I Was There
A reader’s recollection of a key music event
This month:
Eric Clapton & His Band, Garden Party IX, London Crystal Palace Concert Bowl, Saturday 31
July 1976.
Back in the summer of ’76, I paid the princely sum of £4 for a one-day event at the open-air ninth Garden Party, Crystal Palace Bowl, to see (mainly) RSO and Island recording artists support the return of guitarist Eric Clapton.
It was the second date on his first full UK tour after almost a six-year absence, aside from his ’73 Rainbow comeback and ’74 Hammersmith shows in the capital, promoting his latest studio album, No Reason To Cry. Expectations were high.
I’d travelled down, thanks to the taxi of dad, with two fellow sixth-formers, dropped off at
High Barnet, continuing by tube and bus, arriving as the gates opened at 10:30am to run and secure our patch of grass, stage-left by the edge of the lake. Pennie Smith, the legendary NME photographer, sat next to us, snapping away all afternoon and generously sharing her packet of biscuits.
A great line-up followed: Dick & The Firemen, Jess Roden, Barbara Dickson, and The Chieftains, before the hulk of Freddie King boogied and funked us towards a 6:30pm welcome to EC
& His Band.
By now, numerous revellers sought a closer view of their idol and had waded waist-deep into the murky lake, and were now literally hanging onto the stage at his feet. A worried promoter, Harvey Goldsmith, had to calm things down over the mike and threatened to stop the proceedings, if common sense didn’t prevail (as water and electricity don’t really mix).
EC got through it, though, with some new acoustic starters, dressed casually in denim jacket, jeans, and sporting that now infamous
I’m With Stupid T-shirt. His (just over an hour and 15-minute) set riffed though old favourites and bluesy medleys. At one point, Larry Coryell, Ronnie Wood and Freddie King were trading licks with our host. Great fun.
And then it was all over.
Afterwards, we wandered and mingled at the rear of the stage and saw Freddie King getting into his stretch limo with two of the foxiest ladies these 17-year-olds had ever seen.
Of course, four dates into this tour, EC got it completely wrong and had to apologise for his controversial political speech in Birmingham. But on the day we saw him, he was spot-on!
Simon Mullins