It was the age of the Rock Festival and the coolest were ones. Personally I only attended a few in Hyde Park - notably to see Pink Floyd launch Atom Heart Mother - with Roy Harper's vice on I Hate the White Man reaching out over the trees to the rest of London more effectivly than any band prior to Floyd taking the stage. However this is not about Hyde Park - For issue two of HOBO (the unpublished version) co-editor Bo (John Bargeant) wrote an articel on the second Windsor Free Festival and we had a folded flyer for the 3rd in issue 4 - August 1974. Other articles appeared in Hobo regarding some of the Coventry bands who played the festival. Here is Bo's article -
THE 2ND WINDSOR FREE FESTIVAL
Distant, unbalanced sounds reached me as we walked up the grass slope towards a group of people numbering about 200. As I got nearer, I noticed a samll band in the middle playing through badly distorted gear. It was only just a
basic beat but it was entertainment and the start of the 2nd Windsor Free Festival.
At mid day this great park had looked empty by by mid afternoon the people had started to stream in and gorup vans were parking along the side of the road. At the other end of the site, the group VOID had set up on some planks and had started to play to 2 or 3 hundred people. Back at the other end of the site where the main stage was going to be, lurked a beared guy rushing to and fro with speaker leads in his hand. He looked like a roadie but was in fact ANDY DUNKLEY (the DJ) setting up bass bins and speakers to get his records on and to send out messages to the crowd. Meanwhile, behind Andy, a collection of road weary hired trucks and transits were parking and then, what was this...?
Yes .. Hawkwind had arrived. As I went up to say hello to Steve (the roadie with Hawkwind) and asked how everybody was and have a general natter about things since we were last together, it looked to us like it was going to be another Windsor Festival without a proper stage and to us roadies this means extra work!
Well I don't suppose you really want to know roadies talk so I will get on with it. After one big incident of the festival when a guy got busted and thrown in a police transit and about 3000 people rushed to the spot where the transit was to stop them taking him away while the transit drove over a guy who was in front of it. The festival then went back to it's normal peaceful self. Hawkwind played a nice set, late Saturday afternoon, which everybody enjoyed.
well if I told you about the festival in detail it would take up all this mag, so to cut things short the music was good; the whole festival was good as it was free. Thanks to Hawkwind; Pink Fairies; Andy Dunkley and Coventry's FISSION and all the roadies that worked day and night to keep the music going and everybody else involved.
Bo (John Bargent) Original Hobo co-editor.
OTHER REPORTS OF THE FESTIVAL IN HOBO.
2nd Report of the 2rd Windsor Free Festival in Hobo No 2 (Published version) - August 1973
Starts Saturday 25th August 1973 in Windsor Great Park, London, and is expected to last over a week with well over a hundred groups as well as poets / street theatre / solo singers and everything a far fetched imagination can think of (including free food and beer).
Some of themore well known groups appearing are -
Hawkwind, Pink Fairies, Skin Alley, Third Ear Band, Longdancer, String Driven Thing, Kraan (German group),
Coventry bands possibly appearing - Trilogy (featuring Al Hatton (Ex Indian Summer and Runestaff), Ron Ablewhite (Ex Torqwood), Roy Brewster (prercussion); Just Jake (feturing John Alderson and Martin Barter); A Band Called George; Fission; Trev Teasdel and Don't Talk Wet! (I don't think I actually played) but Bo was promoting me around then so added me to the list - he seemed to be involved somehow.
Further information was available from Bo and he wanted to know if anyone could supply any generators for the festival.
In issue 4 of Hobo (the unpublished version) early 1974, Bo wrote a short piece for Hobo on the forthcoming 3rd Windsor Festival asking if anyone would like to play the 3rd Windsor Festival Aug 1974. They were looking for bands, singers, theatre groups, poets etc. Bo, who was involved in organising some of the music, said there would be no payment but participants would get great publicity. He appealed for help with generators, food, stamps, envelopes. Last year he says there were 20,000, this year they expected 100,000.
In the publsihed version of Issue 4 of Hobo, Bo says the festival was to last 9 days.
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