The Archive.

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2009 .New photos of the Dead , Family and the site

Last updated July 2010 : details of poster artists

THE HOLLYWOOD FESTIVAL. Madeley,  Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, May 23rd and 24th 1970.

The Hollywood Festival was notable for two very different occurrences. The first (and most important in developing the profile of West Coast music in the UK and in my opinion in terms of sheer musical worth ) , was the first ever British appearance of the Grateful Dead . The other was the wildly successful performance by Mungo Jerry, which literally sparked off their career and raised them from total non-entity status to something approaching instant fame .

   The other notable thing about Hollywood was that it seems to have been one of the best commercial festivals ever held in the UK. Reading the accounts and press clippings, it appears that everything seems to have been good. The police were fairly cool, the local populace were not up in arms about the festival being held in their area. The local press were supportive, the bands played really well, the line-up was great, the whole thing was well organized and most importantly - it didn't RAIN !

Quintessence onstage- note presence of film camera ......wheres the footage ? © David Zeke

   I really wish I'd gone , but then I wished I had when I read the Frendz article about the festival a week or so after. Now I know so much more about the details, I REALLY REALLY wish I had made the effort.

Posters © Brian Plews/Alan Taylor at Circa Design.

In 1970 I ran a design studio in Leicester in called Circa Design. That summer my partner and I went from festival to festival selling souvenir posters and T shirts which we were all silk-screen printed in the weeks between each event. So we spent 2/3 weeks designing and producing, and usually about a week at each event. It was a memorable time, particularly Phun City where our Hells Angels T shirt nearly created a very difficult confrontation. Two of the posters we produced - Hollywood Music Festival and Phun City - are featured on your site, although the reproduction of the colours isn't too hot.

I now live in France but still get asked to produce design work which suits my rather unusual 60s style and it would be nice to get a credit for the work on your site. Also, please feel free to pass on my email to any other interested parties.

Best wishes
Brian Plews

As usual- people were busted .......                                                   The promoters were Red Bus CO

The late Dick Heckstall Smith of Colosseum © Dominic Boddington

Content

     These pages feature press articles, pix , set lists where available ,as well as links, personnel and performance details of the acts that appeared at the festival.

Hollywood festival menu

Many thanks go to Garry Marsh for his fantastic archival material which has enabled us to construct most of the site. Also to Martin Williams for his oral history and colour photo of the stage and site ,Simon Phillips for all the Grateful Dead archival material and Bob Colover for the film footage .

    We have been endeavoring to collect audience or sbd tapes of the performances at this festival , so we can effectively review the performances, provide set lists and band line-ups. The intention is to also display as many personal histories of the festival as possible.

  If you can contribute in any way, with tapes, reviews from the music press, photos or personal histories, please Contact us.