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The Archive.
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Updated July 2023 view at 1920 x 1024 for best results
The Reading Rock Festival.
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Reading August 22-24th 1980. |
The View From the Mud : Reading Rock Recollections
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The two stages , Reading 1980 © Watt Dabney- composite fix by GW Shark |
Samson : Reading Rock 1980 © Paul Brannigan |
Photo of Gillan Reading Rock 1980 © Phil Ryan |
Krokus . Reading 1980 © Ferg Ranson |
Samson : Reading Rock 1980 © Paul Brannigan |
We need more info on this and the other Reading festivals, we are now in the curious situation of having better documentation on some of the earlier festivals, so c'mon headbangers, get yer photos out and fire up whats left of the aging braincells .Send your recollections and scans to us NOW ! !!
Recollections.
Will be updated as we receive new communications from you, the punters , so contact us and let us have your recollections NOW .
| Hi, I was in a young and new heavy metal band from Plymouth who drove to Reading on Friday morning from Plymouth and stayed for the whole weekend. We camped out in a park close by the river and around my old mark 2 Cortina. We had to park it up a bank as it had a leak near the front of the fuel tank. After the fantastic Friday night gig from Rory Gallagher (who was brilliant) we staggered back to the car and crashed in our sleeping bags on the grass around the outside. Being under the influence somewhat, we left the boot and doors of the car open. |
The Police woke us up at 3am believing the car had crashed and we were all lying dead and unconscious. Still fairly inebriated I remember saying how ironic it was that we had crossed two football pitches, stopped undamaged up a bank, had all been thrown out yet managed to land in our sleeping bags ready for a tidy burial. Not too impressed the young officer departed muttering something about not doing it again.
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Highlights of the weekend included on Friday, Gillan with a bass guitarist on a wire, the excellent blues band 9 Below Zero and the magnificent Rory Gallagher. He had the crowd in his hand from the outset and I think we all appreciated we were in the presence of greatness as he mesmerized us with acoustic and electric sets. On Saturday Samson were great in the afternoon and the wonderful Pat Travers Band brought the place alive at that great time in the festival day when the evening arrives, things get a bit crisper and the right band wakes you up. |
PTB really kicked us into life with an uncompromising R&B based set featuring the wake up call "Boom Boom – out go the lights". Fully awake and ready to party again we enjoyed memorable gigs from the young and new Iron Maiden followed by the old rockers themselves UFO who I swear I remember seeing live in Neath ten years previously in 1970. UFO’s Doctor Doctor was undoubtedly the anthem of that heavy metal generation and the crowd responded to it well.
| On Sunday, after a bit of bridge jumping into the Thames we made our way to the site in time to see the excellent Budgie. Coincidently we played support to them in Plymouth 10 months later. I note that Metallica have covered "Breadfan" which was an old standard I remember from Budgie in the early 70s. Magnum played a great set on Sunday afternoon and although Ozzy couldn’t make it, Def Leppard was the band that my muso mates were really there to see. |
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Around the same age, the Leps didn’t let them down before Whitesnake provided a polished finish to the show. I think that was the year someone showed up with a pig’s head they had found in a butchers bin. It probably featured in hosts of photographs.
1980 was the year the metal flew thick and fast, especially the cans.
I seem to remember the Hellions who were a punk outfit took a bit of
a battering. Punk had given way to Long hair, black leather biker jackets
and a generation that idolized Status Quo. |
Ironmaiden Reading Rock 1980 |
Hi. I was 16 when me & my cousin Martin boarded the coach from Manchester to our first Festival at Reading in 1980 and it has remained etched in my mind as one great experience. We had missed out on Led Zep the previous year as we were packed off to family in Canada for the summer - that was a great experiance too, for a fifteen year old but I've always regretted not making Knebworth in '79!Back to Reading in 1980. After hearing Tommy Vances radio broadcasts of Reading 1979, it was a real thrill for an impressionable 16 year old to be going to a festival that would be featuring some of the greats of rock and some of the new wave of British Heavy Metal who were later to become legends too. I remember the excitement at the prospect of seeing FOUR ex-members of Deep Purple, Ian Gillan on the Friday and Coverdale, Lord and Paice with Whitesnake on the Sunday. Gillan was a little off his peak due to over working his voice but the tape I made of the show proves how worshiped he was at the time, with the crowd shouting, "Gillan is God, Gillan is God" right through the performance. Saturday is a bit of a blur due to the effect of the hot sun and all the cider drinking but I do recall with amusement Samson with the drummer in the cage! and one very young Bruce Dickinson on vocals! |
Sunday
was memorable for one very special performance by a very unlikley band.
SLADE had replaced Ozzy at short notice. They came on at just the right
time, at dusk and after all the 'filler' bands but before the BIG NAMES.
They blew us in the crowd all away and the Tommy Vance broadcast of
the show is testement to that. Def Leopard were a let down and had to
endure a hostile crowd but Iron Maiden held the crowd well. I took a few photo's myself as well as recording Gillan and Whitesnake and still I have these as very special momentos. I'll send the pics to your site soon as I can - they are stored on another computer! |
Plod patrol Reading 1980 photo courtesy Pete |
Thanks for the site; if you have any further photo's of Slade or Gillan or Whitesnake or any of the bands at the Festival, I'd love to see them. Back to your web-site now to see if I can spot myself in the crowd pictures!
Cheers for now,
Phil, Manchester
The truth of the matter is that Slade stole the show at Reading 1980.Def Leppard were boo'ed and recieved a barrage of cans by going on after Slade.Def Leppard said that they just couldn't top Slade.I am surprised that your website did not highlight this fact ! There is also some footage somewhere to comfirm this .The Slade set was filmed by a tv company with and S or Z logo on the cameras. Perhaps you can shed some light on this.
Dear
Archive, |
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Chilling between bands © Ferg Ranson |
Tygers of Pan Tang onstage © Stephen Vaughan |
Samson onstage Reading 1980 © Ferg Ranson |
Quartz onstage Reading 1980 © Ferg Ranson |
Unknown band onstage © Stephen Vaughan click on the link to see more of Stephens photos from Reading 1980 |
The
only festival I ever went to where I slept over - I think I am a snob.
I still have the programme and the wristband.
Not sure about the Angels, but Angelwitch definitely appeared and went down
very well.
Other memories:
The Hellions starting with a high pitched vocal and immediately getting canned
offstage.T shirts appeared less than an hour later, reading, "I canned
the Hellions".
Massive flight of cans above the crowd from one side to the other each day,
always during the third highest billed band.
Ozzy not showing up.
Slade were in the programme and managed to get themselves promoted to Ozzy's
slot. They played a stormer and it was this performance that reinstated them
in the public eye.
According to the programme, Def Leppard had, "recently left school".
Not sure if Gary Moore appeared, but that was the day we went into town to
see a film in the cinema (I slept through it).
Regards,
David Goldblatt
Reading
1980 was my first festival and to be honest all a bit too much to take
in. My main memories are of the blazing sunshine, Slade, 9 Below Zero,
Rory Gallagher and UFO - the main reason for me going in the first place
- and coming back to the tent on the saturday to find what looked like
a wooly mammoth asleep in it. Being 15, 5ft 6 inches and weighing about
8 stone I left the enormous biker to it and slept on the floor round
the corner. |
My
key memory of this festival is of Rory Gallagher playing for seemingly hours
and hours into the night. I was camped behind the stage and was thoroughly
miffed with him by the end. My recollection of exactly how long he was playing
may have been distorted over time of course.
Hilary
Goodness me cant believe its nearly 30 years ago when i went to my first Reading festival , travelling down from County Durham seemed like an eternity away ,but if my memory serves me right didn't seem many cars on the road then. We used to travel down Thursday tea times after work and arrive in the pitch black trying to assemble the tents was fun,memories of this festival (1980) was Slade singing merry xmas with the sun belting down in August with temperatures around 80 degrees (those were the days)
Paul
Great
website, Hi this brought a lump to my throat ,best memories of my life,18 year old roadie for sledgehammer who played on the sunday 1980, even today me and my twin are off to wey fest with jethro tull head lining,and wer're 48 and still rockin!!, got some pics of sledgehammer on the stage looking out to the crowd will try and get them sent in ,keep up the good work thank fuck for the internet and people like you who keep these memories and history of music alive . kev |
T Shirt courtesy Watt Dabney. |
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Hi,
Having attended the Friday show of this year's 2009 festival with my 14
and 10 year old daughters, it brought back numerous memories of the last
time I was there back in 1980.
As a young teenage rock fan, 1980 was the festival to attend ! Some great
bands, especially UFO with 'Doctor Doctor' where the crowd went mad, along
with an up and coming Iron Maiden !
Funnily enough the best band of the weekend in my view was Slade, who had
stepped in for Blizzard Of Oz. They really knew how to work a crowd and
obviously had so many well known songs in their set list that the crowd
really took to them. After their set I seem to recall everyone was in such
a real feel good festival spirit, helped with drink and other festival essentials
! I may be wrong but I seem to recall they got at least one, if not two
encores !!
On the down side I remember the cans ! An unbelievable sight as on various
occasions literally hundreds of cans were thrown in the air during mid song
mainly amongst the crowd. Sadly I do seem to recall one of the bands
getting canned off stage (9 Below Zero? Q Tips?)
as they didn't fit the heavy rock line up.
Not sure what's more dangerous; the cans back then or the mosh pits of today
!!
Loos were crap ! (Seem to be better this year)Shared a tent with a mate
who didn't go for 4 days !! Weather was great ! Overall a great weekend
back then. Couldn't talk for days afterwards as I had screamed and shouted
myself hoarse !
Mark Perrin
Hi
1980 was a great summer, had left school in june and had a great 3 months.
The Reading Festival was the last hurrah before starting my apprenticeship
on September the 1st.
About 10 of us travelled up from the Isle of Wight, the majority of us were
16 year old 'festival virgins'. We got to Reading only to be stopped and
searched in the station by a top hatted and tailed gent from the drug squad,
we didn't have any, why would we? We were happy underage drinkers, thats
about that. Do remember seeing a BBC documentry later that year which followed
the drug squad around. I suspect we weren't shown due to us a) being good
boys and b) saying stuff like "Hello mum" into the cameras.
We arrived at the field, pitched our hired family tent, complete with curtains
which Ridetty had foolishly hired and took 2 or 3 of us to manhandle up
there from the Island, it was a bit embarrassing. But on the plus side was
easy to find our way back to in a darkened campsite owing to the fact that
you could see its outline on the horizon. The tent was then filled with
beer after a trip to the supermarket.
To the gig, Friday I do remember the cans arcing through the air, the Hellions
didn't last long. I always think of them whenever 'Ernie' comes on the radio,
The "Hot meat pie caught him in the eye, and Ernie bit the dust"
this was The Hellions for me. Fisher Z did manage to get away with it, by
being amusing, can't remember what they said but they played the set and
beat a hastey retreat. Krokus were great and 'smoke on the water' by Gillian
was definitely a festival moment. Rory Gallagher played a good set but by
this time the beer had kicked in only to finish around sun up in the tent.
When we came round suprisingly not too late, a quick trip to reading centre
for beer and breakfast, I loved the whole vibe. Saturday I reckon was another
hot day and from our preffered viewing spot, twenty yards back from the
mixers we settled down for a days rock. We had decided that it just wasn't
safe down the front whiich was confirmed to me by watching a half full party
four do its worst in front of the stage. I wonder if the St. Johns Ambulance
have kept a record of the injuries. Nowadays its hard to imagine it but
it was really bad! Samson were good and funny ridiculous in parts. Iron
Maiden good and UFO just the best thing so I thought until I saw Slade next
day.
Sunday was hard work to start with, the lifestyle was begining to catch
up. These days I'd have to had booked into a Hotel on the Saturday morning
to recover enough to give it a go on the Sunday. Angelwitch and the Tygers
of Pan Tang were good. Can't think that 'Girl' got away with the make up
without a barrage of cans but i reckon i may have been asleep! Magnum and
Budgie were good. But Slade..... it's the thing I think we all remember,
absolutely the right band at the right time. Think there was a lull in the
cans, I'm sure they lobbed bog rolls at the crowd and we all sung Merry
Xmas. Def Leppard and Whitesnake were good then all too soon it was over.
Back to the Island and a whole life as an Engineer.
Bill Maidment
Reading 1980 pages
Thanks to photographer Alan Perry for allowing us to use his excellent photos of Reading 1980, you can purchase copies of these pix at his website where he has oodles of top photos of metal bands from the 70s to the 80s
The early festivals.
You can find out the complete line ups of the first festivals if you follow the links below .
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Festivals 1965-1990
Most of these have fairly complete documentation .But new contributions of any sort are always welcome regarding any of the festivals.
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