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ROY HARPER AT GLASTONBURY
JUNE 1990
Following an uneventful journey through driving rain we arrived
and set up camp, between showers, by 3pm on the Thursday. Our view through the
tent flaps was of the Tor itself and 200 yards to our right was the Acoustic
tent. We spent the rest of that day adjusting to life in the Vale of and absorbing
the vibes of this planetary acupuncture point, along with about 70,000 other
punters.
On Saturday morning we discovered that Darren Crisp camped a stone’s throw
away from us (having spent a couple of pleasant hours quaffing bitter from the
Workers’ Beer Tent –‘Swiggers with attitude’ –
and chewing the fat/cud with him the day before). Darren told us that Roy was
about to do a soundcheck, so we made our way over to the Acoustic tent and settled
down to see what would unfold. Some of the crew were adjusting lights from the
top of ladders precariously balanced on the king pins (massive tent poles) and
Jacqui was sliding short sections of scaffold pole under the stage monitors
to tilt them forward to accommodate Roy’s sitting position. Roy appeared,
sporting a splendid batik shirt and an equally vibrant embroidered/mirrored
baseball cap. He seemed a little out-of-sorts (well, it was only 11.45am) and
there were a lot of difficulties with the soundcheck. To start with they had
to use some of the existing equipment on the mixing desk platform – rather
than their own more familiar ‘toys’, which could have been set up
in advance. Jacqui had to mountaineer up the platform’s scaffolding to
reach the desk, which effectively cut her off from being able to get back on
stage to help Roy with that end of things.
A couple of the twenty, or so, channels were misbehaving and the first band
of the day (Hoedown at Hanks, due on at 12) were starting to get a bit hot under
the collar behind the curtains. Some members of the audience thought Roy was
the first act and started to heckle. Roy finally threatened to go home altogether
if they couldn’t get it right, which almost instantly (as if by magic)
conjured an on-site sound engineer out of the woodwork to assist and they got
it sorted. Roy played a few tantalising chords and, much to our relief, seemed
satisfied and retired backstage to recover.
Meanwhile, by about 1pm, we got ourselves on to the much-sought after elevated
benches and steadily played musical chairs during the course of the afternoon
until we’d made it to the top (best view and most comfortable, having
built-in back support) by about 4pm. The day-long vigil to retain our seats
was no great hardship –other than numb bums – and we saw some great
new music, such as Steve Tilston, Kathryn Tickell, Blowzabella and Andy White.
We also met some kilt-clad dayglo-barnetted loons from the ‘Psychoskittle’
crew; a friendly cider-swigging bunch on a break from a giant skittle board
with an immense wooden ‘demolition’ ball that was swung around to
knock the human skittles over.
Roy was due on stage about 10.30pm but it was gone 11 by the time Matt Fox (of
The Barley Works) came on to announce him. Jacqui was balanced precariously
on the front of the mixing desk platform, still changing plugs. Matt started
trying to persuade people to stop climbing up the back of the seating platforms
just behind us: they knew Roy was about to come on and wanted a better look,
but the seating was in danger of collapsing.
The tent was stuffed to overflowing and the stewards were trying in vain to
stop any more people from entering – not an easy task. So with a capacity
crowd (about 700) and a couple of thousand more sitting outside on the hill
below the tent. Roy finally came on to tremendous applause. He opened with ‘Once’
and was well into it when there was a loud splintering sound just to our left:
the tent pole supporting the seating had cracked. Suddenly people were flinging
themselves off the back of the benches like lemmings, and a wave of panic spread
to the crowd outside.
We had to make a decision!
We figured that if we died watching Harper then we’d die happy, so we
stayed put. As luck would have it the tent pole stood up under the strain and
people gradually returned to their seats.
Roy continued playing, unaware of the drama at the back, but at the end of ‘Once’
he announced his dissatisfaction (still) with the sound quality. More hurried
adjustments were made while Roy berated the Environmental Health Officer (who
was in the area and had decreed that all music must end by 12.30, despite the
scheduled close-down time of 2am).
After ‘Garden of Uranium’ and ‘Naked Flame’, with hardly
a pause for breath let alone any chat, he played the (now familiar) trio of
‘White Man’, ‘Black Cloud of Islam’ and ‘Man to
Man’ to great effect. Berliners followed and the words ‘brothers
and sisters’ seemed particularly relevant here at Glastonbury. He was
trying to pack in as many songs as possible in the limited time available and
had to abstain from the usual between song banter. That may have made the audience
a bit edgy, as the chat gives them some breathing space between songs, like
a palate cleanser. He followed that with ‘Cricketer’ and a faultless
‘Me and My Woman.’
The show had to come to an untimely close, so Roy played an extremely emotive
‘Hangman’, challenging his energy into an explosive finale. The
prematurely drawn curtains billowed angrily like some hellish spinnaker, cutting
off Roy’s opportunity to thank the overflowing enthusiasm of a universally
appreciated audience. Matt had the onerous task of confirming the Environmental
Health Officer’s renewed threat of stopping the entire festival if the
show went past 12.30 but, he said, at least the bar would stay open for another
hour or so. Not much consolation for a prematurely silenced Harper, but that
was definitely all we were going to get that night.
As we shuffled out of the tent – glowing with that post-Harper feeling
of having had your hand on an emotionally charged Van de Graff generator –
one chap was complaining about not having heard ‘Back to the Stones’.
Had time (and uncharitable authoritarians) permitted we thought he might well
have done. Given the adverse conditions Roy performed brilliantly and chose
the set well. Deciding which songs to perform must be a bit like being a rabbit
in a carrot field. It made us realise just how much Roy and Jacqui have spoilt
us at all the other gigs we’ve been to. Anyway, we made it back to the
tent at dawn and got a mumbled response from Darren’s tent when we wished
him goodnight.
The following night John Otway got the same curfew treatment from the ‘powers
that be’ at 12.30, so we went on a last wander around the festival site.
At about 2am, down by the Yellow market, trundling across the plasticine mud
covering Yeoman’s bridge, we spotted Roy and Jacqui on their way back
down from the Green Field (baseball cap reinstalled). Roy gave us a wide grin,
so we guessed he’d got back into the festival vibe again.
Suddenly ‘It’s tomorrow and today is yesterday’ and we headed
for the hills. We arrived back home on Monday afternoon and snipped off our
plastic wrist-tags, ceremoniously releasing ourselves from freedom for another
year.
Dave and Sue Burnham
June 1990
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