Hi!
Just
come across your site via video of Stonehenge festival which I stumbled
on on Youtube and took a trip down memory lane.
I went to 82 fest with a mate, (Tim Beater) when I was finishing foundation
at Farnham Art college but unfortunately the whole episode is a blank!
The
venerable Ting of the Tibetan Ukranian Mountain troupe rests in
all its cryptic majesty at Stonehenge 1984 Photo © Melissa
|
Some
things I remember about 84 which I guess may have got patched in from
82:
Went with a bunch of mates from Brighton in my Series One land rover
(which, amazingly, I still have and use on an almost daily basis!).
Actually I have just found a photo on your site of what must have
been our camp coz we had a very distinctive camping trailer which
my dad made. (1984 page of photos in Stonehenge chronologies section
Part 5, middle column, third pic down, courtesy of Pete) It's smack
in the middle of the picture, a green wild west waggon style trailer
tent with two round windows in the end. And my Land Rover I think
is just behind it but I can't see pic in detail too well.
We
arrived quite early coz I remember driving across empty fields to
a wood to get firewood and then tearing around a field with one of
my pals sitting on the bonnet til I nearly drove through a barbed-wire
fence, at speed; my mate, Joe, (Richard Povey) jumped clear right
at last moment and I still get a shiver when I think what the result
might have been if the barbed wire had cut over the vehicle - we had
the wind-screen down too. Joe was completely freaked by this and I
don't think he spoke to me for some days. |
Took
Microdots and 'Sunrise' 'Sunset' tabs (may have been 82). Remember debating
for ages with Tim when I should take the Sunrise tab after taking the
sunset tab taking into account time delays, time of sunset and sunrise
and when I wanted the sunrise tab to kick in over the sunset tab. In
the end I said fuck it and took them all together. Wondered about like
a zombie for ages, tried to watch some band but couldn't sit still,
felt sick and went to crash in our tent but was too switched on staring
at the dusk soaked orange patterns of the canvas. Tim thought I was
dying coz I couldn't talk. Went for a walk in the night air and remember
wondering over these hillocks which became enormous hills which I had
to crawl slowly up and once at top found I was miles from anyone so
started running leaping from hill to hill in giant strides til I was
stopped by these two giant king and queen puppets that towered way above
me. Had a paranoid introspective experience in which these puppets directed
my attention to the more unpleasant aspects of my personality (I had
previously believed I was a thoroughly nice person). What I needed to
meet was the guy on your site with the "Don't Panic" sign.
Came across a camp fire and sat and chilled out figuring on aspects
of reality (see Linklater's "Waking Life"). |
Photo
© Melissa
|
Roy Harper plays
the Pyramid stage Stonehenge 1984 © Andrew Bott
|
Forgetful
Roy asks our heroes if they remember the last verse of McGoohan's
Blues ! © Andrew Bott
|
I
was there too in ’84 with my mate Tony.
We just decided to come down for a couple of days before going to see Roger
Waters at Earls Court (or was it just after..I don’t know) from Bridlington,.
Had a scream…really did..kipped in my Opel Kadet and just laughed
for hours, saw Hawkwind, the Enid and a band called Earthbound – any
clues please.
Fraz
Cottage
industries such as this one came to an abrupt halt once the festival
was repressed © Herb
|
Stonehenge
1984: My first ever festival. What a baptism of fire. The single event in
my life that convinced me that true anarchy might, almost, work. Just a
few things gave me pause for thought, however. There was a lot of heroin
going around, although just under the surface, not widely advertised like
the other available substances. True, a dealer's car was trashed and burned,
but many others weren't. The biker gangs provided an unwelcome undercurrent
of violence, although I must say in their defence that it appeared mostly
confined to their own areas. The sight of two enormous blokes trying to
beat the shit out of each other with flaming sections of 2x4 torn from the
campfire has never left me and was not equalled until computer games started
to get seriously good in the 90s.
Roy
Harper © Thomas Cameron
|
|
I
was turfed out of my tent on the first night by some oafish yokel (not a
freak, not a punk, not a biker, just an idiot) who was pissed on scrumpy
and had made 'friends' with us during the day, so I spent the night trying
to sleep in the Tibetan's tent while an emaciated person screeched awful
versions of classic folk songs and went on for the umpteenth time about
what a good friend of Janis Joplin she had been back in the day.
Otherwise, the music was superb. Hawkwind, the main reason I'd hitched all
the way from Southport, gave perhaps the best performance I've ever seen
them give. If I recall correctly, they played from 10.00 til 12.00 at night
and then again from 05.00 til 07.00 in the morning on the solstice. I think
Ginger Baker may have been on drums. Nik Turner was definitely there in
all his glory. Here and Now were superb as always. I gave them some candles
when the generator broke. I remember The Cardiacs as being both magnificent
and scary beyond belief (but then I hadn't slept in about 20 hours). The
Enid were fantastic, if overblown and faintly ridiculous, as always.
Funnily enough, I remember Roy Harper as rubbish the afternoon before. He
was in one of his particularly stoned moods, couldn't remember half his
lyrics and rambled pointlessly for ever between songs. In fact, we left
halfway through his set to get some food which may account for the fact
that I can't remember the supposed Jimmy Page appearance. ( Huw Lloyd Langton
was actually his guest )
Could that many people gather together today with only minimal communal
organisation and such a relatively small amount of trouble but so much pleasure?
The question is irrelevant. They would never allow us.
Sorry to ramble.
Good luck with the site. We need to remember and record all this stuff or
nobody will ever believe it actually happened.
Cheers
Den
Stonehenge
1984 - One of the defining festivals of my life... I turned up with nothing
but £20 and a packet of McVities digestive biscuits, and ended up
staying for a fortnight. I spent the £20 on red hearts within half
an hour of hitching into the site, and belatedly started looking for mates
with some sort of cover for the night... eventually found them at dawn,
Here & Now playing, rest of it a bit of a delicious blur...
I
finally left by hitching into Salisbury, intending to take a bus back to
Bristol, but endined up on a bus to Bournemouth (well, it began with a B)
on the South coast, swigging mushroom wine on the top deck & pretending
to drive (to the general amusement of the other passengers)... all got a
bit hectic in Bournemouth though, when I started to come down & realised
I was stuck in a town I didn't know - luckily (?) I met a speed dealer in
the subway near the bus station, who helpfully steered me to a cashpoint
and relieved me of the meager contents of my bank account in exchange for
some whizz - things then got even more hectic, with me being ejected from
various pubs & pizza joints along the front, before deciding to climb
up the cable-car that went from the beach to the top of the cliff... obviously
I made it, or I wouldn't be typing this, but to this day I have no idea
how. Woke up the next morning under a bush in a park in Poole (a good few
miles from Bournemouth) with every muscle in my body protesting, wrapped
in a blanket that smelled of meths.
Ahh, happy days! ;-)
Ian S
Main 1984 Photogallery: 24 pages and counting .....
| CDR
- Unhenged - The Wystic Mankers at Stonehenge 1984.
The
musical arm of the Tibetan Ukranian Mountain Troupe- The Wystic
Mankers , recorded some of their sets at Stonehenge for posterity
to grok over and you can listen to the musical delights within and
even, if you feel so inclined, purchase said item by clicking on
the cover graphic on the right ......
|
|
Guy
Rowe sent me this poem about the 84 fest. A real Stonehenge vet - he'd attended
the first one in 74, I think it appropriate that we finish the final festival
with his words ....
|
The rolling images show lolling sunny
hills
And washed students in clean jeans
Reconstructing part of the great henge.
They look good for TV – big hearted,
average –
Just how we want to be.
Then the picture jumpcuts to me.
I lean alone against a great stone
And the voiceover says: "In the 1980’s
Stonehenge was taken over by Hippies."
I’m wearing a blanket though the viewer
Might not know the shadows are dawn.
As I gaze at the sky you’d suppose I’m inspired –
Or, drawn and tired and certainly tripping.
Off camera view a police spy in a helicopter
Films number plates –
And dodges flares fired up by some wag in the camp.
Across the road where lamps fade away
A 100,000 sparkling souls are I suppose
' The Hippies' and having a time that’s ripping.
There were mere hundreds of us in ‘74
When the first innocent festival came to the place.
We had poetry, performance and music –
Our emblem was the smiley face.
By ’84 it was an avalanche
Of space cadets, minstrels and mystics –
Or a branch of cosmic aliens that time forgot
And severed from the social tree.
It was a mystery to the government
That these events were free.
Contrary to their philosophy.
Ancient byelaw declared that if here
Were used an 11th year
It revert to common land. The freaks
Would have it forever – or never.
So in ’85 came the great fight
–
When they brutally suppressed the annual fest
In a major abuse of liberties
Riot police battered the buses and hippies.
Though what was done went for years
through the courts
Where the freaks finally won –
The beanfield – the camp – was lost.
At unknown cost whose justice was seen to be done?
If '84 was a gothic last supper
Then '85 was a haunted house party.
When they scuppered the convoy of coaches
They were pretty damn smarty.
'85
was the worst poem in your life.
Picture a Bosch or a Breughel come alive.
You’re captured on canvas in a living carnival
Cut from time’s frame with a knife.
With
ghosts, the host includes fire eaters, jugglers, Tibetan monks.
Then eco freaks with mohican haircuts
And armless orange donkey jackets.
Mingling
among chunks of stone doing things you do at home
En masse.Hang gliders
towed aloft across dusk by rickety vans.
That was Stonehenge – harmless.
All
bar the bearbait or bullfight – and those wouldn’t surprise.
Army choppers tore from the skies
And buzzed the field twice a day in a free display
To our cheers.
Later,
we had no fears when trucks and armoured cars
That failed to reach the stars led up the road
In a moving motorised siege instead
For a few days and nights on exercise – or goad?
|
STONEHENGE
: A DOCUMENTARY ON TV. A true story, by Guy Rowe 
I went down to
the henge in 74 from Watchfield, the old R.A.F base near swindon, it was not until years later locally
here that I met craig scott who works for derby city council gardens
section and recognised him from back in those days.
The photo from the documentary - I would have been there about 3 weeks
in 84 when that was taken, so I would have been... pretty...... well.
It's just a small
tribute to ad about the 74 festival but this is to remember Dick Holman from Wantage who got up on the small stage then
to deliver his poem: "He was Herbie the cosmic parrot - he kept
on keeping on....." which Dick did several times a day as he
did at watchfield.
I haven't yet read
all your site but I wonder if (the bit I refer to in my poem about
hang gliders being towed aloft across dusk by rickety vans) the guy
who was doing that in 83 was using an old J4 van -rotten heap - he'd
tow you up for a joint, but he did well enough out of it that when
he came back in 84 he had I think two new hang gliders and a morgan
sports car to tow them up with! If you haven't got anything on this
fellow I hope you find him in the future.
I remember meeting
some of the convoy people there in 83 and one guy told me of someone
who had a photographic record of all the festivals to that date...
I started to read
your item about wally, maybe if you too would remember people calling
out for wally at reading fest and buxton etc, I once had a heavily
edited letter in the Times explaining the origins of wally as far
as i knew them. I wasn't at the isle of wight festival when hendrix
was on but some years later I met a guy in oxford, and he told me
how when he was at the isle of wight he lost his labrador in the crowd
and he stood up and yelled out : "Wally where are you?"
The impossibility of anyone finding anything there let alone wally
just sort of amused the crowd so much that loads of people repeated
him and the cry went up that way. I wonder if you have had other reports
of this incident.
If i think of any
other anecdotes I'll try put em down. I know that craig has left a
series of tapes of his interviews with someone i think from the bbc
about the henge festivals, there were so few of us there in 74 I wonder
who can be left...
.....
all the best
guy
Some
nights the fog came down and some were lost 'til light.
A full moon bled crimson red through the mist.
Underground groups cut the dark space with visceral sounds
Tuned to the high electric of the place.
On
solstice morn a bass guitarist played up the dawn
On bleeding fingers that started
At midnight.
Then
incongruous and comic Druids
Like wretched white penguins
Wobbled into the circle in their attempt
At a state of grace. |
|
