor (met during a gap
year job) sending out hand painted invitations with a picture of an
old school ambulance and promises of mayhem. 12 people were invited
and 4 turned up at his flat early on a Friday morning. He couldn't come
due to a death in the family, so these 4 men who had never met before
started the journey north from London.
Packed
in the rented ambulance (Further!) were some orange acid, thai sticks,
moroccan, two guerilla suits, face paints, fireworks, a guitar, bongos,
panpipes, etc etc. At the last services on the M6 we picked up a girl
hitchhiker heading for Glasgow. She was soon convinced to join us. On
the road from Chorley we picked up another guy with a guitar.
The
Rivington site is a folly and a broken down Chinese garden built in the late
1800s by a local butcher's son who had gone to India and come back somewhat
changed (didn't we all). It covers 10 or 20 acres on the side of the hill
looking West out to Liverpool with reservoirs below it on the plain. Lots
of walkways and levels to wander around in and several ponds in among the
woods. In the middle is a clearing with just enough room for a stage. To get
up there, there's an unmade road over a ford. It's well worth a visit if you're
ever up that way and I've spent many nights camped out there under the stars
on various trips to Scotland.
The
first night we ran out of petrol at the ford and had to cadge a few pints
from another vehicle before getting Fish and Chips in the local town.The
next morning we dressed up, applied the face paints and dropped the acid before
walking down the hill to the reservoirs. As it was coming on strong, we were
wading about in all our finery in the shallows when the local bailiffs came
to turf us out. It was all well meaning but a somewhat bizarre conversation
.After half an hour of lazing in the sunshine and grass, the party scattered
to the 4 winds. It took me another 4 hours to slowly wend my way back up to
the festival with many small adventures including hearing a disembodied voice
shout out from above me; "This is the weather forecast, tonight it will
be dark!". That evening we somehow found each other again and watched
the sun go down from the top of the hill.
I
know there was music and a stage but I can't picture or remember
it. The whole place had a wonderfully laid back, relaxed feel. A few
police turned up to make sure nothing crazy was happening, but I never
saw any unpleasantness.
When
we finally got back to The Mentor's flat, late on a sunday night, we
all got mashed again. Except we had to return the ambulance to the other
side of London. I got picked as the most responsible to drive it back
and had a frankly terrifying journey although we all survived more or
less intact.
There's
a postscript to this. Two years later, I was walking across the paddy
fields in Manali in northern India. Coming towards me was one of my
fellow journeyers from the Rivington weekend. Those are the only two
times I've ever met him.
At the 77-Rivington, I rode another
motorcycle up to an old School and Uni friend in Huddersfield. We then
crossed the pennines to Rivington approaching it from the East. This year
it was all more organised with a trench and plank, communal loo. There
was a good stage and we pitched our tent maybe a 100 yards back from it.
Again I can't remember who played. I do remember one whole day spent in
a cycle of smoke, eat, fall asleep, wake up, smoke, eat , fall asleep,
wake up, smoke, etc ! Somebody was doing wonderful flapjacks and spicy
veg chapati rolls.
The
highlight as mentioned elsewhere were the Hells Angels. They were hardcore,
ragged hair, tattoos and at least 5 layers of greasy denims with the top
4 layers shredded. They were ok for a day, but there was some problem
with a shotgun that brought the police out. Up above and to one side of
the stage clearing was a ruined platform where you could stand and look
down on the crowd. We stood and laughed as the police rooted about in
the undergrowth for the shotgun. Never were they more like pigs!
Despite
all this, the police weren't after us and there were announcements from
the PA that there was hash brownies behind the stage and it "was
all cool, man". The Angels were hustled away and we all got back
to the serious business of having fun. Although there were a few police
still wandering around, I don't recall anyone getting busted or having
any problems with them.
This
festival was the first time I bumped into the hot air balloon man. His speciality
was home made hot air balloons powered by nightlights. They'd float slowly up
into the late sunset before often bursting into flames. I saw him again at Stonehenge,
Glastonbury and Rivington the following year. At the last he'd taken to tethering
the balloon on a long piece of cotton so it hovered above him as he wandered
around.
Julian Bond
Rivington
Pike Festival 1976 and 1977
I had come back to the North
West from London in the early summer of 1976 having had a year's sabbatical
from working on management and production with Tractor whilst I worked in London
mixing sound for Ian Dury's Kilburn and the High Roads, Carol Grimes Band and
Sheer Elegance to name a few .I put Tractor out gigging again from early summer
1976 as a three piece Jim Milne - guitar Steve Clayton- drums and new member
Dave Addison on bass guitar and as well as playing Manchester's Electric Circus
we did regular concerts at the college in Bolton known as Bolton Institute of
Technology [ I think the Buzzcocks were students there??] We also did a concert
joint billing with Trapeze featuring Glenn Hughes at the Albert Halls in Bolton
so Tractor had begun to get a following in the Bolton area.
We
were told about the festival at Rivington Pike between Bolton and Chorley and
Tractor decided they would like to play there so we played both the 1976 and
1977 festivals. Beautiful site and I have great memories of meeting up with
our friends [ and now of course record labelmates] Body backstage in 1977 who
went on just after Tractor's set on a beautiful summer's evening. There had
been some trouble in 1977 with the Hells Angels types and a shotgun and they
had been apparently threatening punk bands as they turned up to play [ reminiscent
of Sid Rawle's intolerance towards punk band Wilful Damage at Deeply Vale in
1978 that would be the turning point when almost all the festival goers in the
North West accepted punk was as much a part of free festivals as anything else]
Tractor and Body were lucky at Rivington- the biker fraternity regularly turned
up to see both bands at their indoor concerts - we were invited to their camp
for a drink. I was glad when the police took the shotgun away though.
We
took Tractor Music worker mad American Dave Beickel [ originally from
Portland Oregon and living in Rochdale until the 1990's before going back
to the USA ] to Rivington Pike Free Festival and he was renowned for his
cider drinking capacity and after Tractor had finished their set and Body
had finished theirs we said goodbye to Body who set off back to Liverpool
in their bus, and were just about to set off in our long green wheelbase
Transit minibus with winged Tractor symbols on the side when Dave Beickel
asked us to hold on while he had a piss before getting in the van- after
about fifteen minutes of him urinating a stream of piss near the side
of the stage we told him if he didn't stop and get in the Transit we were
going without him. My most brilliant memory of Rivington was the sun setting
on a beautiful site and a mad American from Portland Oregon urinating
non stop for 15 minutes.
There
was a guy called Seth who had a false leg and rode a motorcycle who came
to stay at the commune in Oldham Road Rochdale in 1976 and he was involved
in the organising of 1976 Rivington Festival and the start of 1976 Deeply
Vale Festival before he disappeared. There were two buildings involved
in the start of Deeply Vale in 1976- the commune on Oldham Road in Balderstone,
Rochdale and Tractor Music at 115 Oldham Road Rochdale, a hippy music
shop and rehearsal rooms and PA hire company- the two places were about
a mile apart and there was a constant stream of free festival type people
between these two buildings in summer 1976 and Seth one of the 1976 Rivington
organisers was constantly between the two buildings in summer 1976.
I remember at least the first
night of Rivington Pike very well… We arrived late and set up our tent
next to a bush that turned out to be being used as a toilet by most of the site!
We had come rather ill prepared, we had some draw but no skins and the only
tobacco we had was some condor flake tobacco. We also had nothing to drink except
some really dry scrumpy that someone was selling on the site. So the first night
was spent smoking spliffs rolled with pipe tobacco & newspaper, daring each
other to take swigs of the most vile scrumpy whilst being treated to the sounds
and scents of a public lavatory!
It got a lot better. It was a
kind of weird scene when the Angels were run off site as none I spoke to at
the time knew what had happened. Later on that night someone was giving out
free acid in front of the stage and it turned into a really beautiful and mellow
night….
After the two previous years of wonderful
Rivington festivals, 78 was a bit of a let down. The problem as I heard it was
that the festival site was on the water table feed for the reservoirs that supply
Liverpool with water. The somewhat improvised latrines were just not good enough
and a potential health hazard. It makes a certain sense but who knows. Anyway
our party of six arrived in our VW camper to find a single policeman at the
bottom of the unmade road turning people away. We went back into Rivington and
met up with some other festival goers who led us to a green field site with
maybe 15-20 vans and tents. We stayed there for a couple of days.
On
the last day I made some hash fudge and took it round the tents selling it for
a pound a piece. I think I sold about half of it and gave the rest away. I got
a bit of abuse from a woman in one of the tents that giving her man fudge was
disaster for her because he'd just nod out and do nothing for the next 4 hours.
Wasn't that what we were here for? That last day was also notable for exchanging
some fudge for a bag of mushrooms...
We
are proud of the contribution we have made to Andy Worthington's sociological
history of Stonehenge and the free festival scene in the UK .This
new book gives a fascinating insight into the various counter cultural
obsessions with the Stones and provides a variety of new perspectives
to many of the key events surrounding the Henge such as the Battle
Of The Beanfield and the more recent attempts hold a celebration at
the Stones during the Solstice.
Many, many
thanks go to Roger Hutchinson ,
Big Steve , Roger Duncan, Celia, Will ,
Chazz, Jeza ,Chris Hewitt ,The Fabulous Time Tortoise ,
Peter Piwowarski - ( 70s music site/photos ) Martin S, Steve Austin
,Traveller Dave, Herb, Tim Brighton, Vin Miles, Haze Evans , Noddy Guevara,
Chris Brown, Janet Thompson, David Stooke, Gary Gibbons , Nigel Ayers, Rich
Deakin ,Glenda Pescardo,Justin Warman,Brian F, Steve Bayfield, Kev Ellis, Paul
Seaton and many other minor contributors for their help in providing the archival
material related to these free festivals which has at enabled us to construct
the site .
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