What does it sound like?:
Who’s old enough to remember the annual summer festivals at Knebworth then – many of us I suspect! Let’s go back in the old time machine to the scorching summer of 1976, the 21st of August to be precise. That year’s show was headlined of course by The Rolling Stones, with a supporting cast including 10cc, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia and Lynryd Skynyrd. This cd/dvd combo captures Skynyrd’s full set from the day, truncated from their usual show due to the stage time they were allowed. However, this shorter set works in their favour as in its distilled form it cuts out all the fat and really is all killer no filler. Kicking off with Workin’ For MCA, the band are on top form with Ronnie Van Zant’s fine vocals aided and abetted by the mighty triple guitar attack of Gary Rossington, Steve Gaines and Allen Collins. A fiery set runs through classic after classic – Saturday Night Special, Gimme Three Steps, T for Texas, and of course concluding with Sweet Home Alabama and Freebird. A superb set if you like your rock Southern Fried!
What does it all *mean*?
Did any of us attend this event – if so, what are your memories of the day? (In fact, memories of any of the Knebworth events you attended over the years would be welcome – go on, take a trip down memory lane…. the music, the crowds, the queues, the traffic jams…. please share)
Goes well with…
A bottle of Rebel Yell.
Release Date:
Out now
Might suit people who like…
Anyone with an interest in the Knebworth festivals should seek out the book There Must Be A Better Way by the event’s promoter, the late Freddy Bannister.
I was there and also at the the very first Knebworth in 1974. Brief, stream-of-consciousness recollections appear below.
Scuse any typos or jumping from topic to topic as I need to walk the dog so am typing this on the hoof (paw?) as it were
Highlight of 74 -a gloriously hot, sunny day – were seeing Van Morrison for the first time (I stupidly passed up seeing him with the Caledonia Soul Orchestra the previous summer – the biggest regret of my 49-year gig-going career).
According to promoter, Freddie Bannister’s book, There Must be A Better Way, it was Van’s birthday and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. Then again, maybe he’d just heard I was coming.
Pretty sure that the SAHBs were playing when we arrived so can’t remember whether I got to catch Tim Buckley or not. Having seen the classic original Mahavishnu Orchestra line up a year (possibly two) previously, I remember being a bit disappointed by MO 2.0 – A big open field is not really the time or place.
Remember the Doobies as being ho-hum (a feat they would repeat when I saw them support Steely Dan some 43 years later in Dublin. IIRC, the Allmans came on so late and played so long, most people (myself and my friends included) missed a major part of their set as we had to get back into London and get trains home. As had tickets to see the band at the Birmingham Odeon and their Winter tour was called off because of the Oil Crisis/3-day week, remember being a bit pissed off.
Did have the original poster but lost it long ago but do have a repro like the one below on my wall.
http://www.knebworthhouse.com/rock/img/1974poster300.png
76 was the longest, hottest summer of most of our lives and the year that FB hired a pierrot to run onto centre court at Wimbledon to announce the Stones would be highlighting Knebworth Fair.
Me and my mate Graham arrived while Hot Tuna were on. Things really started heating up with Todd R’s Utopia (apparently Mick J was shagging Bebe Buell (later immortalized in Elvis C’s This Years Model and now best known as mum of the actress Liv Tyler) backstage while Todd whipped up the crowd.
Next up were Ronnie and the boys. While never a huge fan of the band before, Lynrrd Skynrrd blew everyone who went before or came after them off the stage.
Long a mainstay of the OGWT, LS’s performance of Freebird on that glorious day is just about as good as music gets. Watching it now as I type, I’m transported back to drinking the last can of the by now disgustingly warm beer G and I smuggled onto site. Sheer magic
After LS came 10CC who took forever to set up – the delay was explained in the next week’s music press as being because they were recording a live album. It eventually came out the reason for their interminable delay was that Keef had apparently OD’ed in Knebworth House and was apparently hovering between life and death. Having started to veer away from the quirky songs that made their name and towards more mainstream pop, the band where nowhere near as good as they had been when I saw them in a theatre a couple of years before. Unsurprisingly, they split down the middle not long after.
In all, I’ve seen the Stones three times over the years and every time they’ve been distinctly underwhelming. Two of those occasions – KF was the second – came in 1976. The night ended with some sort of choir singing Land of Hope and Glory.
Other abiding memory of KF 76 was of my mate Graham and I hitching home the next day. After what seemed like hours on the roadside, a car pulled up about 50 yards ahead of us. We ran up to get in. “Where are you guys off to?” The passenger asked. “Coventry” came the hopeful reply. “That’s funny, so are we” laughed the passenger as his mate gleefully put the pedal to the metal and sped off up the road
Poster/prog from the day contained in the article below
https://www.whtimes.co.uk/things-to-do/the-rolling-stones-set-to-play-knebworth-again-5520962
Anyone know what became of the Don Harrison Band? Apart from their featuring ex CCR members, Doug Cook and Stu Clifford, never heard anything from them before or since
The first one with Pink Floyd was a lifetime highlight, although it wasn’t until they came on that I could really hear anything properly. I was sitting with a group of trainee teachers, including the girl of my dreams, and smoked dope for the very first time. In fact it was the first time I’d smoked anything, so the mechanics of it took a bit of working out. What I thought was my first hit was probably just the effects of the tobacco. 🙂 It was quite windy and most of the sound from the support acts arrived in short bursts – a bit like the drifting reception from an old AM radio station. I liked Linda Lewis but only heard a few faint peeps from here. There was a bit of shouting that I assumed was the Monty Python duo.I can’t remember either Captain Beefheart or Roy Harper, but the funny thing is I would have sworn that Devo were on and generally hated. I was queuing up for chips and then the toilet for the entire duration of the Steve Miller Band set.
I went again for Led Zeppelin and genuinely have no recollection of any of the support acts at all. Which was unfortunate, because Led Zeppelin were absolutely terrible. I can only assume that Jimmy Page was completely off his face for the entire set, because his random bursts of stocatto guitar playing seemed to bear no relation whatsoever to what the rest of the band were doing at the time.
I was at the Pink Floyd one too. Met up with some girls and was hoping to stop at one of their houses but lost them at Welwyn Garden City station. Ended up getting train to Euston station, sleeping on the station floor and getting woken by Plod at about 6am
– happy days.
Girls at Pink Floyd? Flaming heck!
I went to both 1978 events. The Genesis one was dull, though Devo were amusing. Tom petty was on, but the warm up show I saw by him at the Marquee was better. The second event was in September and much better. Zappa and the Tubes headlined, with Peter Gabriel, and the Boomtown Rats (number 1 with Rat trap, a few weeks before) also in attendance. Keith Moon had died earlier that week, so inspired some stage comments and covers. The tubes had a big spectacle but lacked the personality. Zappa was brilliant, and it’s all out there on YouTube. It included my favourite ever ad lib by him: “you’re a professional kind of festival audience. You’ve been coming to these things for years. Some of you might even have been conceived around here…”.
I was there in 76. I too remember how incredibly hot it was, sitting out in a field with no shade for hours. I really enjoyed the whole thing but I was there for Skynyrd, already being a huge fan. They didn’t disappoint – far from being a loose southern rock jam band, they always had their act together and the groove was fierce from the off. Up to Freebird people were generally sitting down, but I remember people in front of me starting to stand up so eventually we did too and I looked behind me to see 250,000 people playing air guitar. Absolutely fantastic. We all thought 10cc were late on because they were terrified of following Ronnie’s boys. The Stones were good to see – i hadn’t seen them before – though paled in comparison to Skynyrd. We loafed about till dawn and started walking to near Towcester where we were staying as you couldn’t get near the startion and eventually hitched back, sun burnt, tired and blown away.
Whilst it was amazing it put me off festivals and I’ve never been keen since. Sitting exposed to the elements, unable to go to the loo, constantly worried about losing each other…no thanks. Small ones fine, but tens of thousands of people – possibly for a reincarnated Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I can’t think of anyone else who would tempt me back.
I think I have mentioned my memories of the day the last time we discussed this, as in, I have very little memories of the day, or, at least, the bits I would want to have. I do remember the delay before 10 cc and them being rather good when they did come on. But their delay was nothing compared to the Stones, and I was flaking fast, leaving to nod out in my sleeping bag, sans tent, shortly after a superb Billy Preston organ led Little Red Rooster. I really really want to remember Lynyrd Skynyrd, as they were one of the draws of the day beforehand. But I can’t, perhaps as a result of having to fall in with the wrong crowd, not managing to meet up with the planned chums, tagging then along with some lairy older dudes whom I recognised from the backroom at the Rainbow pub in Lewes and, for some reason, I was remarkably unafraid, that day, to approach. One grizzled veteran of the 60s free festival scene regaled me and the others with the tales of when Charlie Watts lived in Lewes and was a regular at the Kwong Ming. I only learnt later that Hot Tuna had played, another source of frustration, as Burgers was a favourite album of mine. I remember Todd was boring, as were the ex-CCR relicts.
I was at the Genesis one in 1978. Loved it – it was the first gig I’d been to. I have vague memories of Devo, Tom Petty and Jefferson Starship. Roy Harper came on while Genesis. waited for it to get dark enough for their light show. I was a huge fan then and they did not disappoint. Still have nightmares about the toilets though – essentially a plank of wood over an open cesspit.
@Lando-Cakes
A plank of wood over an open cesspit?
How on earth did you manage to score yourself a ticket for the backstage VIP area?
Handful of hot gravel ..
That was pretty much standard fare, even Glasto coming late to the van full of bogs idea.
And yes, I do recall the sad vision of some poor soul, swimming for dear life. Probably not swimming, but definitely going through the motions.
“Going through the motions”…. very good.
I was at the first and second. 74 was about the best day’s music possible, but it got off to a strange start with Tim Buckley making a lot of funny noises while everyone settled in and ignored him. SAHB were great. I saw them several times after that and they were always good value. I get a bit mixed up with the running order after that. Mahavishnu were awesomely competent and just about overcame my mistrust of people with double necked guitars. As someone mentioned before, Van seemed to be having a really good time. Reverted to grumpy type on the several occasions I saw him subsequently. The Doobie brothers were OK, nothing more, nothing less. The Allman Brothers were simply the best band in the world at the time.
1975 was, for me, bitterly disappointing. Might as well have been listening to a record instead of hearing Floyd live, or perhaps I was a little grumpy by that time. I’d been looking forward to seeing Steve Miller, but he took the piss by bringing over a scratch band and phoning in a load of blues standards. Space Cowboy. Not. Captain Beefheart. Bonkers as usual. Lynda Lewis. Didn’t listen. Roy Harper likewise. Monty Python. Heard it all before. Failed to meet up with a girl as planned just prior to her going to Spain. Never saw her again. Got back to my tent and some bastard had nicked my sleeping bag.
It would be 40 years before I attend a festival again. Guest list.
Returning from an Alpine holiday in 1976, I chatted with some Knebworth-goers at Victoria Coach Station. They said Skynyrd wee much better than the Stones. Me? I always thought they were a pound shop Allmans
Lynrd Skynrd’s sound, on record, always seemed rather sludgy and nondescript. Consequently they’ve never made any impression on me. Never saw them live or wanted to.
I went to the Floyd DSOTM/WYWH Knebworth concert and was well impressed as I’d never seen such visuals at a concert before.
The actual band (and onstage guests) were just tiny dots in the distance, so probably a good thing the visuals were state-of-the-art for the time.
Musically, it was just a faithful recreation of the albums but that’s what one expected from yer Floyd by then. Their days of wigging out on stage were gone.
A long time ago , probably early 80’s, I remember seeing a Lynyrd Skynrd concert on BBC 2 I think. I remember the band being on a stage that reached out into the audience. The bass player, I’m sure it was the bass player, it was always the bass player, tried to come forward and get some of the glory but was yanked back as he reached the limit of his lead that was no doubtedly plugged into a rack of Marshall Stacks. Strange the things you remember
The Skynrd played the Swan in Stratford? Woah, radical!