Steppenwolf were such a kick ass band in those days and much loved by many for their crucial contribution to the music from the soundtrack of Easy Rider. They blew up a real storm and we were up and dancing, with the weather still acting well behaved for the moment . John Kay was all decked up in his leather pants and the Hell's Angels were loving every minute of it.

    For some reason we then missed all the other bands on Saturday/Sunday Am , probably because of the fact that there were horrendous delays. So no Johnny Winter, Floyd , Mayall or Canned Heat. All of whom played great sets. Hell, Pete Green was part of the Mayall lineup ! What idiots we were !

    Our excuse was that we were worn out after sleeping out overnight and lugging the damned folders around , so we decided to sell as many of the posters as we could the next day. Off we went to the large film tents , to bed down with a movie and to eat our tins of creamed rice and packs of jelly. Yes that's what we brought with us, don't ask me why , but it was probably more nutritious than the bloody awful hot-dogs and this way we avoided the huge queues at the food stands. In the tent we saw King Kong and a number of other B movies, great stuff ! We also managed to catch some sleep and let some warmth percolate into our bones. After all there were still some of the best acts to come on Sunday -Tuna, Zappa, Flock, Santana, Byrds, Dr John  and The Airplane .

Sunday.

     We sold posters for hours whilst Donovan was on-stage doing his freebee concert and we got an earful of Zappa and Santana as well, but at a cost. . We must have been about 50 yards away, enough to get a feel of the acts but not near enough to really get off on them , even though both delivered top notch sets. .It was damn cold the Sunday afternoon, very windy .The sound was being blown around in great snatches .We spread out our posters near a major aisle in the middle of the crowd and we fairly rapidly sold all our Zep posters to the hordes of Zep fans who streamed into the site to see the famed cock rockers strut their stuff, but we had a few Dylan, Airplane and Zappa posters left over by the time we decided to look up the velvet trousered ones on-stage.I suppose we probably managed to pay for our tickets and the screen inks from the sales with a few quid over , no huge profit. 

    Because we were sellng posters I can only remember snatches of the Mothers and Santana sets. Both were really good, as the tapes confirm and both bands mention just how cold it was up on the raised stage.Brass monkey conditions in June  - typical British weather ! 

    Whatever, it was a very solid days  line up, with the Flock racing through some great tunes from their album . A band that has almost been forgotten. They wrote some good songs and were a fantastic live act ,powered along by their brass section and future Mahavishnu Orchestra luminary Jerry Goodman.  One really doesn't see brass sections much anymore in rock bands , but it was very much in vogue in the early 70’s and this one fairly propelled the band along energetically .

    We infiltrated down closer for Zeppelin , I had an open mind about their music before I saw them , as I liked their classic BBCradio broadcast of the first album , had it on tape for years .But neither of us were particularly impressed by their set.  The audience went bananas over Zep and we were definitely in the minority in being underwhelmed by their endless solos and rock medleys.Overall, whilst initially being tolerable , I just felt that they went on for too long and that ( with the possible exception of Page ) none of them were class enough musicians to carry off the long solos. Robert Plant has a great voice, but seeing him getting into his pouting stage persona puts me off , I'm not a lover of rock gods and Plant was just too preening and affected for my taste. In my opinion, they were good, but not great. 

    The rains came late on, after Hot Tunas great set. We were pretty near the front for Zeppelin, I can close my eyes and see a picture of Robert Plant from about 10 metres away , but when they were finished a lot of the crowd left and we were able to get very close for Tuna, which was one of the main reasons that we were there. We were huge Airplane freaks in those days and I'd been listening to the first Tuna album a lot , and  I was expecting an acoustic duo , so it was bit of a surprise when they came out as a four piece. They really rocked ! Total experience , complete with dancing nudes who must have frozen off their asses and been totally mortified about the fact that they were projected onto the TV screens so the entire crowd could see their goose pimples as well as their naughty  bits. 

    Poor old Country Joe McDonald had to come on after that and keep us entertained as it began to pour down. Out came the black plastic yet again! Joe gave a very good performance and he delivered the Fish cheer and some other great numbers . But we were  champing at the bit .Where were The Airplane, we wanted to see Grace ! Finally they took to the stage and although the sound wasn't that good , they were playing really well and they were giving us stuff like Rock me Baby  and the Ballad of You and Me and Pooniel. Then all of a sudden they stop and leave the stage , oh fuck, rained off !.

    They only played 50 minutes. Kantner got a shock off the mic and that was that .Drat !, only time I ever saw them and a short set. Just my luck . 

    But there was compensation,,,, the BYRDS, -who had apparently played an awful amplified set the night before at Kralingen - came on to cheers from the crowd, brandishing acoustic guitars and sitting way back on-stage to avoid the rain , which was still coming down in sheets and being blown on-stage by the wind to boot . The Byrds played for ever it seemed , with so many encores , the audience would just  not let them go. Listening to the tape after all these years , its every bit as good as I remembered it being .... they played many  of their great songs -Mr Tamborine Man, Do You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star,with fabulous jams on Eight Miles High . McGuinn told us that it was the first time ever they played acoustic for a whole concert, - big cheers from the crowd!. Finally they were so tired that they left, they'd played for nearly two and a half hours and it was nearly dawn.

    That's all I remember, we must have missed Dr John, or I've forgotten him , which I'm surprised as I was a big fan, but after 12 hours or more in a wet field huddled up in plastic , I expect the tents were too inviting. It had been an incredibly tiring weekend  ,but well worth it for Tuna and the Byrds alone , let alone Fairport, Steppenwolf, Flock, IAB Day and Zappa- what a line up!.