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IIlustration Edward Barker

  FREEK PRESS: issue 8 Sunday 3Oth Aug 1970.

transcribed due to illegibility -links to more Freek Press issues at bottom of page )

Storm clouds threaten festival.

    Be prepared for bad weather tonight. The GPO forecast for South Hampshire predicts a misty cold night , with temperatures of 12c or just below and winds of force 2 -4( strong enough to make it uncomfortable to sleep in the open .) So we advise anyone in a tent to check the guy ropes and pegs before going to bed tonight . Making sue the they are firm enough to stand some wind : also if it does rain, slacken your guy ropes, they will tighten when its wet.. If you do want to go home tonight , you will have to queue for about 3 hours for a bus. You will have a journey of about 1 and a half hours to Ryde( to which 7 out of 10 buses are going) from there ferries are running all night to Portsmouth (and occasionally to Gosport) British rail are running all night trains to London . The Yarmouth to Lymington ferry is running 3 extra ferries but there are no connections at the other end.

Freak Flashes

    Two people who could afford to contribute to the bust fund but wouldnÕt when asked to are George Lazenby and Paul Rodgers of Free ,the group who left Phun City uptight because they didnÕt get paid in advance.

Early Leavers.

    Since early this morning people have been leaving the festival for home and by this evening thousands had queued for hours before being trucked off in buses. Reasons for leaving the festival before the biggest names appeared were either

1. To get out before being stranded for days

and

2. Couldn't tolerate the conditions . General opinion about the success of the festival was high , in a rather unexcited , that's life way.

If you're desperate and need bread, go to the site office between 8 and 9 am tomorrow and you'll be employed to help out. Get some of the money back that they took from you.

Beach Report.

Good news today. Thousands of freaks swimming naked soaking up sunshine . Ritual exorcism of demons thru group splashing water.. Mass chanting of f-u-c-k. chorus and other Woodstock re-enactments. Freakout when helicopters buzzed beach,. First fuzz then RAF who dropped a smoke bomb. The classic rescue as man lowered with stretcher to pick up body of man who fell down cliff. RAF saves ! Cop in uniform walking back along beach looked at the ground as he walked past thousands of naked bodies , busting no one. Good news.

****

all welfare organisations will get together tonight to discuss how the press can help get stranded kids off the island. Fiery Blues. Down only 9000 pounds with the film bread cut still to come .

*** Bus queue 2 pm./ Kid in line slashed his wrists . Security cleared a dog cleared crowd. Kid taken w\away . Statistics : I in very million attempts suicide. Is the festival that depressive ? Long bus queue.

*** After last nights invasion of the press enclosure press had to show their passes to GET OUT or also face the guard dogs.

*** Jeff Dexter: the people's dj. feels there has been a damaging lack of cooperation between the name groups when it comes to helping out on stage to get things together without too much delay. He also feels that the festival was over booked with groups and didn't relate enough to its concept as a peoples oven rather than a big bread trip.

*** PA to be liberated. In response to the demands for open crowd raps Fiery are considering turning the PA over to the people to do their thing.

**** If 600,000 people here smoked one joint per day., How much dope has been smoked . Try 40 joints per ounce. + 875 pounds a day Add extra for festival crowds. =2000 lbs Goodbye from friends ,. ink, playpower, Oz , it ,etc, who didnÕt write their reports from hotel bars back in Southampton.

*** This is the city of half a million stories, freek press has only room for some of them ( that's straight from the intro of Naked City , if any of you TV heads are old enough to remember ). That's by way of justification for the storm of controversy over freek press six where soem Freaks form Desolation Hill wrote :

FROM THE PEOPLE ON DEVASTATION HILL:

'For three days we have listened to free music. We would like to show our appreciation of this by helping to clear up the litter on the hill. If plastic bags are provided we will do this on Monday FOR FREE PS: some ofus had tickets as well. We also dissociate ourselves from any wall breaking activities' Kit, Hubback, V. ]ohnson & 10 others.
Han's ,a German reader from Bohn, writes in return:" some people are doubting if the freek press is objective. Look at some facts from freek press six.

1. Who has gotten the damned right to speak for the people of desolation hill ? Couldn't it be that the festival moneymakers just want to save the expenses of cleaning up the hill. ?

2. Reading the note about the violated fences get the impression that the Freek press didn't like the hole It is not true that the people inside the arena received the invaders with missiles. They just helped them keep the fascistic pigs who were guarding the hole away.Inside the fence nothing had been organised. People of the inside spontaneously pushed down the fence to let the outsiders come in.

3. Why didn't we read something about this incredible incident this morning . The press should be saying all of this when the moneymakers are still telling lies to half a million people . Remember we were told that first everybody had to leave the arena because of contracts with the council. Then we had to,leave because of the litter , then when we had cleaned the place up in half an hour we were told that it would all have to be cancelled because we donÕt have enough cash to pay the artists. Question. Why doesn't the Freek Press tell us something about the background of the festival. Why don't you tell us who it is making all the funking bread and how much the profits are really going to be ? Ask the groups if they would play at a free festival for less money . Please with your paper try to make the people think about the the real issues behind this psychedelic concentration camp."

*** Fiery Creations claim the bill for the groups totalled 250,000 pounds. If these figures are correct then Fiery have lost money. If they are inflated then Fiery have made money from the festival. From talking to managers,.the rule of thumb appears to be - halve the fees put out by Fiery: eg Fiery once claimed 20,000 pounds for Joan Baez . Now They've admitted to only paying 10,000. Others have been similarly exaggerated. . If so then Fiery were about 70,000 ahead at the time of declaring the festival open . And that's before any profits from the film are taken into account.

*** Ricki Farr has completely lost his voice . Jeff Dexter says he's lost his mind and the promoters are losing money.

The festival looks like being extended to midday tomorrow and most of the stars are staying until Tuesday. They seem to be mostly staying in Shanklin having a lovely time : the only lack of luxury being when they are actually on the site, where facilities for them are almost as uncomfortable as they are for us. The row of black Rolls Royce's seems to be the best place to sit around . The chauffeurs get the best deal. The group of American country musicians - some were with John Sebastian yesterday, have made a big hit with the press. Zolly Minovsky ? ( Zal Yanovsky) once a Lovin' Spoonful. now playing with everyone and everywhere , joined both Sebastian and todays group , who he will perform with on British TV with later this week and then maybe return to Spain where he travelled around before coming to the Isle Of Wight. He said he made the mistake of going to Ibiza and after three days left for Barcelona and rented a car to tour the surrounding coast.

*** A large orange balloon was bounced about the press enclosure. No one seemed to mind or hardly notice.

Donovan could well become a father again, any minute now .

*** No one seemed to like Keith Emerson's new group which dominated last nights concert for a very long time and fired cannons into the faces of several unimpressed press photographers.

*** Joan Baez gave a press conference this afternoon which Freek missed but her Manager, Manny Greenbull, told me it had centred around misrepresentations made by the straight press : that she did not ask for or have , a yacht at this festival and that her fee was 8,000 pounds , in line with the other top performers. He also gave me a brochure and secured top billing for Baez, - the midnight performance. Baez is staying in a caravan on the site. She pointed out that she hadnÕt seen enough of the festival ( not being able to walk around without a guard dog) to make any judgments although , had she realised beforehand the price of Fiery's tickets , she might not have agreed to sing./ And festivals may be over . Last year none of the ticket prices for her concerts exceeded $2 and she is now attempting to start her own label to try to bypass the established production companies.

Thanks to Michael McNamara and Graham M Watson for the copies of Freek Press.

Thanks to Graham M Watson and Michael McNamara for the copies of Freek Press.

Does anyone have any more copies of the Freek Press ?, if you do ,Contact us
   

 

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updated March 2019


The Underground press- NB: opinions expressed in these articles do not represent our opinions of the organisers or any other people involved in the running of the festival, it is possible that they may be innaccurate in some details or facts.

 

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updated March 2019

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