The Archive.
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Updated Oct 2011
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The Picnic at Blackbushe Aerodrome 1978.
Camberley, Surrey .
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Blackbushe stage © Richard Edwards-Longhurst. |
Saturday July 15th 1978.
Bob Dylan Eric Clapton and Band Joan Armatrading Graham Parker and The Rumour Lake Merger
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Photo © Chris Cooper |
Reputedly the biggest ever audience for the Big Z ( although IOW 69 would have been close in the running stakes ) , The Picnic at Blackbushe was also one of the biggest ever events staged by promoter Harvey Goldsmith ( of Crystal Palace Garden Party fame ). This time round Goldsmith continued the ' English Country garden ' theme he had adopted for Crystal palace and applied it to Blackbushe. Unfortunately the Aerodrome was not anywhere near as picturesque as the verdant surroundings of Crystal Palace, it was , like almost all aerodromes, flat and featureless, and when the 200,000 plus punters had managed to cram themselves into its confines, if you were up the back there wasn't a great deal to see really , as there were no video screens . |
There were also many forged tickets and a number of people spent hours outside the arena negotiating their entry into the enclosure with the police and the promoters.
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Dylan's and Clapton's sets were recorded by various plucky audience members, but the results were not that good, as the audience were fuelled by various substance mixes and were noisy - always a bummer for audience tapers . We have gathered Festival Welfare Services reports, setlists, recording information , exclusive photos and audience members accounts together to present as full a picture of the day as is possible at this remove, but we are always looking for more information on this and other outdoor events from 1960-80 , please Contact us if you can contribute more.
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Photo © Chris Cooper |
Photo © Ian Fry |
Photo © Ian Fry |
Tshirt :courtesy Pete Guy |
A genuine ticket , kindly sent to us by Andrew Orr , we also have a counterfeit example here . |
Site map : courtesy Pete Guy |
© Jens Christian Berg see more like this at his webpage by clicking on the link. |
