The excuse for this post is the Knebworth festival of 1978 featuring Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, The Tubes, The Boomtown Rats, Wilko Johnson's Solid Senders and Rockpile.

ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL REMAINS THE COPYRIGHT OF THE ORIGINAL HOLDER AND IS USED HERE FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION, COMPARISON, AND CRITICISM ONLY.
NO INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT IS INTENDED!

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/Kneb-fest-recording-9-9-78.html

Went to this with some friends from Devizes, Wiltshire including Ian Hopkins who, many years later, did a stint as mayor of said town and brought back live music to the Devizes Corn Exchange.This venue was famous in the seventies for putting on some big gigs:
'Yes (pre-and post- Rick Wakeman), Rory Gallagher (who played for the best part of three hours!), King Crimson, Thin Lizzy, Osibisa, Rod Stewart and The Faces, Chicken Shack, Ashton Gardner and Dyke, Nektar, Hawkwind, Juicy Lucy, Cochise, Man, Curved Air, the Groundhogs, the Edgar Broughton Band and the Pink Fairies.'

Not bad for a town of 10,000. Unfortunately all of these gigs were a few years before my time (I arrived in 1977).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2009/02/23/devizes_corn_exchange_gigs_1970s_feature.shtml

The presence of these bands was mainly due to Mel 'the man who hired the world' Bush, the local promoter. Bush went on to promote, amongst others, Bowie, Queen, The Osmonds, Phil Collins, Elton John, Bad Company, A-ha, The Jam, Paul McCartney & Wings, Wham, Slade, Status Quo, and, at Wembley - The Band, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills Nash & Young...

Devizes... A small market town probably most famous for its brewery, Wadworth, and its 6X bitter. Ideally situated for lovers of the ancient...Not far to Stonehenge, the Avebury stones, Silbury Hill, a white horse or two. My first ever job was at the brewery. I was assigned to the barrel washing bit, which was in the open yard close to where the lorries and shire horses would drop off their empty barrels. To this day the brewery still uses shire horses to deliver beer (one of only four breweries which do so nationwide) within a 5 mile radius. It also still employs a cooper to make & repair the mostly wooden barrels used. On my first day a barrel fell on to my left hand and crushed the top of a middle finger. I was at A&E for most of the morning and back at work that afternoon, in agony! Accident Report Form? Forget it! It was a strange introduction to employment. It was like working, I imagine, in Victorian times. The barrel washing machine was a Heath Robinsonesque contraption with lots of hissing,squirting water.The barrels went on an ancient conveyor belt, and they would constantly fall off. Tap & spile! My job was to take a barrel, either wooden or metal keg, from a large stack, and, with a hammer & chisel, remove the wooden bungs from the end of the barrel (where the tap would go) and  from the side of the barrel, then shove or roll the barrels to the man at the machine. Cold, wet, and very messy. But good holiday money, a free party six can of 6X every week, and overtime on Sunday mornings, at the end of which you'd be allowed into the underground bar to sample a few...
Having led an itinerant life and arriving in Devizes at the age of seventeen, I was keen to find new friends. I befriended the aforementioned Ian at the brewery (he also had a holiday job there) and that led me to the strange back room of the Elm Tavern, where every holiday-night a small gathering of young locals, students and slightly older hippies would shoot the breeze and drink copious amounts of 6X (or the potent winter brew Old Timer), before choosing other hostelries to move on to. I was a brief addition to this friendly, motley lot, enjoying the vicarious feeling of actually coming from somewhere but knowing that the lack of roots would always make me an outsider. That feeling of removal, of estrangement, of not really belonging that I've always had. We weren't spoilt for choice - there were twenty-eight pubs in Devizes, almost all owned by Wadworth. Not bad for a small market town. I remember The famous Bear Hotel (bit upmarket that one) in the market place, and the Lamb with its 'shooting tubes', one of the few remaining in Wiltshire. The pub still has teams for this bizarre game which involves shooting down, er, tubes...
I guess that it's this feeling of being on the outside which attracted me to alternatives, whether that be with music, politics, literature, whatever. I was timed perfectly for the burgeoning punk rock movement  - seventeen in 1977.
'Danger stranger
You better paint your face
No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones in 1977'.
(The Clash - 1977).
Out with the old. Out with the bloated dinosaurs of rock. In with DIY rock, attitude, independent record labels, fanzines, ideas, excitement. Like any musical 'movement', you sometimes had to search through the dross to find the nuggets, but nuggets there were aplenty, and the music industry was shaken up and revitalised. Indie labels such as Stiff, Fast, Factory, Rough Trade, Chiswick, 4AD, Step Forward and, later, Two-tone produced some great music encompassing punk, rock, funk, electronic, folk, ska etc etc. 7" singles, picture-sleeved, made a comeback, and I'd buy a couple every week. Devizes was, for a couple of years, a base from which to venture out to Bath (Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett, Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers...All at the Bath Pavilion); Bristol (The Ramones, The Boomtown Rats, Iggy Pop supported by The Adverts, The Clash supported by Suicide & the Coventry Specials A.K.A... At The Locarno or Bristol Colston Hall) and Swindon (The Jam, XTC, The Pink Fairies...At the Swindon Oasis (and that's not the modern-day leisure centre.)
Books!  Oh that teenage existential angst! Hang on...I've still got it and I'm fifty-two! Still searching for Neverland! Maybe I'll grow up one day. Albert Camus? I salute you sir! On The Road! Ah the romance of the beatnik! Eric Blair, a fine choice of name change  to the River Orwell! Sartre! Cocteau! My, how exotic were the French! And there was probably no author on earth who epitomised feelings of alienation more than Franz Kafka. Often surreal and/or absurd, his books covered themes of bureaucracy and futility, of 'the seemingly endless frustrations of man's attempts to stand against the system, and the futile and hopeless pursuit of an unobtainable goal' Ah life! An interesting and highly influential chap, it is reckoned that he may have burned 90% of his work...Nice one Franz!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka

Back to Knebworth, and Zappa was superb - here's a gist of the great man at his peak (from 'Apostrophe' - he was one for the guitar solos but this has lots of vocal and plenty of wit, although an abrupt end:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa



And here's the whole show if you if you have a spare hour and a half!





I remember not enjoying The Tubes too much, but always liked this song - this is their glammed-up performance from The Old Grey Whistle Test:







Some Peter Gabriel, and some early Boomtown Rats...A token 'punk' addition to the festival bill: