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Mojo Magazine report and Bath Chronicle .
This Mojo Magazine article from 1998 gives a tantalizing account of the existence of 35 mm film of the festival. Just where is it , when will it surface and why is it not in circulation ?MOJO magazine; Issue 52 - March 1998, p. 119
On the first day, the Festival provided employment to the likes of Formerly Fat Harry, Keef Hartley, Maynard Ferguson's Big Band, Fairport Convention, Colosseum, It's A Beautiful Day, Steppenwolf, Johnny Winter and Pink Floyd. On the Sunday, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers did the early morning shift, followed by Canned Heat, Joe Jammer (who fitted in everywhere when hands failed to show on time), Donovan, Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention, Santana, Flock, Led Zeppelin, Hot Tuna, a Fish-less Country Joe, Jefferson Airplane, whose act was curtailed by rain, The Byrds, who played an acoustic set in order not to chance electrocution, and Dr John.
The Moody Blues should have played but were prevented from doing so by the downpour, which narked them somewhat as they'd paid £500 for a helicopter to get to the site on time. According to reliable reports, the event was documented on 35mm film, though no one has ever seen the results apart from a Fairport snippet which seemingly formed part of an educational programme in the early '70s.
Among the 200,000 visitors to the event was a certain Michael Eavis, who crawled through a hedge to gain entrance and became so impressed by the vibes that he immediately headed back to Pilton, near Glastonbury, to launch a festival of his own, one that starred Marc Bolan, cost just £1 per ticket and had the added incentive of all the free milk you could drink!
Meanwhile, Bath Festival promoter Fred Bannister made upwards of £100,000 on his little shindig.
| Shepton Under Siege from 200,000
fans.
Shepton Mallet was a town under siege at the weekend when an estimated 200,000 pop fans descended on the area for the Blues Festival on the Bath and Wells show ground. As the last of the "followers left the show site and the town the big clean up campaign got under way. Farmers near the show ground began ot react and held an emergency meeting early on Monday morning to count the cost of damage to hedges, fences and crops. The amount of litter
was a huge problem. Tons of paper, polyethylene , tins and bottles told
the story of a weekend which pop fans would never forget.
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Fans got a pat on the back from police who had set up a mobile Police station near the site. 'They were a peaceful lot ", said a spokesmanMany fans began to arrive at the site early on in the week and soon the site began to resemble a giant camp with hundreds of tents and other sleeping shelters springing up. The big rush that took everyone by surprise began on Friday and lasted until the early hours of Sunday morning. Extra police were drafted in to try to keep some semblance of order on the roads.
Hells Angels.
Sixty police were on duty at one time and
special road motor patrols were brought in . The Chief Constable of Somerset
, Mr Kenneth Steele, visited the site on several occasions during the festival.
The site was patrolled by stewards employed
by the promoter . Mr Fred Bannister. " The
promoters had their own doctors on the site . We had no reports of drug
problems. A number of Hells Angels arrived but no one took any notice of
them and they calmed down to enjoy the weekend just like everyone else."
The
police were praised for their work in connection with the Shepton Mallet
Blues Festival by the chairman of the Shepton Mallet magistrates, Mr W
Shorte . At the start of the court sitting he said he wished to make a
special mention of the work carried out by the police during the festival.
" We would express our appreciation of the manner in which the police carried
out their duties arising out of what turned out to be the invasion of Shepton
Mallet. H e said.
There was such a multitude of people and vehicles
in the area that it gave rise to serious problems , yet everyone
showed great tolerance ands understanding .
The fact that the whole festival went off
with eh minimum of trouble is , I think , a great tribute to our guardians
of the law and order.
Still missing,.
About 40
cars , motor cycles and scooters were reported missing after the festival,
but by the time we went to press at least half of those had been found.
Some said a police spokesman , belonged to people who parked vehicles when
they were caught up in traffic queues to proceed on foot and afterwards
they could not find the place where they left them .
Criticism
of the facilities for treating casualties at the blues festival at Shepton
Mallet has come this week from Wells St John Ambulance Superintendent
Mr Paul Fry.
He said the organizers had promised to set
up a miniature hospital for the treatment of fans . Instead, the room normally
occupied by the press for the Bath and west show was used
"When we arrived
, we walked into the press room and found it full of 500 fire extinguishers
and a mountain of catalogues. That was the sum total of the first
aid equipment ", said Mr Fry.
Mr Fry was also critical of the arrangements
made to get medical assistance. " We knew
there was a festival and kept asking about the facilities. Our county people
told us there was no official contact. and therefore there was no direct
information. On the Friday week before the show., we had an official request
for first aid assistance.
We
were given to understand that there would be approximately 25.000 people
at the festival . In the Wells division we were asked to see what we could
do. As we have limited resources , we went back to the county to request
additional help. But other devisions had their own events to attend."
ALL HELL.
"It
got near and nearer the day and we had collected together as much equipment
as we could . We understood that a fully equipped hospital was being laid
out and doctors were being brought in by the organizers and that we were
going to take over the hospital and man the casualty unit.
But by Friday night , the estimated 25,000,
had grown to 70,000. At this late stage there was little that we
could do . On Saturday morning we were due to report at the show ground
at 9 am to take over the first aid facilities . The ambulance
Control received an urgent request from the show ground art 5.45a, We were
called out as we were told all hell was let loose."
Mr
Fry said he called out some of his colleagues. " All
our previous arrangements went by the board. We loaded up the equipment
hastily into the ambulance and set off to the site. " He said that at the
time there were three brigade personnel and three young helpers form the
Wells Cathedral school.
' We were absolutely desperate . There was
no water in the hut - the nearest supply was at a toilet - and we only
had two working electric light bulbs, . We immediately contacted the county
ambulance control and put them in the picture ands asked them for help."
Queuing Up
Meanwhile youngsters
needing attention were queuing up . He obtained six stretchers , five bed
mattresses and 12 blankets from county headquarters at Shepton Mallet.
"One small table
in the press room was all we had to set a temporary hospital. By lunchtime
on Saturday a matron from one of the Taunton Hospitals had arrived and
took over responsibility for the organization "
Said Mr Fry." we had only nine first aiders
at that time and it got very hectic . We were dealing with every type of
injury , but in all fairness, we did have the assistance of some doctors
brought down from London by the promoters."
Mr Fry said that there was no official requests
from the promoters apart from the belated request to the St Johns Ambulance
Brigade. " I am critical of the way the late
request came in . If the promoter was paying these groups such fantastic
sums , he could have afforded to hire a proper mobile hospital. There should
have been teams to tackle the job. Normal procedure should have been three
shifts with a proper sterile unit. WE got away with it by the grace of
God.
If we had a junkie fall into a fire we would
have been in queer street . The position regarding surgical dressings got
extremely critical and late on Saturday evening our workers were very tired
and relief's could not get into the ground because of the traffic jams
",
said Mr Fry.
LSD "TRIPS "
He telephoned
doctors in Wells and one of them recruited two nurses from the Wells and
District Hospital to got ot the site and help out. ' They
came and stemmed the tide AS they arrived we were getting youngsters in
who were having bad trips on LSD and we had no idea of what to do with
them and we had to learn from the doctors. We could not have any sleep
as there was nowhere for us to go . Later on we had a tent , but the noise
was so intense that we could not settle down. On Sunday we gathered together
other assistance from the county We all realized it was an emergency of
the greatest importance. " said Mr Fry.
During the 50 hours, members of the Wells division treated over 1000 cases. MR fry said they noted every case until 800 were reached but things got so hectic that the recording had to be abandoned.
NOT EVERYONE took such a charitable view. Some local farmers were angry at the damage caused , this being estimated so far at more than 3000 pounds. With more farms still to be assessed for damage, it is thought the final figure could go over 4000 pounds. After the festival prisoners form Shepton Mallet prison were drafted to the show ground to help with the massive cleanup operation. They were paid full union rates but will not actually get the cash, which goes to the exchequer.
The Big Question : Another one
?
Incomplete article by Michael Chamberlain.
The Blues
festival at Shepton
Mallet was peaceful and well supported by
an estimated 200,000 fans. But as the last pilgrim limped away the toll
of the weekend was being counted. Undoubtedly the litter problem was very
serious. As I sat in my car , stuck in one of the now famous traffic queues,
I wondered, I wondered how may of them had jobs ... how many of them had
homes to return to... and in some cases, when they had the last wash. This
was the permissive society at its permissive best , or its worst. Drugs
were quite openly for sale and accepted for a price. The needles were being
used , the LSD taken and the pot being smoked . In fact the air around
the site had a quite awful odour.
It was obvious
that the popularity of the festival surprised everyone , including the
promoter, Mr Fred Bannister.
I spoke to him just after he had left the site on Monday morning as he
was off to get some sleep. His comments were"
I am feeling so tired, I'll talk to you after I have had a good sleep.
I will talk to you about the festival. I'm very tired we have been here
four days on the trot with little sleep, what you need to know can wait
a week."
As for farmers
in the area, they were not prepared to wait a week. They met on Monday
morning with a representative of the festival and they were not prepared
to say much until they had met the promoter to air their grievances. When
I visited near the site, almost very corner had been used as a toilet .Bottles
and tins littered the hedges and tons of litter had still to be cleaned.
One farmer told me he and his bull had been patrolling the fields all weekend
in an effort to stop this pollution.
An officer
on the site invited me to inspect some of the toilets. I found them in
a deplorable state , but again I do not think that there were enough toilet
accommodations to cope with 50,000 , let alone four times that number.
The secretary
of the Bath and Wells Showground would not comment , it was Mr
Bannister's pigeon he said.
Which leaves the question of
course, should it happen again ?
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| 8 mm Film Archive Ross Mortimore's streaming Quicktime movie of the crowd features clear images of the stage PA , Colosseum onstage and bikers with Canned Heat at Bath as a soundtrack provided courtesy of Bob C . Bandwidth and copyright restrictions mean we cant host audio/video so you will have to do with stills at the moment until we can do an alternative stream elsewhere. Please don't bug us to add it , we will do it when we have the time.
External Links to Bath related merchandise ( with which we have NO commerical links whatsoever ) To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Bath Festival we have brought out a special commemorative set. Anyone interested can view it on http://www.rockmusic-offer.co.uk/ A
limited edition of reprints of the 1969 and 1970 Bath festival posters
and Freddie Bannisters books on the Bath ,Lincoln 71 and Knebworth festivals
can be bought online from
the link below : Led Zeppelin at Bath photogallery Visit the 1969 Bath Festival pages. |