In Search of Lost Time.

There's nothing new about a bit of nostalgia. It's always been there.

So, this (Reading Rock Festival) was my first ever festival. I'd been to loads of gigs but nothing this big. I think it was 1974 or thereabouts. It was. I was 18, and a good pal and I hitchhiked down the A1 to London and onwards to Reading. I can't quite recall the various lifts we took, but I'm pretty sure the last leg was by train from Ealing. In Ealing I ate some rollmop herring, fresh from a jar on the counter in a hot and dingy bar, along with a pint of warm Guinness. 

Most of the journey down from Scotland had been spent going from pub to pub and, funnily enough, in the final pub in Reading we met two young ladies. Not sure they were old enough to be in a pub but ... we all sat cross legged on the floor together, had a smoke, a laugh, a few more pints, and off we all went. I'll say no more, but that set the festival weekend up nicely.

I do recall paying hard cash at the festival gate, not quite as stated above. Entry was simple, no apps or searches, just an arm stamp. I thought it was only a fiver to get in but it must have been more. Seems like silly money nowadays. The price of a sourdough loaf in Stockbridge. Damp Scottish notes, almost but never quite legal tender in England.

Our tent was sky blue with a large rendition of Shadowfax painted in white across the sides, done by my own fair but shaky hand. My thinking was that it would be easy to locate once we reached that tricky point in proceedings where we needed to find the tent. When that need arose and being the only tent with a large white horse on it, I was able to find it. I was also able to find the two young ladies' tent nearby, so now there were various options open to us all.

Which bands and artists do I recall seeing, or even hearing? It's probably quite a short list. The weather was poor and the crowd were a bit bad tempered. Wet and rowdy. Hells Angels and a chugging Hippie remnant. Punk had yet to happen and Glam had no place here. At one point the crowd got angry and turned a fish and chip van onto its roof. We all cheered as if it was some profound statement.

The stages, only two of them, always seemed a bit far away or at least beyond my easy reach. PA systems back then worked well indoors. They could be ear splitting (the famous 99db or thereabouts limit), but outside perhaps not so good or clear or even loud enough. I'm not sure whether Charlie Watkins, the WEM genius and father of the modern PA, was working that day. There never will be a better looking 4 x 12.

I know that I saw Thin Lizzy, it may have been the Gary Moore version, I'm not sure, they were a distant blur. 10cc were good to bop around to and sing along with. Focus were kind of dull in that predictable progressive way, although Jan Akkerman was as faultless a player as I expected. I wish I could remember seeing Traffic, but I can't. Damn. They were the silver darlings of the music press in those days, in ways never to be repeated. 

I have a faint memory of the Alex Harvey Band but I must have been close to exhaustion by the time they came on to close the Friday show. The strains of  Zal's guitar on "Faith Healer" still gives me a nervous twitch and dim and dark flashbacks. Was it here or in the Glasgow Apollo? I think it was raining and various substances had been consumed. None of them nutritious. Tonight we were the mud people.

Monday morning came and the rain did not stop. The site was a haunted and bloody mess. All our stuff was soaked. The girls were headed back to Sidcup in Kent and so we said our farewells. Thanks or no thanks to a tip off, we were now headed to Windsor. A group of people, none of whom we knew, intended to crash and extend the Windsor Free Festival and so start some kind of revolution. This seemed like a good idea. We piled onto a train and arrived in Windsor, water still dripping from our stuff up on the luggage rack. Little did we know that the mighty powers of the Thames Valley Police Force were expecting us.

In a small column, armed with a few beers, we entered Windsor Great Park where there was indeed a festival site. It had been set up a few days ago. Keeping it going was not authorised. A solitary band played away on a small stage for a while. Multiple slack versions of "Hey Joe" and "Street Fighting Man" were tried out. We put up the tent, under a tree. Shadowfax, still damp, was off at a gallop once again. The toilets were crudely excavated trenches with a number of logs rolled over the top on which to sit. The ice cream vans had left and there was no food. Numerous joints were passed around. I fell asleep.

A policeman woke me up at about 4 am. He had pulled out the guy ropes and the tent collapsed on us. I looked out and up and saw about a hundred dark blue police officers lined up against the trees and heading our way. There was shouting. A few folks were grabbed by the scruff of the neck and, bit by bit, everyone was arrested, or something. The police gave us a good arse kicking. Nothing new there. We were all sleeping in the Queen's back garden and that was a crime because clearly we had not been invited.

The festival was obviously over.

We hung around in Windsor for a while and reviewed our shaky circumstances. Some folks still thought a revolution was possible, but perhaps Windsor was not the best place to start it. Not today anyway. So we got a train down to Portsmouth and crashed out at my friend's sister's house. Perhaps we could borrow some cash from her. We did, and headed to the pub down the road. It was 1974 after all.