Got a few things wrong there. The Spitfires (or Spitfire & Hurricane) buzzed the stage just as they were starting their long-delayed set with 'Raving and Drooling'. I only discovered the name of that song yesterday, nearly 44 years after the event, when I also heard a bootlegged tape of the gig. I remembered the throbbing bass, like whirring engines, and long, slow build-up of this song I'd never heard before, but wrongly thought the fighters roared over at the climax - in fact, the song had barely started; they were still testing the quadraphonic system. I was high up the hill near one of the massive columns of speakers, and the 'planes were at eye level, they were so low. And the model that crashed onto the LHS of the stage at the explosion in 'On The Run' wasn't a 'plane but some sort of rocket; which makes sense, if the giant disc as a backdrop to the stage was supposed to be the moon. Echoes, esp. the whale calls, reverberating around the whole site just after darkness had descended, capped off one of the best days in MY life too. We would have been in the same year group, except you were clearly in private education! I managed to pass my 11+ !
WELL DONE Liam, l was their you explained it SO very VERY well... like you, most of the 100 Thousand people will never forget that day... THANK YOU for bringing back those wonderful memories, SO well...
For me this was the best review of a concert ever! I really appreciate your enthusiasm. I missed a very good concert! Thanks a lot for sharing the memory!
@philmakerz you are right.there were two planes , a spit and a hurricaine, from the later to be founded memorial flight........and they tipped their wings before the spit did it's victiory roll.............I was one of the 100,00 sat almost directly in fron t of the stage and it is even at 60 , unforgetable to this day.the best floyd gig I ever went to.
I was there, we came from Finland to see Pink Floyd. It really was amazing gig and the aftermath with big fires burning inside the area and all the rubbish was fading to the sky with big smoke. There was kind of dystopic feeling while pink Floyds sounds echoed trough the air into the night!
Enjoyed watching this vid and remembering a great gig. I hitched down from Aberdeen stopping off with cousin in Birmingham and arrived the evening before the gig. I seem to remember there were was a marquee that you could sleep in. This was a lineup made in heaven for me as I was a big fan of all of the bands but didn’t know much about Steve Miler at the time. Roy Harper sang ‘Highway Blues’ and dedicated it to all those who got there by the thumb. I remember DSOTM starting with the ground shaking with the ‘pulse’ beat. This also coincided with a drunken couple having a domestic argument. At one point the guy had his hands round the women’s neck - peace and love man. People intervened and he staggered off into the crowd. Roy Harper joined the Floyd to sing ‘Have a Cigar’ (as he does on the album) during the first set. Monty Python also put in a between acts appearance. All in all a great day of music spent in the company of good friends. We slept out after the music ended and the next day I hitch hiked on to Kings Lynn to visit my sister.
I was there with friends fro Art College. Everyone was happy and it was like a big group of your best friends. I recall "Money" being played and the huge screen showing cash registers and mazes. Very prophetic of 2021.
This bloke has very distorted memories of that day. Most of who were there probably did too to be be fair. The acid was amazing in 1975; volcanos; beautiful stuff. Floyd had one or two technical problems but still put on a very memorable show. Lynyrd Skynyrd next year were fantastic too.
I was there with 3 friends in two cars. We didn't have tickets but slept in the cars overnight. In the early hours and answering a call of nature we discovered a van selling tickets so we were sorted. I was 20 years old at the time. Happy days!
That Man was Pete Revell,,who I was chatting to at a gig in Herne bay,Kent,he is now a Personal friend of mine,he told me quite a number of years ago,that was sorting out a problem,as the plane would not have launched !!!
As everyone is describing how they got there I will too I rode my Honda cb 550 which I’d just got and couldn’t remember where I’d parked it but found it eventually Pink Floyd were excellent !
I was there.............my first major gig. The Hare Krishnas, and christian preachers mingled with the crowd spreading a little 60's love. I have many pictures of the day and will have to dig them out to see if the 'model' plane was anything but a futuristic representation and not a spitfire. From my memory the Spitfires or were they Hurricanes started the concert. I must have told the story 200 times :>) Echoes was a fabulous encore and it's a track that still makes me tremble..TY Floyd
Sorry Liam, but Golden Earring did quadraphonic in November 1973 on Hastings Pier. I was there, and positioned myself as close as I could get to the mixing desk in the centre of the ballroom so I could watch the engineer wielding the joystick which swirled the sound around us. I was at this gig at Knebworth too.
I was there...Oh, yes, I was there. I was 18 at the time of the concert. When the 'Wish You Were Here' album came out in September 1975, I had turned 19. But I remember being surprised. Having bought a copy of the album in London (I'd gone to Foyles bookshop for college books) the album version sounded nothing like the concert version. At the concert, Linda Lewis was the crappiest (even crappier than Captain Beafheart), eventually resorting to making silly noises into the microphone.
He must have been sitting very near to me. But he is wrong about the plane burning as it slid down the wire. It crashed into the back of the stage during 'on the run' and apparently exploded. Also the set opened with Raving and Drooling which later became Sheep. The quad did not work too well either. Due to the wind the best place to listen to it's effect would have been in Stevenage. Still a day to remember though.
I was at the show too, and sadly much of the information you relay is incorrect, The opening song was 'Raving & Drooling' which evolved into the track 'Sheep' from the animals album :-) Also, you mention 100000 people attending, They sold 100000 tickets apparently, but there were many more than that, estimates at the time were 250000 or more attendees. You also failed to explain :-) why ther were 4 speaker stacks :-) at the time PF were experimenting with Quadrophonics, and the albus Dark Side and Wish You Were Here were available in Quad cuts, I know this, because I had a quad vinyl player at the time, it was cutting edge, and the sound was exceptional :-) shall I go on, No, I suppose not, there are many other things that could be mentioned, but this post is 12 years old (when writing) so I'm probably wasting my time :-) hahaah have a nice day
No 14 pints of lager, some powdered morpine up the nose, half a dozen spliffs, a crate of wine in the tent about 20/30 cans of bitter and a big big bag of dope which we nicked from the local dealers in a town centre pub in Bury lancashire hare and hounds shut about 30yrs ago. Brilliant days music, then dossed in London for a few days.
Sounds like I wasn’t the only one with a good supply of goodies 15 microdot acid 1 small bottle of May and Baker pharmaceutical cocaine 20 grams of excellent Moroccan hashish from Holland and my friend had a 2 liter bottle of 12 year old scotch those were the days if you can remember them!!
floyd were playing some new stuff. Roy harper stumbled onto the stage! oh oh he's pissed and lost. then he grabs a mike and starts singing. Have a Cigar .
Who was the bloke who kept shouting "Hey Johnny we got some schoolies for ya" at John Peel?. I think the planes flew by too early, but time was warped by the previous 24 hours of smoking various undefined substances so who knows. Twas and will always be one of my fondest memories. We will never see days like that again. But above it all was the peace and the love....
The Floyd had tremendous problems with tuning, that much I remember. NOT there best gig by any stretch of the imagination. Yes the planes overhead were cool, but they flew over either late or early, but not when they were supposed to. Memory fades. Miller was good, but then I was a Miller fan. I was and still am an even bigger Beefheart fan - he was suitably shambolic, and I still remember the opening crunch of Moonlight on Vermont. Introduced by Peel. Nice day out.
I was there but I cant remember much. I was really drunk at the time. oh, yeah, and the opium. I do remember a plane crashing into the stage at the end or was I dreaming?
Well to me Floyd are up there with the Beatles and Dark Side,the best album ever made.I was also there and wouldn't have missed it for the world and I still get a buzz just thinking of it.But I have to say I think you are looking at it thru rose tinted glasses.As I recall wasn't the set split into 2 halves,because they came out far too early and had to go backstage for about 1/2 hour so the light show for the Dark Side bit,could been seen to it's full extent in the darkness.They were more interested in the visual than audible content,which lets be honest was terrible,even by standards of the day.At the time it wasn't greatly received by the press either,or the people going home on our train back to London.Infact an awfull lot of people had left before the end.But after saying all that,would I go backand do it all again,your damm right I would.
