Knebworth 6 & 7 : Saturdays August 4 & 11 1979 Promoted by Frederick Bannister in association with Peter Grant On the bills in alphabetical order: CHAS AND DAVE THE NEW COMMANDER CODY BAND FAIRPORT CONVENTION LED ZEPPELIN THE NEW BARBARIANS TODD RUNDGREN and UTOPIA SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY and THE ASBURY JUKES On the original bill but not appearing: MARSHALL TUCKER BAND "Both 1979 Festivals were within one week of each other, and heading both bills was Led Zeppelin. The first concert was the biggest we had ever held at Knebworth. The licence was for 120,000 but more arrived on the day. Tickets went very quickly and there were reports of people camping out overnight by record shops around the country in order to make sure of getting a ticket. Led Zeppelin, arguably the world's most popular hard rock band, came down before the festival to meet us and look around Knebworth House. Guitarist Jimmy Page was a fan of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, who lived in the House in the early 1800's. They shared an interest in the occult, and Jimmy wanted to see all our Bulwer Lytton memorabilia. He used to have a resident medium living at Knebworth and we have his crystal ball and books on magic and witchcraft. It is his ghost that romas the passages at night! Drummer John Bonham was more interested in the gardens and singer Robert Plant nearly took a swim in our pool but decided his hairdresser wouldn't be happy about it if he did. There was a huge build up of people outside the entrance on the eve of the concert. Twice they knocked the fence down and eventually a row of police with dogs and Land Rovers was needed on the park side of the fence to hold the tide until the arena staff arrived and they could be let in. Amazingly there were no accidents. It was impossible to visit the campsite that evening as the vast number of fans made it quite scary. At 3 a.m. we gave in and opened the turnstiles. Fans slipped through in the darkness and ran towards the front of the stage for an eighteen hour wait for Led Zeppelin. Preparation for the Festival started two months previously. As well as the police, there were 400 stewards, 40 welfare experts, over 350 Rd Cross and St Johns Ambulance personnel, 250 catering workers, 40 cashiers, 150 backstage crew, plus drivers and others looking after the administration. The stage, costing £50,000, was reported to be even bigger than the record breaking structure erected the year previously. The police were also charging a record fee of £50,000. There were 570 loo seats, 750 feet of urinal and 600 feet of screening to be put up. Corrugated sheeting around the arena cost £'9,000 and the security budget topped £50,000. Led Zeppelin was rumoured to have received the largest concert fee ever paid out. The expense of putting on such a festival is enormous, and it is not surprising that many promoters go bust." from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. "Welcome to the 1979 Knebworth Festival. This year Led Zeppeling have exceeded the demand for any concert that we've staged at Knebworth and so for the first time we are putting on two shows - on August 4 and August 11. We arer proud to be presenting Led Zeppelin's only live appearances anywhere this year. The supporting line-up on each date shows some variations but we have ensured that there'll be no shortage of good music before you get what you've come for. Freddie Bannister" from the Official Programme.

Artists in order of appearance:

Fairport Convention : August 4 only "Fairport Convention might as well have been playing on the moon for all the reception they received" from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. "Fairport Convention 1967 - 1979. Thank you - Dan Ar Bras, Bob Brady, Roger Burridge, Alexandra Elene, MacLean Denny, Jerry Donahue, Judy Dyble, Tom Farnell, Roger Hill, Ashley Hutchings, Martin Lamble, Trevor Lucas, Ian Matthews, Dave Mattocks, Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, David Rae, Bruce Rowland, Dave Swarbrick, Richard Thompson. A live album of Fairport Convention's final tour - Farewell Farewell - is being released independently and is available for a minimum donation of £4.00 (there is no upper limit) from Woodworm Records, Chapel Row, Cropredy, Banbury, Oxon. (Cheques and postal orders to be made payable to Woodworm Records)." from the Official Programme. Refer to: Top of Page Return to Home Page

Chas and Dave : August 11 only "Chas and Dave opened the concert and for a trio they made plenty of noise." from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. Programme features a Rock Family Tree. "Together they've backed Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Bobby Bear, Slim Whitman and George Hamilton IV, to name but a few." from the Official Programme. Refer to: Top of Page Return to Home Page

The New Commander Cody Band "The New Commander Cody Band offered the first real punch of the day with a boisterous brassy set featuring Commander George Frayne leaping around the stage madly playing his piano. The band concentrated on old favourites such as Seeds And Stems and Hot Rod Lincoln." from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. "Commander Cody, alias George William Frayne, formed his Lost Planet Airmen in Detroit in 1968 from a collection of country-based musicians around his native Detroit but moved out to the West Coast where their free and easy blend of truck-drivin' country cajun turned on the expanded minds of San Francisco." from the Official Programme. Refer to: Top of Page Return to Home Page

"An expectant mother in the arena had to be rushed off to hospital where she produced a 4lb 7oz baby boy. Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin's manager, arried by helicopter. Over in the campsite someone threw an empty gas cannister into a fire, and there was an explosion which burnt two cars and a van. There were clouds of black smoke, and it was fortunate more vehicles didn't go up." from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold.

Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes "Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes were next. For his size, Southside John Lyon had a huge voice, but like the other bands their music is best suited to a more intimate gathering." from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. "Some things just don't change. Before the release of their first album I Don't Want To Go Home Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes packed Asbury Park's Stone Pony club three nights every week. Recently, on the first of three sardine-packed nights at Cleveland's Agora Ballroom, the scene was equally charged. And yet Southside Johnny Lyon, sprawled over a chair in his hotel lobby, wasn't quite satisfied." from the Official Programme. Refer to: Top of Page Return to Home Page

"A problem with big Festivals is that there aren't enough big bands. Because the arena is so vast visual effects that can only work at night are needed: lights, dry ice and fireworks. The music has to finish by midnight, so only one group can take full advantage of the dark. To all but those in the first 100 yards of the audience the band on stage are distant matchlike figures. The food, usually fairly boring at pop festivals, excelled itself this year. Japanese tempura, crepe suzettes, pitta sandwiches, bean sprouts, German sausages and samosas were amongst the goodies. Food prices were controlled by Freddie Bannister, but this was not easy to enforce, and some prices crept up during the day." from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold.

Todd Rundgren and Utopia "The sun was setting and a cool breeze accompanied the entry of Todd Rundgren and Utopia. Todd, resplendent in a yellow leotard, put on a more appropriate show than he had in 1976: he also jammed with The Tubes the year before at Knebworth."" from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. ""My whole thing, the essence of my entire presentation, is a musical revolution," says Todd Rundgren. "It's not getting out there on the streets and thrashing department store windows or anything like that. It's a revolution within the music business, both in musical terms and in material terms." Rundgren is probably the first real rock and roll revolutionary, and he glows with enthusiasm for his cause the way Lenin and Gandhi must have." from the Official Programme. Refer to: See also: Todd Rundgren's Utopia at Knebworth 3 1976 Todd Rundgren jamming with The Tubes at Knebworth 5 1978 Top of Page Return to Home Page

The New Barbarians : August 11 only "The debut of Keith Richards (he brought his mother, two children, Marlon and Dandelion, and his new Swedish girlfriend, model Lil Wenglas Green, with him) and Ronnie Wood's band The New Barbarians was fun even if one had the feeling Mick Jagger was missing. They were two hours late coming on, due to the same old technical problems, and the audience - bored with waiting - threw missiles and slow hand clapped." from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. "Don't expect surprise guest appearances from Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Mick Jagger or any other name celebrities being bantered about when the New Barbarians step foot on the Knebworth stage August 11 for their British debut. From the first chords of Sweet Little Rock 'n Roller, the New Barbarians will kick up enough dust to satisfy anyone's expectations. This band don't need any help from their friends." from the Official Programme. Refer to: Top of Page Return to Home Page

Led Zeppelin "It was the first time since 1975 (when they sold out for five nights at Eral's Court) that Led Zeppelin had played live in the U.K. Huge video screens behind the group enabled everyone to see what was going on. There were lasers, dry ice, pretty lights, the lot. They played erratically but delightedly for over three hours and were proclaimed a triumph by their fans. When the band closed with Stairway To Heaven not only were cigarette lighters and matches aflame, but also flags and newspapers which the audience held up like blazing torches."" from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. "I was terrified one late Monday afternoon in the autumn of 1969. I was introducing the brand new Tri-Town Top Twenty-Five during my daily programme on the very first radio station I ever worked for, WDCR in Hanover, New Hampshire. I had reached that point in the countdown between number three and number two where I introduced the WDCR Pick Hit of the Week. I played the Pick Hit at that time because it prolonged the suspense of finding out what number one would be, even for those clever dicks who had followed the whole chart and narrowed the possibilities down to two. It was my responsibility to select the Pick Hit of the Week, and I was delighted with having chosen a streak of winners. This week, though, I was worried; horribly worried. I had listened to all of the singles released the previous week, approximately six dozen of the little black buggers, and hadn't heard anything resembling a hit. The odds were incredibly against it, but the moment hit-pickers fear most had arrived: there was nothing to pick. Two years previous, in a similar situation, I had cheated and picked an album track that, though not yet a single was scheduled for future release. Now I had been forced to go one further. I had picked a track from a new LP I thought would be a hit if it were made a single. I had made my Pick Hit of the week Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. The space between number three and number two had come. Here I was, playing an unknown track by a heavy group in prime time, right in the middle of the week's biggest hits. The record was loud, the record was long, and the lead singer had a goddam orgasm right in the middle! As the five minutes of Whole Lotta Love crawled by, I imagined the worst; that all those secretaries I could see out the studio window driving home in the rush hour were being appalled by this raucous carrying on and were switching to radio stations, even if it did not mean hearing the top two. My ratings might plummet. Zeppelin redeemed me. Atlantic did release Whole Lotta Love as a single in the States, it was a top five smash, and it became a rock classic around the world. Even more impressive was what happened to Zeppelin itself. That new LP, Led Zeppelin II, reached number one in Britain and began an unbroken string of number one LPs that continued throughout the next decade. Just as the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band inspired a flock of concept albums, most of which we could have done without, Zeppelin became the model for scores of self-contained groups who relied on very loud amplification to make their point, and this missed the point of Zeppelin's musical success: though the foursome could be heavier better than anyone else, they also knew when and how to temper the tempest with gentler, emotional moments. The track on which they did this best, Stairway To Heaven, became an all-time great. Zeppelin have never released a single in the UK, although D'yer Mak'er was pressed for promotional purposes, and they infrequently release 45s in America. This did not stop Stairway To Heaven. During the 1970s the song was consistently reported as the most requested track on American radio stations, even AM stations which hardly ever play LP cuts. People wanted to see and hear these albums played live, more people than wanted to see any other artist of the Seventies. Even at the height of his historic American success Elton John pointed out that Zeppelin were a bigger box office attraction. The power and rawness of Led Zeppelin's music touched basic feelings in young people, whose enthusiasm for the group mirrored the extent to which they had been touched. That enthusiasm is on display here today; almost everyone in attendance has come dozens, hundreds or even thousands of miles to be part of an ocean of Zeppelin freaks. This group is part of their lives. And so, even though the four individual members of the band do not customarily give interviews or make public appearances, and even though their songs, not being singles, are not often heard on the radio, the saga of Led Zeppelin has become rock legend. How Jimmy Page, who played in the Yardbirds and did session guitar work on sixties hits from I Can't Explain to It's Not Unusual, talked with bassist John Paul Jones about forming a group while both worked on Donovan'd Hurdy Gurdy Man; how they recruited two virtual unknowns from Birmingham area bands, Robert Palnt and John Bonham, relying on their promise rather than previous achievement; how Keith Moon inspired the name of the group by joking they might go down like a lead balloon; how manager Peter Grant, devoted to his boys, has protected them in his own ominous, burly way - all this has entered into the rock chronicles. Page's interest in ethnic music throughout the world, Bonham's love of auto-racing, Plant's romance with the fundamental magic of Britain and Jones' hatred of macaroni cheese - all these are known to Zep devotees! Led Zeppelin did not let me down that Monday afternoon in 1969. They will not let you down today." Paul Gambaccini from the Official Programme. Refer to: Kevin Shewan's Zeppelin at Knebworth pages Zep at Knebworth Recordings Electric Magic Tight But Loose Zep On The Net See also: Led Zeppelin at Bath Festival 1970 Top of Page Return to Home Page

Co-ordination and Fun from: Nicky Horne

"Led Zeppelin returned for three encores which meant that the concert lasted until 1 a.m. Our licence was in jeopardy once more. The North Herts District Council was annoyed that their rules had been broken and some stormy meetings followed. There had also been complaints from the neighbours; one night they could stand, but two, on consecutive Saturdays, spelled trouble. There was some concern locally that fans would stay on for the second concert. Some did, but thus wasn't a serious problem as many helped clear the site for the following weekend. Litter was everywhere, and Captain Ollie, responsible for clearing up rubbish at all the Knebworth Festivals, toiled laboriously with his team of litter pickers for 12½p a sack. They could not clear everything in time, and the following Saturday it was still fairly unpleasant sitting on broken glass and can tops. The Park was also littered with supermarket trolleys. Sainsbury's lost 150 trolleys and Tesco 75% of all their stock! Freddie was having troubles with both the Council and with Zeppelin manager Peter Grant. After August 4 the County Council and newspapers stated that the attendance had been anything up to 200,000 people. The licence was for only 100,000. Freddie said 93,000 people had paid for tickets to come in. Peter Grant, whose band was paid on a commission basis, thought Freddie was cheating him. For the second concert, he brought in his own staff to count tickets and money. Freddie was worried, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Peter Grant's 'heavies' took over our office, turfing our staff out, to count tickets and money. David was furious and ordered them out. They eventually left, taking the money with them. Peter Grant would not believe Freddie hadn't pocketed the proceeds from the first concert. As a result Freddie's company Tedoar Ltd had to go into liquidation, leaving huge debts behind it, including unpaid bills of £50,000 for the police and £2,250 owed to Stevenage Borough Council, and it was unlikely that we would ever get another licence for a Knebworth Festival with Freddie as the promoter. David was taken to court by North Herts Council for alleged breaches of the festival licence; overrunning was the main offence, noise and number of people another. He was fined £150. Peter Grant came up to the house after the second concert. An enormous man with long black hair, neither of us cared much for him." from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold. "Notes To Help Make Your Visit To Knebworth More Enjoyable: Pass-outs are available from the arena at the gate marked on the map, but unfortunately not before 9.00 a.m. Drinking Water is available in the arena at a number of points, just look for the signs. Concessionaires. This year we have a small "village of shops" situated in the top of the arena. Food. This year the food is provided by Town and Country, a division of J. Lyons. Only buy from sales points that have the prices clearly displayed. The official prices are listed below: (Examples) Soft Ice Cream 20p & 25p; German Sausage 50p; Samosa 30p; Special Crepes 30p; Fish and Chips 80p; Chicken and Chips 85p; Pilao and Curry £1.50p; Hamburger 50p; Tea 15p; Coffee 20p Telephones. This year we are delighted that the G.P.O. have agreed to provide public telephones, and these will be found next door to the Information tent Train Service. The Awayday Return fare between King's Cross and Stevenage is £2.20. Awayday Returns issued after 20.00 hours Friday 3 & 10 August will be available for return travel from Stevenage up to 11.45 on Sunday morning. These tickets will not be valid on trains departing after 11.45 and anyone returning from Stevenage will then have to purchase an ordinary single ticket (£1.93) and no refunds on the Awayday Return Ticket will be paid. We have been asked by the Police to point out that it is dangerous for pedestrians to be on a Motorway. It is also an offence, so please take care when leaving the concert to avoid walking on the A1(M) Motorway which passes Knebworth Park. Knebworth 11th August. Tickets available £7.50 from the kiosk next to the Information tent at the back of the arena, or on your way out - at the ticket kiosk outside the arena." extracts from the Official Programme. Price 90p.

Top of Page Return to Home Page LINKS to other sites on the Web: Kevin Shewan's Knebworth 1979 Experience Knebworth House - Rock Concert Pages There Must Be A Better Way - Forthcoming Memorabilia Package from Freddie Bannister Posters - direct from Knebworth House Posters - from Freddie Bannister

last updated June 1 2002 with copious thanks to: Chryssie Lytton Cobbold and Henry Cobbold of Knebworth House for their help and encouragement, and for granting permission to quote freely from Knebworth Rock Festivals which now appears to be out of print.