What I did when I was younger and stupider

Aged 18 in 1975, the remnants of my school band, laughably called After the Shallows, played a festival in Oxfordshire called Watchfield which is near the famous White Horse carved out of a chalk hill about 3000 years ago (bronze age) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse. Top of the bill were Gong and Hawkwind. Then it was all gone the next year and punk reigned. Some sad hippie (not me incidentally) has a whole site about it! Enjoy. http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/watchfieldfestival-menu.html

ftlpope

Check it later...got some work going.

DACE>

ftlpope wrote:Aged 18 in 1975, the remnants of my school band, laughably called After the Shallows, played a festival in Oxfordshire called Watchfield which is near the famous White Horse carved out of a chalk hill about 3000 years ago (bronze age) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse. Top of the bill were Gong and Hawkwind. Then it was all gone the next year and punk reigned. Some sad hippie (not me incidentally) has a whole site about it! Enjoy. http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/watchfieldfestival-menu.html

ftlpope

Cool. Hawkwind is one of my favorite bands.

That would have been quite a thing to be involved in. Interesting pictures and details.

Thanks for posting!

Z

i love the horse on the hill...i'll have to read more about that!!

ftlpope wrote:Aged 18 in 1975, the remnants of my school band, laughably called After the Shallows, played a festival in Oxfordshire called Watchfield which is near the famous White Horse carved out of a chalk hill about 3000 years ago (bronze age) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse. Top of the bill were Gong and Hawkwind. Then it was all gone the next year and punk reigned. Some sad hippie (not me incidentally) has a whole site about it! Enjoy. http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/watchfieldfestival-menu.html

ftlpope

I know you where younger and no doubt are wiser now. However, doing a gig with Gong and Hawkwind is not a dumb thing by any stretch. It's most impressive, indeed. Yes, the punk scene pretty much took over at that time. My style of bands actually started disappearing with the big hair bands which begat arena rock and so forth. In my day, we dressed like slobs, played with our backs to the audience and were pretty much a lot of stoned hippies tripping out on our own groove. In other words, the good old days..... Loved the blessing of the hippie sinners shot BTW.

Ahh, Watchfield, still talked about by us old Hawkfans as one of the classics!! Wish I could have been there.
It was in early 1975 that I went to my first Hawkwind gig (Paignton Festival theater, Devon) Been going to see them every chance I get.
I've met Nic Turner and all the other original members of the band (but not Dave Brock yet and he only lives 40 miles up the road from me!!)

Trouble was we shot in, played and left (my band wanted to sound like Genesis but with 2 Mellotrons and I wanted to be a A Wizard a True Star at that time) - I saw Hawkwind at Oxford Poly before this and never really got it but then I never really got Gong at the time either. However, 36 years later I like Gong very much. My parents took me to the white horse many times and I need to go back again soon for some spiritual top up. It is one of the most fantastic abstract designs you will ever see but like all of these ancient things designed to be seen from above or at a distance, how did they map it out 3000 years ago?

So what did you all do?

ftlpope