This time round it was my turn to be spurned (see my Woburn Festival pages for the story of my jilting Gunter the German) , I'd regaled my mates with my stories of the two hippies I hung out with at Woburn and who should I see as we made our way to the gates but the guy with the cut off Afghan coat who I'd shared a fence with through the Hendrix show. All hail fellow well met , I approached him with profuse greetings ,only to be completely ignored ! I expect he did not want to be seen with such a young , callow sprog such as myself and I guess it served me right after I'd treated Gunter the German the same way. The big sting was of course that I was completely  embarrassed in front of my mates, but them's the breaks . As some obscure rock artist called Lennon once said "Instant Karma's gonna get you" and it sure got me on this occasion .

  The Nat Jazz and Blues Fests were pretty civilized , if rather tightly run affairs. There were of all things, rows of canvas bottomed seats , which rather put the damper on any audience gyrations, although we all stood on them when things heated up. The size of the audience was not huge, so you could get a decent view of the bands from almost anywhere .The line up for both days was superb, with very few dud acts. The weather also was good, although it got a bit cold in the night.

 

We did not attend the Saturday afternoon session , which was devoted to quality British Jazz bands such as Ronnie Scott and Mike Westbrook, generally good stuff, but at the time I wasn't all that into British jazz, preferring Miles and Roland Kirk to the local stuff . We queued up dutifully as good Brits should and scored ourselves good seats near the front in time to see the first band I remember of the afternoon, which was ......(drum Roll ) ......Deep Purple .

  This was VERY early and nascent Purple, a far cry from the heavy demon of later years, in fact they were more of a pop band than anything else , their set consisting mainly of covers . What did strike us as amusing was their stage clobber, - purple satin shirts with frills for the instrumentalists and black satin for the vocalist - ( apart from Lord who got to wear a psychedelic jacket ) -very chic !. They were playing numbers like Hush, which was the only song that really stands out in my memory- and very possibly Hey Joe, I'm so Glad, River Deep Mountain High  and Neil Diamond's Kentucky Woman - all of which were featured in their set lists of the time. Pretty much a covers band . They were yet to find their own voice. 

The picture right shows Deep Purple on stage at the Sunbury Festival

(the guy in the foreground between the two blond girls is Ric Lee -the drummer of Ten Years After- identified by Glenn Cornick of Jethro Tull )

Cocker at Sunbury © Franz Murer

T Rex set, could this be Charlie Watkins of WEM at the controls ?

   According To Mike Godwin , Tyrannosaurus Rex also played on Saturday, but I have only faint recollections of them , I guess because I wasn't a big fan..

According to Mike -

Another act who were at the festival was Tyrannosaurus Rex, who performed an interesting set including as I recollect, 'Travelling Tragition' and possibly 'Juniper Suction'.

At the timeTyrannosaurus Rex were a staple of almost any underground or hippie orientated gathering , I saw them at every festival I went to in 68 and most of the ones in 69 as well . 

Right: One half of Tyrannosaurus Rex -Steve "Peregrine "Took at Sunbury 68.

Marc Bolan- Sunbury 1968

   Mike's memory proved to be correct as the program confirms their presence down the bill , after Joe Cocker but before the Nice, also we now have photos of the lads onstage at the festival courtesy of Tony Steen and Klaus Wachtarz.

   The Rex of this era tended to play seated, crossed legged and their songs appealed to the more fey and deeply trippy sector of the hippie populace , as such they did not really appeal to me , but they were a unique act who definitely had their own voice and appeal .

   After the ruminations of master Bolan and his compadre Steve Took. came an altogether more heavy band, Ten Years After .

  Ten Years After were then relatively unknown, ( their big break came after the release of the Woodstock film , which showcased them at their blazing best ) although they generally went down very well as they played so FAST and theres always people who equate fast with good. I remember one of my friends actually commneting that Alvin Lee was playing scales , very quickly, which didn't impress us much !

  The picture above ,courtesy Klaus Wachtarz, shows them playing in the rays of the dying sun . I have little memory of this set , as I tended to see Alvin Lee as a bit of a flash harry as far as his guitar playing went , compared to Beck or Clapton, who knew when NOT to play . But this is only my opinion ,Ten Years After were building their popularity at this time and they no doubt went down well on this occasion as Franz Murer remembers

"I was much impressed by Ten Years After. I think this was the first gig of the group at home after a successful tour in the USA and I remember the audience welcomed them warmly. "

    At first the heckling was just vocal, but after a while as the Geordies became  more pissed they started to pelt the hapless vocalist with beer cans - hopefully empty ones , but given the nature of some of those guys I would guess not all were - so eventually Rod was forced to retreat to the safety of the on-stage stacks, where he continued to sing from behind the protective wall of amps. Way out of order by the Geordies I thought, although it was also quite funny and Rod was not hurt ( apart from his pride of course ) .