Glastonbury Fayre

Documentary/Various Artists/ Nicolas Roeg SCREENBOUND ENTERTAINMENT GROUP Have you got the skins, man?

While he’d already made Performance (and Walkabout), English film director Nicolas Roeg still felt compelled to investigate the pungent anarchy of colour-saturated surrealism that he found in midsummer 1971 at the second Glastonbury Fayre. His documentary, now restored, is totally nuts. Mud: check. Copulation: check. Hippies, Christians, Krishna: check. As a visual insight into the British underground, it’s priceless, not least because the music is secondary to the Solstice beauty of a Pilton field.

Orchestrated by Arabella Churchill and Andrew Kerr, Roeg’s crew unveil the first Pyramid Stage and a cast of unknown characters frolicking in the corn fields and misbehaving peacefully. There is nothing from David Bowie, of course (though he unveiled some Hunky Dory at dawn), but then Arthur Brown and his burning crosses offer satanic drool. Traffic are the professional element, Melanie is Florence before the Machine. Terry Reid, with Linda Lewis and David Lindley, Family and Gong are festival go-to’s. Guess you had to be there. Fayre play if you were.