Glastonbury Fayre
And not a cloud in the sky.
Amanda Uren
June 1971
The year before these pictures were taken, there was no Glastonbury Festival. The one-day event held in September 1970 at Michael Eavis' Worthy Farm was billed as the Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival.That year 1,500 people showed up to the Pilton Festival, and benefited from the free milk included in the £1 ticket price. The Festival was Michael's attempt to repay his overdraft — he had to pay the headliners, Marc Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex, in installments.By 1971, Eavis had been introduced to Glastonbury cofounders Andrew Kerr and Arabella Churchill, granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill. Concerned other music festivals had become overly commercial, Kerr and Churchill with Eavis and others organised a 1971 festival that valued ecological awareness and mysticism. The now-iconic pyramid stage was a one-tenth incarnation of the Great Pyramid at Giza. The stage sat over a blind spring, located using dowsing, on the Glastonbury-Stonehenge ley-line. The intention was that this point would tap into the Earth's natural energies. Not limiting itself to potential terrestrial attendees, the site also featured a UFO landing area.This time, entry was free, with the whole event paid for by supporters of its mission. Unsurprisingly, attendance shot up from the previous year, to around 12,000. That crowd could see acts including Traffic, Fairport Convention, Joan Baez, Hawkwind and, at the bottom of the bill, one David Bowie.And that was the end of Glastonbury Fayre — until 1978, when a convoy of vehicles leaving Stonehenge were directed to Worthy Farm by the police, resulting in a spontaneous rave. Glastonbury was back.
All slightly off their heads, that lot, compared to me. Very excited, very excitable as well. Slightly high - as kites. - MICHAEL EAVIS ON HIS 1971 CO-ORGANISERS
Man is fast ruining his environment. He is suffering from the effects of pollution; from the neurosis brought about by a basically urban industrial society: from the lack of spirituality in his life. The aims are, therefore: the conservation of our natural resources; a respect for nature and life; and a spiritual awakening. - GLASTONBURY FAYRE LEAFLET, 1971
Things got so delayed that I didn't make it on until around 5am. The intervening hours were spent in the farmhouse with a crew of latter-day hippies and all kinds of mushrooms. By the time I was due to perform I was flying and could hardly see my electric guitar. - David Bowie, 2005
