Fact #140110
When:
Short story:
Glastonbury Fayre Festival, featuring Hawkwind, Traffic, Melanie, David Bowie, Joan Baez, Edgar Broughton Band, Arthur Brown, Family, Gong, Mighty Baby, Brinsley Schwartz, Quintessence and Fairport Convention, takes place at Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset, England, UK, Europe. Audience : 12,000.Full article:
Feature by Johnny Black
Rescheduled to coincide with the Summer Solstice, the Pilton Pop festival adopts the name Glastonbury Fayre. This event was planned by Andrew Kerr (hippy entrepreneur and former P.A. to Randolph Churchill) and Arabella Churchill (Winston’s grand-daughter) who felt that other festivals were over-commercialised. Entrance was free and the fayre embraced a medieval tradition of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment. A pyramid stage is introduced, located on a site above the Glastonbury-Stonehenge ley line, and built from scaffolding and expanded metal covered with plastic sheeting. The event is filmed and recorded by a crew including Nick Roeg and David Puttnam, and released as an album called Glastonbury Fayre.
Arabella Churchill (festival organiser) : Towards the end of 1978, I joined Andrew Kerr and various friends who were living at Worthy Farm in Somerset. It was a wild time. Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies used to rehearse in the barn and they were terrifying until you got to know them. Really freaky. Michael Eavis owned the farm and had put on a small festival there in 1970, but Andrew had much grander ideas. Michael wasn't living at the farm at the time, so he rented it to Andrew and would come in every day to milk the cows. The co-organisers were Andrew Kerr, Thomas Crimble, Mark and Jytte, Bill Harkin (who designed the stage), and myself.
It was scary. People like Hawkwind who looked terrifying were playing in the wagon shed and kipping on the lawn.
Andrew Kerr (festival organizer) : We're going to concentrate the celestial fire and pump it into the planet to stimulate growth.
If the festival has a specific intention it is to create an increase in the power of the universe, a heightening of consciousness and a recognition of our place in the function of this, our tired and molested planet.
Arabella Churchill : It was a very good line-up in the end, including David Bowie, Fairport Convention and Arthur Brown. The Grateful Dead very nearly came, they were in France, but in the end they couldn't make it. I vaguely remember dancing on stage with Fairport Convention wearing a lovely flowery-patterned kaftan.
The pyramid going up was quite an event. It was made out of scaffolding and absolutely huge. By day it didn't look special, but at night with the film lights on, it looked magical ... like a huge shining diamond.
Michael Eavis (founder of Glastonbury Festival) : There was a lot of LSD around. People were freaking out, wandering into the village wearing nothing but a top hat, that sort of thing. I was all over the place, looking after the villagers and the cattle that were straying.
Arabella Churchill : There was a lot of dope, probably a lot of acid, but nothing like modern drugs. I know there was a lot of acid because this man came up with a large briefcase and said: 'This is full of acid, man. I was going to sell it, but everyone's doing everything for free so here, give it to everybody.' I put it under a bed, and I can't remember what happened to it in the end.
Michael Eavis : Once it was over, I decided I didn’t want anything to do with it again.
Alister Sieghart (Glastonbury resident) : Looking back at the 1971 event, that's where the mystique of the Glastonbury Festival today comes from. You know, acid in the mud, the pyramid, its freedom, the film, all those things. And, in fact, Michael (Eavis) had nothing really to do with that festival. He wasn't even living at the farm then. He just came up each day to milk the cows. I do think he's picked up too much credit for that event, and for the influence it continues to have over the festival. It was much more down to people like Andrew Kerr and Arabella Churchill. Partly it's the media - it's a more interesting angle that a Somerset dairy farmer has put all these events on, rather than the seminal early one being put on by some ex-London hippie dropouts.
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Rescheduled to coincide with the Summer Solstice, the Pilton Pop festival adopts the name Glastonbury Fayre. This event was planned by Andrew Kerr (hippy entrepreneur and former P.A. to Randolph Churchill) and Arabella Churchill (Winston’s grand-daughter) who felt that other festivals were over-commercialised. Entrance was free and the fayre embraced a medieval tradition of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment. A pyramid stage is introduced, located on a site above the Glastonbury-Stonehenge ley line, and built from scaffolding and expanded metal covered with plastic sheeting. The event is filmed and recorded by a crew including Nick Roeg and David Puttnam, and released as an album called Glastonbury Fayre.
Arabella Churchill (festival organiser) : Towards the end of 1978, I joined Andrew Kerr and various friends who were living at Worthy Farm in Somerset. It was a wild time. Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies used to rehearse in the barn and they were terrifying until you got to know them. Really freaky. Michael Eavis owned the farm and had put on a small festival there in 1970, but Andrew had much grander ideas. Michael wasn't living at the farm at the time, so he rented it to Andrew and would come in every day to milk the cows. The co-organisers were Andrew Kerr, Thomas Crimble, Mark and Jytte, Bill Harkin (who designed the stage), and myself.
It was scary. People like Hawkwind who looked terrifying were playing in the wagon shed and kipping on the lawn.
Andrew Kerr (festival organizer) : We're going to concentrate the celestial fire and pump it into the planet to stimulate growth.
If the festival has a specific intention it is to create an increase in the power of the universe, a heightening of consciousness and a recognition of our place in the function of this, our tired and molested planet.
Arabella Churchill : It was a very good line-up in the end, including David Bowie, Fairport Convention and Arthur Brown. The Grateful Dead very nearly came, they were in France, but in the end they couldn't make it. I vaguely remember dancing on stage with Fairport Convention wearing a lovely flowery-patterned kaftan.
The pyramid going up was quite an event. It was made out of scaffolding and absolutely huge. By day it didn't look special, but at night with the film lights on, it looked magical ... like a huge shining diamond.
Michael Eavis (founder of Glastonbury Festival) : There was a lot of LSD around. People were freaking out, wandering into the village wearing nothing but a top hat, that sort of thing. I was all over the place, looking after the villagers and the cattle that were straying.
Arabella Churchill : There was a lot of dope, probably a lot of acid, but nothing like modern drugs. I know there was a lot of acid because this man came up with a large briefcase and said: 'This is full of acid, man. I was going to sell it, but everyone's doing everything for free so here, give it to everybody.' I put it under a bed, and I can't remember what happened to it in the end.
Michael Eavis : Once it was over, I decided I didn’t want anything to do with it again.
Alister Sieghart (Glastonbury resident) : Looking back at the 1971 event, that's where the mystique of the Glastonbury Festival today comes from. You know, acid in the mud, the pyramid, its freedom, the film, all those things. And, in fact, Michael (Eavis) had nothing really to do with that festival. He wasn't even living at the farm then. He just came up each day to milk the cows. I do think he's picked up too much credit for that event, and for the influence it continues to have over the festival. It was much more down to people like Andrew Kerr and Arabella Churchill. Partly it's the media - it's a more interesting angle that a Somerset dairy farmer has put all these events on, rather than the seminal early one being put on by some ex-London hippie dropouts.