The Oval, drugs and rock’n’roll
In the 175 years of Surrey County Cricket Club’s existence surely one of the strangest events ever to happen at the famous ground was when The Who and The Faces headlined a rock festival at The Oval in September 1971.
A club in financial peril
As the Oval Ground is one of the most impressive and modern international grounds, it seems hard to believe that in the Seventies the club was on the verge of bankruptcy. Facing increasing losses and following the cancellation of the 1970 South Africa tour, the future of the ground was in doubt. “Unless the finances are radically and quickly improved the club will not exist two years hence,” Maurice Allom, the Surrey president, wrote in a letter to members in April 1971. “The very survival of the club is in doubt.”
Rikki Farr, who had been involved in staging the legendary Isle of Wight festival in 1969, wanted to hold an outdoor rock concert to help raise funds to aid the escalating humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh. Surrey CCC were happy to offer the ground as it was available and they needed the money. An agreement was quickly made to stage the event on Saturday, September 18th, a week to the day after Surrey had secured the 1971 County Championship at Southampton.
Ironically, more people would see this concert than would have watched Surrey throughout the whole of that summer.
Goodbye Summer ’71 concert
The concert took place on a gloriously sunny late-summer day, perfect for an outdoor concert.
- Almost 40,000 people descended on The Oval. About 9000 more than the official capacity that had been set at 31,000.
- Tickets were £1.25 (in advance) or £2 on the door.
- Around £15,000 was raised for aid to Bangladeshi refugee causes and £3,000 for Surrey Cricket Cub.
- The line-up included Lindisfarne, Mott The Hoople, America and The Faces. The Who headlined as the sun came down with a strong set and there was no chance of an encore as Townshend and Moon duly trashed their instruments.
The Hells Angels were in charge of security
The stewarding and policing inside the ground were handled by Hell’s Angels. Despite the reservations on the then Surrey Club secretary Geoffrey Howard‘s initial reservations – “when I saw them I thought ‘this is the end'”
If you want us – we’ll be outside
Met Police to Geoffrey Howard, the Surrey Club secretary
“The concert went on far too late into the night,” Howard recalled. “The cars were parked all haphazard, and the police lifted them all and turned them around so that, when everybody left, they all went straight out … it was the most magical thing.”
“The lavatories and a lot of the seating were practically ruined,” Howard said, “but the backers paid for everything to be repaired.”
“The Oval itself proved an ideal natural venue for staging a rock concert of this magnitude…. The unlikely partnership of the rock business and the establishment of the cricketing world paid off handsomely.”
Melody Maker
As told in ‘At the Heart of English Cricket: The Life and Memories of Geoffrey Howard‘ by Stephen Chalke
By all accounts, it was a good-humoured all-day event with cricket and music fans, hippies and Hells Angels all getting along – the Angels kept the peace.
The Concert
The early arrivals took over the outfield, packing the area in front of the stage at the Vauxhall End; the later ones had to make do with seats in the stands.
“The concert started at 11 am with Jeff Dexter, the MC, dressed up for the occasion in cricket whites, pads and bat. The bill opened with the long-forgotten Cochise; they were followed by Lindisfarne, Quintessence, Mott The Hoople, America and Atomic Rooster. Rod Stewart – clad in a tiger-skin suit which he later auctioned for the Bangladesh charity and raised £500 – then appeared with The Faces before the headline act. As the sun went down, on they came. “Here they are, all the way from Shepherd’s Bush … The Who” yelled Dexter as John Entwistle, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and Keith Moon ran on stage. Moon grabbed the bat off Dexter as he passed and proceeded to use it as a drumstick for the first number – “I Can’t Explain” – throwing it into the audience at the end. Dexter was unimpressed. He had borrowed the bat from Surrey to use as a prop. The Who played a tight set, but any chance of an encore disappeared as Townshend, as was the norm, shredded his brand new Gibson guitar in a frenzy of destruction, hurling the remnants to the baying audience. Moon, meanwhile, opted to walk through his drum set rather than round it, scattering it everywhere. The gig was over.
Which led Jeff Dexter (the MC) to announce, “As you can see, an encore is impossible. We have drums everywhere!”
As the crowd filtered out, they were handed polythene bags and asked to clear the pitch of rubbish. Many complied, helped by a vague promise from the organisers that they would get free tickets to the next concert as a reward.
See the Program here
The Faces with Rod Stewart
Pictures from Sir Rod Stewart’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/p/CjDs_Jit0Pd/?hl=en&img_index=3
You can listen to a bootleg recording of The Faces – Maybe I’m Amazed – Live at the Oval 1971 – Click here
David Hepworth’s 1971 — Never a Dull Moment: Rock’s Golden Year, writes of the Oval concert, among much else, that “In his autobiography, Rod Stewart remembers driving home after the show to Winchmore Hill with his posh girlfriend at his side, realising that he was now truly the rock star.”
The Who
In 1971 The Who were considered to be the premier live act of their day and were the headliners for the concert. They took to the stage about an hour after The Faces finished their set, as it took some time to set up their sound system.
The show finished with the who trashing their equipment. A press report at the time observed, “Inevitably Townshend’s guitar – a brand new Gibson bought for the day – was sacrificed to the crowd. He hammered it to pieces with the mike stand and took a flying leap into his stack. The wreckage was thrown to the crowd as Moon stood up and literally walked through his drum kit.”
A review of the gig – Click Here
Pete Townsend memories of the event – Click here
I remember it very well, I can’t actually remember the concert. I remember the event. Rod Stewart kicked out I think 500 footballs into the crowd, which caused absolute chaos because they kept bouncing around two or three hours, all the way through our show
Pete Townsend – The Who
What happen next
Two more concerts took place a year later in September 16, 1972 with Hawkwind and Frank Zappa headlining the first – poor weather kept the audience numbers down – and a fortnight later a more successful venture featuring Genesis, Focus, Wishbone Ash and Emerson Lake and Palmer. Surrey made good money from both ventures. However, a death at a concert at Crystal Palace in 1973 resulted in Lambeth Council introducing a regulation that the number of tickets sold could not be more than the number of seats available, and in one stroke the staging of concerts at The Oval become unviable.
Further Reading
- At the Heart of English Cricket: The Life and Memories of Geoffrey Howard
- 1971 — Never a Dull Moment: Rock’s Golden Year David Hepworth
Sources
http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/goodbye-summer-1971.html
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/the-oval-drugs-and-rock-n-roll-313784
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