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Last update Jan 2012.

9-11th August . Kempton Park Racecourse. Sunbury.

Saturday 10th August : Evening session. Part 2.

    Unfortunately , although he is a great player , in my opinion , Emerson took a huge nose dive into wankery when he formed E.L.P and has more or less wallowed in it ever since. The moment he flatulently set off the big cannons to start the first ever E.L.P show at the Isle of Wight  heralded his embracing of mammoth pretension, which he hinted at with the Nice towards the end of their career, but always managed to avoid to a greater extent.

Anyway this was my second live exposure to the Nice (I'd seen them at the Hyde Park free concert earlier on in the year ) and it was a giant gas !  Emerson did all the usual cruel stuff to his Hammond organ, sticking knives into the keyboard to sustain notes whilst he mishandled the poor thing by bumping , pushing and jumping up onto it on occasions, sometimes playing it backwards to boot.     He also burned the US flag ,which went down well with those of us who were not impressed by the involvement of the U. S. in the Vietnam conflict on guitar, laid down some great licks with lots of nice feedback , whilst Blinky Davison on drums and Lee Jackson  on bass created a rock solid rhythm that thundered reliably and was guaranteed to underpin the pyrotechnics of O'List's psychedelic guitar and Emersons hugely entertaining Hammond organ . It was this solid rythmic base that allowed the lead players to improvise and freak out at length with no fear of the band losing its punch and ultimate direction .           The only weakness of the band was Jackson's vocals, which  were a bit iffy at times, but since 90% of their act was instrumental it did not really matter too much and his voice suited most of their songs quite well .     They thrashed through a programme of numbers from their first album -The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack - ,which had only been released in June of 68. -including  Flower King of Flies, The Cry of Eugene , America - ( Leonard Bernstein ) and Rondo-a variation on the jazz classic Blue Rondo A La Turk -  and they went down like the proverbial storm .At this time the band was still experimenting more with a  fusion of pop psychedelia and improvisation rather than attempting to fuse rock and classical music  ( which is nearly always fraught with danger ) -as they did later on the album Ars Longa Vita Brevis , although they probably managed to do it better then anyone else at the time. Later on that year they were banned from the Albert Hall for burning an American flag on-stage, but there was no chance of this happening at the less stuffy atmosphere of the National Jazz festival . left: Emerson with flag . click to view a larger image

Jon Jackson, who was there, recollects

Yes, Keith Emerson DID burn an American flag (or facsimile) on stage that night!!! ) As I recall, Keith Emerson did the following:  During "America" he jumped on top of his organ and set fire to the back of it.  He then pulled off the back of the organ and (I think) from within it pulled out the American flag, and he burned it.  This was hugely popular with the crowd.  I remember thinking to myself (half humorously, as I was just as excited as everyone else), "This is probably not a good time to tell anyone that I'm an American."

Nice photo gallery and links here.

The much anticipated drum battle between Ginger Baker and top jazz drummer Phil Seaman now took place , I know it was partly light when they went on-stage, although being the UK summer, where it often doesn't get dark until 11pm , this probably means very little.       I forget the exact reasons why the drum battle took place, I remember that there was a lot of talk about it in the Melody Maker before it occurred , but without copies of the paper to refresh the memory banks, I'm left to just speculate.   I don't think this was a grudge match , because Seaman and Baker were pretty chummy,  it was more of a friendly - let's see who can blow the other away in public- stunt.

When Clapton did his solo with Ginger and Phil in 68, I could hardly hear him to begin with, but either he or someone else turned the juice up after a bit. I was lucky that I had with me my World War One trench periscope which , apart from spotting snipers , guaranteed you a good magnified view of what was going on in spite of the best efforts of other punters to block your view. I was able to inform those other spectators near me that it was indeed Eric because for a while nobody at the rear of the audience seemed to know what was going on !

Ray Nicklin remembers

Thoughts on Eric Clapton's arrival ... as I recall it ... a modestly dressed guitar player walked out from the side, plugged in and started to play, he wasn't recognized as he walked across the stage because (I think) this was the first time he had performed publicly with straight hair since his Days of Perm and he really did look quite different.
But a particularly characteristic movement of the head as he began to play so distinctively ... enough to raise recognition and a very big cheer in my part of the audience.

Hugh Knott

When Ginger Baker and Phil Seaman were playing on their own there was no guitar amp on stage. This was wheeled on towards the end, creating an air of expectation. When Clapton walked on a minute or two later, I think he stayed towards the back for a while, playing rhythm. It is true that it took a while to recognise him, and I think this was partly due to the backdrop of the stage being lit and him appearing rather in silhouette against it and the amp - which made it difficult to see - though I am not entirely sure about this detail.

   Chris Jones has these recollections of the Baker Seaman drum joust
 

Ginger Baker introduced Phil Seaman as the guy who taught him. I don't remember the drumming as a battle more of a conversation - admittedly more of a shouting match than a dialogue. But boy those guys made the drums sing. I still think I've never heard anything like it to this day.

When Clapton came out I certainly realized who he was, and I think that most of those nearby did too - but he had that mesmerizing effect at the time (do you remember how Wheels of Fire blew us all away? "Eric Clapton, above all") that nobody felt that they dare utter a word until someone said his name.

 

The final act of this excellent weekend of music was the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Unless you were around in 1968 you probably never heard of this band, but at this point in time  they were top of the bill and justly so, due to the rampant success of their single - Fire  -which had turned Brown into a  household name  practically overnight  .  There were also the full on visual aspects of  Arthur's world to consider. Where the venue allowed , Arthur was dropped on-stage by a crane , wearing his flaming horned head-dress and facial makeup, whilst the band members wore hoods with plastic masks underneath , very theatrical  and rather advanced for the time -  probably Arthur was inspired by the sort of crazy on-stage antics that Screaming Lord Sutch and Screaming Jay Hawkins had been doing for some time . I suppose this could be said to have laid the groundwork for such pretensions foisted on us by myriad's of Heavy bands and parodied so wonderfully by Spinal Tap, but  Arthur managed to pull it off without appearing a wanker . Fortunately , his music was a cut above most of the bands who were to follow down that line of  development.

 

Arthur Brown Marquee club July 1968 © Franz Murer

Others remember the sequence of events regarding the opening of Arthur's act somewhat differently . Mike Godwin: I think that might have been the same fest where Arthur Brown prepared a huge coordinated electronic explosion which failed to go off. He got to the intro where he booms "I am the god of hell fire and I bring you ...[nothing happens] ... oh shit!". He left the stage in disgust and a trad jazz band filled in for a while playing "The Lambeth Walk". Bizarre ...      There was some trouble about the fences being pulled down and John Gee, the terminally square manager of the Marquee, appealed for calm by saying "Cool it, baby". He sounded ridiculously unhip.

I disputed the exact turn of events, so Mike did some digging and confirmed his version.

   The quote "I am the god of hell fire and I bring you- oh shit!" is 100% accurate - several of my mates were there, and they still remember it. The problems with the fencing or whatever were definitely causing some alarm, but I was nowhere near to them, so I may not have realized how serious they were. I am pretty sure that Arthur Brown was expecting a big fire work explosion which didn't happen. I don't know whether it just misfired, or whether the organizers pulled the plug on it because they were worried about causing more panic for the ambulances. The thing which definitely happened is that Brown left the stage and was replaced by a band which played several dozen choruses of the Lambeth Walk . I don't have any recollection of a helicopter at all. There was a different festival where Brown arrived on-stage by crane - I wonder if there are two separate performances which are being muddled up here.

I also remember the night fairly well. John has done his potted history, I was just potted.  No photos I'm afraid but I remember trying to find a warm place to sleep the night before.  That was the night that Arthur set himself on fire while he was being landed. Must have been jealous about the diversion caused by the collapse. I do remember someone shouting "pour 'alf a brown over him", or some such.

photos of the collapsed walkway © Austin Reeve. click to see a larger version of the images.

Dik Leatherdale thought Clapton was indirectly responsible for the walkway collapse

My final year was 1968 at Sunbury. My recollection of the collapse of the covered walkway was that John Gee announced that EC had been playing and that the crowd went wild ("Eric is God" was still to be seen on walls in Notting Hill then). In particular the 200 or so people who had climbed up on the walkway discovered that they could make a lot of noise by banging their feet up and down on the corrugated iron roof. It seemed to me that this was what precipitated the collapse. Arthur Brown started his set apparently in complete ignorance of what was going on and I'm pretty sure that what was supposed to happen was that the Watney's Silver Band (from Watney's brewery in nearby Mortake) were to march in from the side at the critical moment. In the event it was a complete shambles. I recall "I am the God of Hell Fire and I bring you The Watney's Silver Band" at which point the band stuck up, accompanied by the sirens of arriving ambulances. the band then sort of stopped as they realised that something was up and it was, I think, at this point the famous "Oh Shit" was uttered.

Hugh Knott has this version of events

I have a fairly clear recollection of the beginning of the Arthur Brown session. I was directly in front of the stage and about left to stop the show and interrupted him saying 'no you don't.' , I am not sure how I remember him saying this but I am fairly certain he was holding a mike because for a moment I wondered if it was part of the show. This would make sense since he had to make himself heard to Brown over the band. I took it that Brown's angry reaction - I think he threw something to the ground (which presumably was the thing that others referred to) and stomped about angrily for quite some time making gestures - was to being stopped, because I don't think at that point he knew what had happened at the back. Immediately after the accident - which made a hell of a bang - it went quiet and it was a few minutes before the ambulances arrived so it is quite possible that Brown, preoccupied on his crane, didn't know what was going on. This was the only time I saw Brown, I am sure I would have remembered if he had arrived by 'copter - I remember a crane.

 I was at Sunbury and have to say that the incident on the Sunday night was the worst human disaster I have ever witnessed first hand. I was closer to the walkway than the stage and it was horrific and spoilt the festival for me. As I'm untrained in first aid I immediately left with my companions as this seemed the best course of action so that the emergency services had better access. I also believe, though cannot confirm, that there were fatalities and that this was kept from the press. My mother-in-law worked in
a private hospital in Surrey at the time and heard this indirectly through ambulance drivers who were there on the night.

As for Arthur Brown coming on stage I believe he used a crane. It would have been too dangerous to use a helicopter.

 Greetings,

I was one of the people injured at the 8th National Jazz & Blues Festival at Kempton Park in 1968. I recently found your site,
which is the first I've found about this event. Thank you!

Here's some information I can share with you:

1) There were about 200 people sitting on that roof at the time.

2) The roof collapsed just as Arthur Brown was coming on stage. We were all yelling and stomping in response to Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton.

3) You are absolutely right that Jeff Beck was playing as it turned dark.

4)I recall T. Rex was early in the program ...perhaps 3rd?

5) .As for my  injuries...well, I fractured several vertebrae in my back (ouch!).   My brother, who was sitting right next to me, just had the wind knocked out of him.  A fellow in the ambulance with me had a broken jaw.  I'm not aware of any fatalities.  There's a long (and perhaps boring) story about the medical care I did NOT receive that night at the local hospital.  I'm an American, and I was 17y/o at the time...so the main thing about it (from my point of view) is that my injuries disqualified me for the military draft, and I didn't have to go to Viet Nam.

Thanks again,
               Jon

Austin Reeve was close to the walkway

Arthur Brown did descend from a helicopter at the '68 festival- the walkway collapse coincided almost exactly with 'I am the God of Hellfire and I bring you...WHAMMM'. We at the back realised immediately what had happened and ran into the wreckage to try to help. It was awful....like a train crash or something! There were very bad injuries- I tried to pull a guy out from under a load of concrete beams which were supporting the roof that they had been sitting; but his leg looked almost severed, so we just stayed near him but tried to extricate others from the wreckage who were not so badly hurt. After a while, my mate and I felt so bad that we went out of the festival ground completely and slept in the car somewhere out near Reading,then came back on Sunday morning.

Adrian Angrove , who has informed me that he has a near photographic memory, has sent us this very detailed recollection of the events that took place. Its probably the most accurate of the memories so far .....

We were stood on a small raised grass hummock, some 30 - 40 feet in front of the rear perimeter covered walkway at the time of the incident.
 
After previous Arthur Brown festival entrances by crane, helicopter etc....the pre-festival press had been hyping "how will he arrive this time?" for weeks....echoed on the day by the Festival MC, John Gee,  who stood on stage and started whipping up the crowd reaction.
 
The build up for Arthur's entrance grew.....the crowd was going wild....the guys on the walkway roof started jumping up and down and stamping on the corrugated iron, making a hell of a racket....the searchlights were sweeping all around the darkened arena "looking for the helicopter"....However reports by others (including Austin Reeve) of him actually being craned or helicoptered in that day are totally erroneous (and must simply be part of the day's folk history)....As a "little negative joke on the crowd" Arthur simply strolled out onto stage from the wing-curtains stage right, grinning like a lunatic....we both watched him do it.
 
As Arthur walked on stage the searchlights were still darting round the arena and we heard the loud rumble that marked the collapse of the roof behind us.....we swung round to see the progressive collapse, like a row of dominoes, caught perfectly in the sweep of a searchlight.....almost as if choreographed...we heard the screams and saw the legs and body parts outlined against the sky as they tumbled backwards into the wreckage......we both turned and sprinted over to the carnage where we spent the next two hours pulling stunned and bleeding survivors out of the wrecked walkway. There were about 300-400 on that flat iron roof but only 70 or so were badly hurt and taken to hospital. Until twenty minutes earlier we had also been on the walkway roof, but had just got down to get burgers and chips from a nearby catering van.
 
John Gee ran back out on stage and interrupted Arthur about half a dozen bars into the opening of God of Hellfire...and that was when Arthur spat "Oh Shit" and stormed off stage, visibly annoyed at having been interrupted...there was never a replacement band sent on stage...The Crazy World remained there and played some very quiet and almost jazzy freeform fill-in instrumental music until the worst of the carnage had been cleared up. Arthur finally came back out to restart a very much shortened, very low key and subdued set, overshadowed by the endless fleet of ambulances arriving and departing till late into the morning.

Also a few corrections to press reports

the press report of Arthur completing God of Hellfire AND I put a spell on you before being interrupted and leaving the stage was slightly wrong....
 
...he was about two thirds of the way through God of hellfire when John Gee first tried to stop him.......but was pushed away by an angry Arthur...
 
...it was manager Kit Lambert who galloped onto stage after the song and finally got through to Arthur (who was as high as a kite on certain hallucinogenic substances at the time) and he stormed off...
 
....Kit told the band to carry on playing low key for a while as a crowd distraction (same as you would do if there was a fight in the crowd)....
 
....and the item Arthur threw to the ground was his microphone, not a pyrotechnic control device....they were controlled by licensed off stage specialists....
 
...Arthur did not play I put a spell on you until he returned much later, after Kit convinced him to return and complete the show as a tribute to those that had been hurt.
 
 
Adrian Angove and Ian Thompson, Penarth, South Wales - then bass player and saxist with "Stone Idol" and attending the Festival as guests of Charlie Watkins (WEM) because our PA was forming part of the Festival PA Wall of Sound .

   So there we have it , we do all know something disastrous happened during Arthur's performance , the walkway did collapse due to the crowd jumping up and down at the end of Ginger Baker's and the beginning of Arthur Brown's set , there was no mention of a crane or helicopter in the press, so we put this memory down to people remembering press rumours as fact - and regrettably -there were lots of people injured. The full story will have to wait until some kind soul can find us some of the newspapers of the day so we can find out just how many were injured . Its interesting that the festival continued the next day as if nothing had happened, nowadays I am sure that it would be cancelled as a mark of respect to the injured , but the incident was almost shrugged off at the time.

Click here to read about day two of the festival.

1968 National Jazz and Blues Festival menu.

• Press coverage -New !-March 2003
• Festival Program (added Jan 2003 )
• Camp site map and regulations. (added Jan 2003 )
• Pre festival hand out from the Marquee club.
• Festival poster
• Festival list of acts
• My account of the festival part 1
• My account of the festival part 2.
• Recollections of attendees
  Photo galleries of the bands.
• The Nice.
• Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.
• Joe Cocker and the Grease band
• Incredible String Band.
• Fairport Convention .
• Traffic.

The early festivals.

You can find out the complete line ups of the first festivals if you follow the links below, but otherwise information is fairly limited.
 

1961

1962

1963

1964

Festivals 65-83

Most of these have fairly complete documentation .

 

Richmond 1965	Windsor 1966	Windsor 1967	Sunbury 1968	Plumpton 1969
Plumpton 1970	Reading 1971	Reading 1972	Reading 1973	Reading 1974
Reading 1975.	Reading 1976	Reading 1977	Reading 1978	Reading 1979
Reading 1980	Reading 1981	Reading 1982	Reading 1983

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