The use of two performance areas is a tradition that stretched back to 1965 at least, when there used to be a small performance tent in which luminaries such as The Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac made their festival debut's. 

    This had both advantages and disadvantages.  It did allow longer sets for some of the bands, but if you went thinking you were going to be able to see ALL the acts then you were in for a rude awakening.

    Punters would have had to be selective and since acts only performed once- unlike modern day WOMAD festivals where its usually possible to catch all the acts over the course of a 3 day event - one might be sorely disappointed - as the poster does not explain the performance set up - one would have needed to buy the programme to find that out.       In later years there were two stages next to each other , soemtimes a smaller stage and evewntually two large oens that alloqwed on act to set up whilst another act played, thus reducing wait times enormously.

Roy Harper

    Other highlights in a great day were Yes, the Bonzos - and the audience themselves who kept their cool, in behaviour at least, right through the Who's wildest moment.
The only real hang-ups were the time factor - most groups ran over time and Fat Mattress had to be dropped altogether - and amplification trouble, which hit several acts.
    Roy Harper, in the afternoon session, was one of the first to run into amp problems. Harper is a most compelling performer and managed to rise above it to some extent. But his fine guitar work was marred by poor sound. His songs included the excellent "Beautiful Wife Like Yours."

    The Strawbs proved to be a great - if not an incredible - string band. Dave Cousins and Tony Hooper on guitars were supported for the first time by bass and cello and the overall sound was strong but peaceful and came over clearly. A pleasing formula of fine vocals applied to good melodies and direct unpretentious lyrics, including "We'll Meet Again Sometime", "Poor Jimmy Wilson", "Josephine For Better Or Worse" and the witty "Man Who Called Himself Jesus". They won strong applause.

    The Bonzos came on strong with their usual erratic mixture of inspired lunacy and schoolboy foolishness. Viewed objectively their act is a ludicrous shamble. But they put it over with the kind of gusto and apparent amateurishness which defies criticism.
VIv Stanshall, with his outraged dignity and innocent bawdiness, and Legs Larry Smith, camping it up like mad, were both on form. And there were some nice "straight", or fairly straight vocals and piano from Neil Innes.

    The Who drummer Keith Moon joined them, glasses of ale were produced, and it seemed likely they would break into "Give Booze A Chance." But finally they launched into a splendid looning cacophony on "Breathalyser Baby" with Moon thundering away and a monstrous plastic balloon snaking across the stage.

    The John Surman Octet kicked off the evening show with drummer Tony Oxley as special guest. They blew some meaty jazz and they - together with the Don Ellis records played during the breaks - must have won quite a lot of new friends for jazz.
Spirit of John Morgan continued the jazzy feel, though in a blues context. They play the blues amazingly well, with a wonderful relaxed style that sounds just right. John is particularly fine on organ and piano, and his solo on "Honky Tonk Train Blues" went down very well indeed. Lead guitarist Fagin's "Yorkshire Blues" is funny and true and stands up to repeated hearings.

The late and throroughly inestimable Viv Stanshall of the Bonzos

Yes

    Hit of the show, apart from the Who, were quite definitely Yes. They stole the show in the same way that Jethro Tull did last year.
    Yes have a strikingly fresh sound, although their surging rhythms and sweeping organ riffs are slightly reminiscent of the Nice which can't be bad. They have a relaxed and deceptively effortless style; their arrangements contain light and shade and they make good use of tempo changes.

    Their distinctive vocalist, John Anderson, was impressive on "Something's Coming" and "Then" and bassist Chris Squire shone on " It's Love." Yes have a distinctly jazzy feel, and this was strengthened when they were joined by none other than jazz singer Jon Hendricks. His duet with John Anderson on Steve Stills' "Everydays" was applauded long and hard. Who says the festival is neglecting jazz!

   After the beauty and subtlety of the "Tommy" album, it was great to be reminded that the Who are also probably the greatest hard rock act around - not that they are around often enough.
     Despite less than perfect amplification, they were on top form and looked to be enjoying themselves. They roared into "Can't Explain" and "Fortune Teller" before launching into excerpts from "Tommy." The complex arrangements on the album were missing, of course, but this was more than compensated by the power and vitality of the performance.
    They were incredibly dynamic, both visually and musically. Roger Daltry, resplendent in a fringed leather outfit, swinging the mike round his head in alarming fashion. Peter Townshend, arm swinging, leaping in the air, pushing his guitar to its furthest limits.

The Nice and orchestra

Keef Hartley

   However Linda Kendrick sang beautifully and her song about people being cruel and unfeeling was very apt in view of the hurling of abuse and rubbish that greeted their appearance. Their flower power songs underlined just how dead is flower power.
Family are very much into violence and rock. Roger Chapman gave a superb performance of idiot dancing, the new craze, only equalled by several members of the audience, exhausting themselves with their nervous twitching and post-Arthur Brown head wobbling.

    Family's drummer and guitarist were electrically exciting and Roger's yelling is always fine entertainment. Blodwyn Pig are a heavy band and Mick Abrahams played "Cats Squirrel" nicely, but they didn't do much that struck me as new.
Chris Barber's band were a gas although doubtfully received by unhip-hippies, who weren't too sure about trumpets and banjos, A good guitar solo warmed them to Chris's highly original concept however.
    Magna Carta, Jo Ann Kelly, Pentangle, Keef Hartley and Eclection all gave sterling service and once again, one of the bands in the marquee offered a knockout bonus, this time the mighty duo of Eddie Hardin and Pete York who were a minor sensation. Pete contributed some of the finest drumming in his career and Eddie is one of the most together organist-singers to emerge in recent years.