The Bickershaw Festival 1972

UK Nationwide was a TV show and here we see them reporting on this historical music event.

Restored to HQ visual and audio.

In the UK the Bickershaw Festival took place between May 5th until May 7th in 1972 and was assembled under the auspices of a Manchester businessmen, a Wigan market trader and we see a very young Jeremy Beadle, before he achieved fame as a television presenter in the 1980's until his death in January 2008.

Jeremy booked West Coast bands and was the artistic policy maker. Chris Hewitt of Ozit Morpheus Records and manager of Tractor, worked with Jeremy and was involved in distribution of publicity and tickets. Although the organizers put together a line-up of United Kingdom and American acts such as the Grateful Dead, Captain Beefheart, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Dr. John, Hawkwind, The Kinks, Country Joe McDonald, The Incredible String Band, Donovan, Wishbone Ash, Maynard Ferguson, and a host of non-musical acts such as Cheech & Chong, high divers and clowns, the festival suffered from several major deficiencies.

The artist line-up was inspirational to many especially the late-night set from Captain Beefheart. Elvis Costello stood in the mud amazed by the five-hour set from the Grateful Dead, the performance which convinced him he should start a band. Future rock journalist and rock biographer Mick Middles, then age 16, traveled there on a moped just to watch the Grateful Dead on the Sunday.

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There were problems. The site was prone to flooding and there was standing water. The weather was wet: It rained before the festival opened and then showered for most of the three days of the festival. A tank used by a high-dive act was emptied directly onto the area in front of the stage, resulting in a sea of mud.

Security on the gates was inefficient. Tickets were taken and resold to those who were entering the site or were not checked. Festival goers simply got pass-outs and sold their ticket at half price to people arriving. As a consequence the organizers lost money. By Sunday, all semblance of organization had disappeared and locals wandered freely onto the site to watch the Grateful Dead. By this time much of the site was awash with mud.

Nevertheless the event has gone down in music history for being very unique in so many ways. This is rare footage from a TV news programme at that time called 'Nationwide' as it looked North.

This Greg GNP channel has worked hard in enhancing video quality and audio quality from this original rare footage. The audio was seriously enhanced after many hours of work and overlaid on the video footage you see.

Enjoy :)