Following a smaller edition on June 28, 1969 within the city of Bath, U.K., featuring Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin, among others, the organizers held The Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music at the Royal Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England on June 27-29, 1970, where Pink Floyd, Santana, and others appeared, along with the returning Led Zeppelin.
The 1970 counterculture era music festival started at midday on Saturday, June 27 and finished at about 6:30 a.m. on Monday morning. A DJ played records for early arrivers from the Friday evening and continued to do so between many of the sets until the end. The festival featured a line-up of the top British and west coast American bands of the day, that also included Hot Tuna, Country Joe McDonald, Colosseum, the Byrds (acoustic set), Dr. John (acoustic set), Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, Canned Heat, It’s a Beautiful Day, Steppenwolf, Johnny Winter, John Mayall with Peter Green, Fairport Convention, Keef Hartley, and others.
Watch Led Zeppelin perform “Dazed and Confused” and “Bring It On Home” on June 28
Though the line-up approached the level of the more famous Isle of Wight Festival held in August of the same year, it attracted less press coverage at the time and has generally received less attention in the years since.
A 3-CD boxed set to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the festival has been issued.
Watch Pink Floyd perform “Atom Heart Mother”
Both editions of the Bath Festival were the brainchild of promoter Freddy Bannister and his wife Wendy. The 1970 show attracted a significantly larger crowd, estimated at 150,000, than the 1969 debut, which created some serious on-ground difficulties. The logistics proved to be too vast for the Bannisters’ small team to adequately cope with, and the security staff stole large amounts of gate receipts, resulting in a far smaller profit than expected.
Watch some more (silent) footage from the 1970 festival
Getting to the festival became a problem for many fans. The country roads were blocked by cars, and many of the bands’ equipment trucks could not get to the site. On Sunday morning, Donovan walked onto the empty stage to address the bored crowd who were drying out from the overnight rain.
The audience wasn’t there to see a folk singer, and he engaged in a bit of small talk, stalling for time. When he reportedly played “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” it apparently raised the crowd’s enthusiasm and he continued with some of his classics like “Mellow Yellow’ and “Sunshine Superman.” Donovan’s impromptu performance and stall tactics eventually helped to fill several hours.
Related: We talked with Donovan about many of his hits
The festival was seriously behind schedule and many of the bands ultimately performed to smaller crowds in the early hours of Monday morning. Not unlike Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock a year earlier, the last act, Dr. John, hit the stage at dawn.
A limited edition box set contains three CDs featuring restored recordings from both festivals, a numbered certificate signed by Wendy Bannister, 1969 and 1970 program reproductions, tickets for both festivals. reproduction posters for both festivals, and a 16-page anniversary book with text written by Freddie Bannister, along with photos.
Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music ’69-70 50th Anniversary Box Set Tracklist
DISC 1
1. Ten Years After – I Woke Up This Morning 2. Ten Years After – Good Morning Little Schoolgirl 3. Blodwyn Pig – Ain’t Ya Comin’ Home 4. Blodwyn Pig – Cats Squirrel 5. Taste – Same Old Story 6. Colosseum – Walking in the Park 7. Fleetwood Mac – Blues Jam 8. Fleetwood Mac – So Many Natural Ways 9. Fleetwood Mac – Red Hot Mama 10. The Nice – Karelia Suite 11. The Nice – She Belongs To Me
DISC 2
1. Donovan – Mellow Yellow 2. Steppenwolf – Sookie Sookie 3. Steppenwolf – Born To Be Wild 4. Johnny Winter – Guess I’ll Go Away 5. Johnny Winter – Johnny B Goode 6. Johnny Winter – Have You Ever Been Mistreated 7. The Byrds – Rock n Roll Star 8. The Byrds – Bugler 9. The Byrds – Black Mountain Rag 10. The Byrds – Mr Tambourine Man 11. The Byrds – Antique Sandy 12. The Byrds – You Ain’t Going Nowhere 13. The Byrds – Baby Do You Want Me to Do
DISC 3
1. John Mayall – It Might As Well Be Raining 2. John Mayall – Crazy Woman 3. Canned Heat – Reefer Blues 4. Canned Heat – Something’s Gotta Go 5. Frank Zappa – Mom And Dad 6. Country Joe – Silver and Gold 7. Country Joe – Martha Lorraine 8. Country Joe – Fixing to Die Rag 9. Santana – Black Magic Woman 10. Santana – Incident at Neshabur 11. It’s A Beautiful Day – White Bird
Watch some silent footage from the festival of a Robert Plant lookalike
3 Comments
The Amazon reviews all say these are extremely bad quality recordings.
I feel I have to give fair warning to anyone considering this set. Liked the artists/tracks and so I ordered (and received) it directly from the festival’s producers many months ago, as that’s how it was originally offered. Wish I hadn’t: the sound quality is so horrible throughout as to be barely listenable. It’s not a soundboard recording, okay, but neither is it anywhere near a decent audience recording where you make some allowances for its historic performances. It is flat-out painfully unlistenable, every track. Played the whole thing through and tossed it, which I can’t recall ever doing, certainly not with a set this expensive. Unless the posters and pictures do it for you, you’re not gonna be very happy, sorry to say.
TheAudio from those LedZep@Bath Vids
is theAudio from AlbertHall /ijs