Gig 035 Reading Festival 1977

Gig 035
Reading Festival
26-27-28 August 1977

I was sceptical about going to this. The previous year’s event had been a bit rubbish but enjoyable just because it was the first time away with my friends. A year later I wasn’t so sure, festivals weren’t very punk, and Generation X were playing Swindon on the Friday night. Unlike the unbroken sunshine of the previous year, summer 1977 had been wet and in the weeks preceding the festival it had been raining like a bastard. On the other hand I didn’t go on any other holidays that year, didn’t want to accompany my parents on their annual holiday visiting family in the far north, and did want to hang out with my friends in a field listening to music, so it was an easy decision. We were a bit better organised this year, in that we had somehow got hold of a big tent, a camping stove, and a few other bits and pieces. This was in danger of becoming civilised.

It was good to have some time off work, which was ok but did my head in much of the time, the only occasionally funny boorishness, the rigidity, the constant piss-taking. On a Monday morning there would be the predictable boasting about drinking and fighting, lads of 18 already displaying impressive beer bellies and talking about ‘the wife’ like premature Reg Varneys. The opening day of the festival was for that summer a rare glorious, warm day and I remember lying in the sun as an older acid casualty raved about Woody Woodmansey’s U-Boat, who subsequently sank without trace. Drugs can do that to you, I thought, feeling youthful and superior. Since I didn’t have to ride home on my moped, just stumble back to the tent, I bought a bottle of cheap Argentinian white wine to get in the mood. Serious mistake – the day quickly started to dissolve before my eyes. I had enough sense to stumble to the back of the arena where I collapsed in the long grass and became unwell, big time. Whatever godforsaken act was playing I had no idea, could have been anything from Throbbing Gristle to The Dooleys, my head was throbbing and the field was spinning, and eventually I passed out. I’ve no idea how much time went by, but I was woken up by a vicar, which scared the living crap out of me as I thought he was there to give the last rites. Thankfully he was good enough to direct me to the recovery tent where I sat with the other casualties and was given a bucket and large quantities of water. As it had been a hot afternoon I had no shirt on, by now it was starting to get cold, and some kind Scottish lads lent me a jacket. I hope I had the presence of mind to thank them properly; if not, in the extremely unlikely event that they read this blog, thanks lads.

After a while I felt ready to rejoin the throng – a 17-year-old can be pretty resilient – and drifted back to the space my friends had staked out, just in time to see Eddie & the Hot Rods exactly one year since I last saw them at Reading. During this time they had acquired an extra guitarist and had gone from snotty amphetamine r’n’b to accomplished new wave pop, scoring a chart hit with Do Anything You Wanna Do and rising vertiginously up the festival bill to occupy the coveted just-beginning-to-get-dark slot. Apparently the single was inspired by occult mystic Aleister Crowley’s dictum ‘do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’, and if so is probably the sunniest, bounciest ever reading of the Great Beast’s work, none of which prevents it from being an excellent example of the power pop genre. As an early adopter I was glad to see them doing so well even if they now seemed a bit tame, and enjoyed their set despite my fragile condition. However even in peak form I would rather be back vomiting into a bucket in the recovery tent than sit through Friday headliners Uriah Heep. Steaming heap more like. Bedtime. Please.

Saturday morning I felt rough as feck. Due to the previous day’s misadventures I effectively hadn’t eaten for nearly 48 hours so with Richard I wandered into Reading town centre to buy something reasonably wholesome at a non-rip-off price, and we hung out there for a while. By the time we got back to the festival it had started to rain and parts of the already saturated field were turning into a mudbath, so we went to the pub. Half-way through the UK’s most prestigious music festival I had seen two acts. Early evening we drifted back in time to see an American group called Aerosmith who sounded pretty good, from a distance – I wasn’t about to get down and dirty in the stagefront quagmire. Next up were Graham Parker & the Rumour, who as previously discussed I liked very much, but there was a power cut and when it was fixed they seemed to be struggling to make an impact, at least from 100 yards away in the dark. Headliners were Thin Lizzy, finally a top act worthy of headlining such an event, cracking tunes, real pros, Phil Lynott a great singer and songwriter and a real presence. For a while I watched from on top of a pile of scaffolding by the perimeter fence, until a couple of older blokes took exception to my vaguely punkish appearance and decided they wanted to steal my Jam badge and kick my head in. I ran away and was able to disappear into the muddy mob, sneaking back to our tent a little later. And that was Saturday took care of.

Sunday morning I was feeling a bit better but couldn’t really face going back into the arena, in fact I was starting to think I wasn’t that bothered about seeing any more acts. The rain had stopped and we hung out on the lush, non-muddy grass by the river, then went to a pub where some blokes were singing lewd and misogynistic rugby songs. For a while the sun came out and we explored the neighbourhood and then the campsite, which looked a bit like modern-day images of a refugee camp. Eventually I hooked up with our gang, in time to see Hawkwind play Reefer Madness, a performance involving a 10-foot-long spliff which may not have been real. For better or worse I was outside the arena when the Electric Chairs featuring Wayne (later to be Jayne) County played, but from the noise of the crowd it was clear that a transgender punk act was not to be made welcome, and for the first time that weekend the sky grew dark with flying cans of indeterminate yellow liquid. Richard was keen to see The Doobie Brothers so we found a space near the stage where we watched them do their American muso thing, Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter ripping it up on guitar. Diverting enough, not really my scene. It was raining hard now, pushing through the crowd you would suddenly find yourself on the edge of a great lake of mud, sometimes with head-to-toe brown hippies wrestling in the gloop. All my attention became consumed with the business of trying not to fall over. Headliner was The Sensational Alex Harvey Band who always put on a good show, I watched for a while and it looked good but by now I’d had enough.

I’d been blind drunk, violently ill, threatened with a kicking, soaked to the skin, seen just a handful of acts and only really enjoyed one or two of them. My best memory of the weekend is sitting by the river during a brief sunny moment, and I could have done that for free. As I may have mentioned before, don’t let anyone tell you things were better in the old days.