Forty-three years ago today was a Saturday, I had the weekend off from work. At the time I worked for Plessey Telecommunications as a wireman. This weekend was special, my girlfriend Eileen was away on holiday with her parents, and I had a ticket for the Tupholme Folk Festival in Bardney near Lincoln. The ticket for the one day festival cost £2-00p., what a price. Go to a concert today, I am next month, a minor act, and the tickets were on sale for EUR 38,50 that's £30 for a two hour concert. The times they are a changing!
In Bardney that day 43 years ago the sun was shining, the atmosphere was peaceful and calm and the music phenomenal. There were three highlights which I remember: Buffy St. Marie, a Cree Indian she sang so beautifully; if my memory serves me right she had a very husky voice and her songs were stories. Listen to the song Soldier Blue
The next highlight was the late coming group The Byrds. They started with an acoustic song (the whole festival was under the motto acoustic folk music); after that as an intro, they said something like "And this is what you wanted to hear" and exchanged their acoustic instruments for electric. The crowd went wild but the abided by the motto and went back to playing unplugged.
Most amazing was the performance of James Taylor. He was so cool and sang the crowd nearly into sleep; I've never seen so many people laid-back singing along with the songs. It was indescribable!
One more thing, if anyone who is reading was at the festival: Do you remember the Meeting Tree? I don't know why, but when I think of the festival the big oak tree at the end of the field always comes to my mind. Wasn't that a great festival? It was the best I have ever been to.
Today I posted this story on my Blog:
http://my-daily-banana.blogspot.de/