ABOUT THIS ITEM

The legendary Bickershaw Festival took place on the 5th to 7th May 1972 in a small village near Wigan, Lancashire. Organised by the late Jeremy Beadle and Harry ‘The Count Bilkus’, it may have been one of the wettest rock festivals in history, but will always be remembered as one of the last all-night festivals, where the Grateful Dead played for over four hours! The Bickershaw Festival box set has been lovingly put together over the past eight years by festival worker, Chris Hewitt with help until late 2007, from Jeremy Beadle. As Chris said, "When Jeremy and I first started to plan the Bickershaw Box Set about five years ago, we wanted to create something that when you opened the lid you were transported back to the festival site." Accompanying the 6 CDs of music (both soundboard and audience recordings), and 2 DVDs (5 ½ hours of footage), is a 208 page hardback book containing personal accounts, music reviews and colour photographs. Beadle assembled one of the most ambitious programme of bands for any festival held in the North West (or UK for that matter) - bringing an incredible contingent of American acts to merge with some of the best folk and rock acts from the UK. On the bill was Captain Beefheart, Grateful Dead, New Riders of The Purple Sage, Dr John, Country Joe Macdonald, Pacific Gas and Electric, Flamin Groovies, Cheech and Chong, The Kinks, Donovan, Incredible String Band, Family, Linda Lewis, Hawkwind, Wishbone Ash, Captain Beyond, Brinsley Schwarz, Stackridge, Maynard Ferguson, Mike Westbrook and Haydock Brass Band. A festival music programme that started during the day on Friday and ran well into the early hours of Saturday and Sunday morning culminating with the late afternoon early evening set of the Grateful Dead on the Sunday. In the audience camping in the mud for the whole weekend was a certain young Joe Strummer who stated “Captain Beefheart’s set in the early hours of the morning at Bickershaw Festival was the best concert I ever went to in my life.” Another teenager who sat transfixed on the Sunday watching the Grateful Dead with their four hour plus performance, was a young Elvis Costello who said “seeing the Grateful Dead that day on that giant festival stage in a Lancashire field made me realise being in a band was what I wanted to do”. The whole of the London underground and music press glitterati were camped in those Lancashire fields to write about the festival. From Oz, Frendz magazine, IT Magazine, to Disc, Record Mirror, Melody Maker, Sounds and NME. The crew from the Roundhouse ran the stage and Time Out printed the festival programme. Chris Hewitt from Ozit Records wrote in his book, “Bickershaw was the last of the great all night festivals and probably the last one where the festival organisers allowed the fence to come down (around 20,000 locals got in for free to boost the audience for The Grateful Dead to 60,000 on Sunday afternoon and evening). By 1973 the serious businessmen promoters moved away from the chaotic three day rural events in farmers’ fields and started to move towards a profitable controllable one day concert in a sports stadium… In this kind of event the promoters are spared the nightmare of trying to control something like a medium sized town full of music freaks for three or four days.” The 40th Anniversary Box Set is the most comprehensive archive of this landmark music event ever put together, and one that could only have been assembled by those that were there. All tracks on cds 1 to 4 recorded live at Bickershaw Festival 7th May 1972…