Our 28th meet and great to see Simon Halsey from Hastings Rock, joining some of their other dj’s present. Another successful year on 87.7 and congratulations to all involved, especially to Sarah Harvey and Tony Davis for some great memories on the Hastings Retro Rock Show. Barry Taylor talked about the next Bare Faced Blues Fest which is moving to a new venue for its 3rd year (in aid of St Michaels Hospice). It will take place at Bexhill Rowing Club, (near The De La Warr Pavilion) on the 14th August 2016 and 9th October 2016. Admission only £5.00 with 4 acts of each bill. More details soon. Loads of pier talk, the Great success of Madness, The Ballroom Allstar DJ’s and that mysterious hand and suggestion for the future. A number of people popped over to the pier to check out Phil Gill’s wonderful Musical Starlings in The Deck memories rooms. Cliff Wootton turned up with his laptop and had an amazing video of ‘Butch’ from St Helens Church Hall and ‘Hat Trick’ which was taken from an old movie film and also featured Tony Qunta. Hopefully this will be available to view in the near future. Great to see Pete Prescott with more bags of records, full of memories, including photos from The Great Western Festival Lincoln 1972 featuring Hamish Imlach and The Charltan Festival 1974 with Humble Pie. Roger Carey has been delving in his archives and turned up with some rare Felix cuttings from 1975, Delta Wing playlist, Ore Group Festival 1976 poster, Ritz poster from Ore Centre in 1978, Mosaic & Pueblo and Friends poster from The Zodiac Club and a Rumours Club leaflet. Other chat was about Steve Maxted, The Fabulous 6Ts, Scalliwags, Factory, Jazz Fest event at The Stade on the 5th June featuring Tony O’Malley from Kokomo and Gary Numan coming to Bexhill. Also another local band planning a reunion gig, watch this space! This is just a small bit of what I was in conversation with, if you wish to add anything interesting I missed then please do so.
Mick O’Dowd… Another goodie Alan.
Pete Prescott… Great meeting !
Jo Turner… The Ore Festival 1976. Wonderful hot summer memories. Bare feet and cool local bands. One of the happiest memories of my life.
Merv Kennard…. just a line to say sorry that Cris and i could not make it at the last minute. I was looking forward to meeting up with Pete Prescott as I have not seen him for a few years,we worked for the same company 25 years ago.
Alan Esdaile… Sorry Merv that you and Cris were unable to make it this time. Pete is a regular at the meets as long as he’s not working and hopefully you will catch up in the future.
Pete Prescott… This a photo from the great Western festival at Lincoln. Hamish Imlach is on stage. I took this photo 44 years ago (I think it was on the Saturday afternoon)
I couldn’t move from inside the enclosure (there was a gap in the fences in the photo ) some of us got inside.i saw among others nazerath wishbone ash stone the crow’s the faces Rory Gallagher.i was 15, it was a big deal for me. Some guy sold wax refuse bags from the back of a lorry. Many of us had them as it was raining. I crawled inside it (it was like a long sock )I then punched a hole in it and watched the bands. It must have looked strange from the stage. Thousands of muffled claps from inside brown wax bags !Just before The Faces came on John Peel played Voodoo Chile we all emerged from our bags and danced.
At the end of the show I walked through the chaos of the festival to my brother Stephens car. There was a huge area of foam. People we’re running through it. Making little tunnels. Mad. There was a lot of hippies standing round a guy who was laying on the ground. He looked dead. When i saw apocalypse now some scenes reminded me of it. When i got to the car I couldn’t get in as he and his friends were asleep in it so after eating some bread and jam I crawled into the little tent by the car. I awoke curled around a huge puddle that had spread into most of the tent. My first and second fingers were stuck together with jam (no knife)
The girls who came with Steve and his friend hated it so we had to leave. I missed Joe Cocker Genesis and Humble Pie and Don McLean (American pie and Vincent were no 1’s around then) but I was grateful to see what I did. What a weekend ! I’ll never forget it. I couldn’t believe Steve took me. He was killed two weeks later.
photo Pete Prescott
Sarah Harvey… Having just organised the Hastings Rock Fest 2016 Jo, you take me back exactly 40 years when I organised the Ore Group a Festival in 1976. Old habits die hard 🙂