25 years ago today I went to my first proper 3 day,camping out festival,namely the Phoenix Festival at Long Marston Airfield.
There were 8 of us and the first thing that greeted us were closed roads due to “crusties” who refused to pay to get in. “I mean Eavis gives us a field at Glastonbury so why can’t we have one here” an unwashed fuckwit explained to me in an accent that suggested he didn’t come from a council estate.
Thankfully, “The Man” refused to let them in and they skulked off,probably back to mater and pater and now presumably running a section in the Home Office.
But this didn’t happen until the middle of the night so we had to leave the cars,carry tents and assorted equipment for a couple of miles and pitch up in the dark.
It was a cracking weekend and I saw some great acts.
Pulp performing to a half full tent on Friday afternoon.
Sonic Youth with a barnstorming friday main stage headline slot.
Gil Scott Heron on the Jazz stage Saturday and comedy slots,the best of which was Woody Bop Muddy and his Record Graveyard.
All this for £49!!!
I went for the next couple of years and it’s surprising when you look back the calibre of acts they managed to get.
1996 seemed to be the best year as it was a Glastonbury free year.
It lasted for 4 days and the headliners were David Bowie,Neil Young And Crazy Horse,Bjork and The Sex Pistols.
Other big names over the years included Bob Dylan,Van Morrison,Public Enemy,George Clinton,Iggy Pop and The Foo Fighters.
I didn’t go in 1997 which proved to be the last one.
It never quite got the headlines which Glastonbury and Reading got but I thought it was a cracking little set up.
Did anyone else on here attend any of them?
The footage I’ve posted is of the first act ever to grace the main stage,Suffolks own Jacobs Mouse!!
Phoenix Festival,It Was 25 Years Ago Today
I went to a couple. I missed Bowie* as, despite leaving work at lunchtime, found myself in traffic gridlock all afternoon and pitched my tent in the dark to a soundtrack of TAFKA David Jones drifting across the campsite. I saw The Wonder Stuff’s “final” performance there. A highlight was Ben Folds Five in a marquee, followed by the lowlight of Catatonia (no matter how few clothes Cerys wore, the music was awful). Beck doing Odelay was ace. I left before the Pistols hit the stage as I didn’t want to taint my memories, idiot that I was** back then.
* I went on to miss Bowie at Glasto as Mrs F’s heavily-pregnant lift home bailed out on Sunday morning, so I had to drive her home on Sunday afternoon. We listened to the live broadcast in the car, while I spent the journey grinding my teeth at the injustice of it all.
** My gig-going life can be summed up as “more than is healthy, up until my eldest was born”. She’s now 15, and we went together to a free festival in Cambridge on Saturday, so all is not quite lost.
I went for a day only, the day that Van and Dylan were playing. Van was in the middle of the Brian Kennedy echolalia years, but it was still great. Dylan was shite. It was raining and I recall chatting, well exchanging a sentence, with a thoroughly pissed off John Peel, around the shops selling festival clothes. Funnily enough, I still have the Dylan long-sleeved T I bought, and have brought it to Cornwall for my summer holiday, yet to put it on for fear of the wife’s derision.
Having given up outdoor gigs years previously due to their shambolic organisation, abysmal sound quality and only passing acquaintance with published timetables, I got a day ticket for Phoenix to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
A group of us went up for the day and loved it. Truly one of the best days line ups I’ve ever seen.
From memory:
Fun Loving Criminals, before they were crap.
Flaming Lips.
Beck.
Manic Street Preachers.
Alanis Morrisette.
Crazy Horse.
I would have seen The Prodigy too, but they played in a tent that was impossibly crowded inside and out.
Had such a good time that I’ve been going to festivals regularly ever since.
Edit: I just cheated and googled it. I see Foo Fighters were on the bill as well.
Me and my student friends went there for a couple of years. I remember it wasn’t quite as ‘authentic’ as Reading, but after the muddy horror of Reading ’92 (despite the famous Nirvana gig) that wasn’t a bad thing.
A few things I remember over the two years (they all blur a bit):
Iggy Pop being ace (all my mates went to see Herbie Hancock in the jazz tent instead, the fools). This was also instead of watching the World Cup final in the cinema tent.
Sonic Youth forcing their yet-to-come-out experimental album on us and only doing one crowd pleaser (Sugar Kane) then fucking off sharpish.
With that in mind, the curfews, which seemed a bit early to us. Some others took exception and staged a mini-riot when stewards started shutting down campsite ‘sounds’. Down with ‘the man’! Let’s tear down all the lights that show us the way in the dark! (arseholes)
Squeeze being ace – I’d dismissed them as old farts’ music.
The Wonderstuff really going for it on their’ farewell gig. If only they’d left it there.
The Fall being shockingly bad.
Looking it up, I see I missed a few of my current favourites (Matthew Sweet, Red Kross, Divine Comedy). Ain’t that always the way?
Tell me about it. I only realised a few years ago that I was attending Pop Will Sodding Eat Itself at Reading 91 when I could have been watching Townes Van Zandt in the tent.
Yup, Chumbawamba were on that same bill as Van and Bob. And at Glasto 93. Took me until 95 at Guilfest to discover them.
I’m not a festival fan but dabbled in the 90s. I definitely went to the 1995 one – the airfield hardstanding came in useful as it was pretty wet that year, and I remember being a bit miffed that unlike Glastonbury it all shut down around 11-ish and you had to go back to the camping area so we had to make the best of that. I’m looking at the bill on Wikipedia and struggling to recall much
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Festival#1995
Quite amusing to see Nitzer Ebb didn’t show and were replaced by High Llamas – wonder how that went down. I have a memory watching Bootsy Collins in the rain (or was it Funkadelic who played on the Sunday it says) and being nonplussed by Bob Dylan whining tunelessly. I’d have been excited to see Spiritualized and seems there was a Megadog stage with Underworld, Chemical Bros, Ultramarine etc so we’d have been in there but – the band that made the biggest and most lasting impression on me were these – still love ’em now and saw Euros playing only a few months ago so there you go: