PHUN PHUN PHUN

If you only attended five Free Festivals…

Windsor Free Festival,

1972-74

The Windsor Free

Festival was expressly located to stick two fingers up at the establishment.

Organised by the

London commune, in particular Ubi Dwyer and Sid Rawle, the first iteration in 1972 was intended nominally as a Rent Strike protest against landlords.

Featuring Hawkwind,

Ducks Deluxe, Ace,

Camel and the Global

Village Trucking

Company over its short existence, 1974 saw the police get involved, demonstrating such a heavy-handed approach that the government backed off from similar gatherings for a while.

Watchfield Free Festival, 1975 Encouraged to shift sites away from the royals, Watchfield replaced the Windsor Free Festival. With Bill Dwyer and Sid Rawle in prison, the hippies decamped to an airfield in Oxfordshire. But there was still a hint of residual tension between the campers and the police due to what had occurred the year before; the presence of the Hell’s Angels did not help matters either. Notably, Watchfield marked the rise of the new guard. Stalwarts Hawkwind, Traffic and Gong featured but so did Joe Strummer’s early band The 101ers.

Stonehenge Free Festival, 1974-1984 This picked up the baton from Windsor and came to be the free festival operating for a decade from 1974. Taking place around the summer solstice, during its 10 years Stonehenge featured (among hundreds of artists) Hawkwind, Dexys Midnight Runners, Killing Joke and Roy Harper and came to be seen as a celebration of alternative culture – the Peace Convoy were resident there. Sadly, it all came to a crushing end in 1985 with the Battle Of

The Beanfield, which not only marked the end of the Stonehenge Free Festival, but the end of the movement generally thanks to the Public Order Act of 1986.

Deeply Vale Free Festival, 1976-1979 Held in Bury in the Northwest, Deeply Vale was partly inspired by none other than Jeremy Beadle and the Bickershaw festival. Beginning as a small affair in 1976, Deeply Vale had grown into to a six-day extravaganza just three years later. Hosting a mix of the old and new – Steve Hillage, The Fall, Durutti Column – Deeply Vale was the festival equivalent of the Pistols’ Manchester Free Trade gig, with budding musicians Andy Rourke of The Smiths, Ian Brown of The Stone Roses and David Gedge of The Wedding Present all in attendance.

Rivington Pike Free Festival, 1976-1978 For its first incarnation, Rivington Pike was advertised as the Northern Country Fair, its location the site of fairs since time immemorial – a folly and Chinese garden built there in the late 19th century. Featuring John Peel-signed Tractor, Body and space-rockers Here And Now, the Hell’s Angels made a brief appearance in 1977 until they were ejected for waving a shotgun around. Rivington Pike was wellrun, but as a natural location for a festival it was less successful, failing to lend itself to the barrage of camping hippies and punks.