The story of the first ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970

Almost 55 years ago, Michael Livis hosted the first of his legendary music festival. In 1970, the BBC visited his Somerset Dairy Farm and made it unique.

“I think this is the quickest way to clear my overdraft,” Michael Evis said on September 18, 1970 when asked why he booked glamour locker Mark Bouran to perform in his field. The dairy farmer was being interviewed at a farm in Somerset as he sat in a newly-made makeshift wooden toilet the day before opening what would continue to become one of the world’s most famous and famous music festivals.

In the decades since then, the Glastonbury Festival has evolved into a vibrant, vast cultural luxury that portrays the biggest name in the music business. Tickets are sold out within minutes, and it is expected that thousands of drinks from around the world will descend on the farm’s rolling field this week to get the chance to experience a mix of music, dance and fellowships this week.

However, the first festival was a more modest event, and partially promoted by Evis’s need to float his family’s farm. “This is a way to stay in business,” he told BBC reporter John Norman a few weeks before the first festival began. “We’ve got about 12 people here who have sold out over the last five years. Agriculture is so dead that we have to do something.”

Evis’ family farmed land in Somerset, England for more than a century. Born in 1935, he was the eldest of five siblings, and his parents, Methodist preacher and principal, instilled a strong sense of social responsibility in their children. But even as a child, Evis was engrossed in pop music. At the nine-year-old boarding school, he was punished for smuggling wirelessly so that he could listen to Radio Luxembourg in the evening. As an adult, despite the tired and time-consuming job of dairy farming, he still found time to pamper his passion and played pop music to cows while they were milking. “I invented the sound system, and it was all tied up with strings and things, wired it to a dairy player, and it sounded great. So I played it. [The Kinks’ song] He said on the 2015 BBC Witness History Podcast.

The farmers were sure that the cows enjoyed his selection of music as well. “They love music very much,” he told the BBC in 1970.

Evis had been running a farm since he was 19 when his father died of cancer. But in addition to taking over a valuable farm, Evis also inherited its considerable overdraft. “If you’re just stuck on a farm and rubbing overdrafts that are almost impossible to satisfy your interests, you have to use your head to think about other things,” he told Norman.

That inspiration came to him in the summer of 1970 when Single Laura was released. He was attending with his future wife, Jean, Bruce’s Bass Festival and Progressive Music. He was caught up in the “absolutely amazing atmosphere” of the event.

“The sun was shining and people looked wonderful and beautiful. Mostly hippies bloom in their hair with great clothes and flowers, because it was the peak of the age of flower power.

Evis has seen ways to embrace his love for music and community, and at the same time solve his financial problems. “That was it. I really thought, ‘My God, I have to do this.’ I think I’m very ambitious and slightly confident.

Evis was able to track down one of his cows and one of his cow agents, despite having no experience in holding festivals. That was until it was revealed that the article was urging agents to get back to the phone, saying that the Kinks were playing what journalists called “the new mini festival.” “He said, ‘What are you talking about, a mini festival? My band is number one in the world.’ So they canceled it,” Evis told Witness History.

In addition to his problem, by the time the Kinks were drawn out, the event’s original posters (later called Pilton Pop, Folk and Blues Festival) were already in print. Singer Wayne Fontana, known for being a hit in 1965, was also listed on the bill, but was forced to not play. Then Evis had a stroke of good fortune. “But Chap said, “I have Mark Bolan and Tyrannosaurus Rex, and they’ll go to Butlins. [a UK Holiday resort chain] At Minehead. ” And he said, “I look at the route map and think they’ll go by your farm, so can I do that instead?” And I said it was great. Boran was the figure of Glamorok’s father. [he was] In fact, it was much more trendy than the kink, but it was great luck. ”

Not everyone in the area agreed. “To satisfy all local governments – police, health and hygiene, and all departments, was the most challenging aspect of the overall function,” Evis admitted to the BBC in 1970.

The controversy that the festival drove in the end helped to promote it to both the band and music lovers. “There was a lot of opposition at first. It was in the paper, and it was all free promotion and the whole show wasn’t actually promoted anything,” he said in 2015.

This was the same. By this time, Evis had spent hundreds of pounds transforming the farm’s quiet countryside environment into a festival venue, so hedges had been pulling out to create a natural auditorium for the band to play. He believed his farm was the perfect setting for the festival. “It’s very ideal. It’s absolutely ideal. It’s a kind of happiness that’s here. It’s away from the terrible reality of life. It’s the wonderful place, the Valley of Avalon, Glastonbury, and all the mysticism surrounding it.”

Pilton Pop, Folk and Blues Festival opened the day after the legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix He unexpectedly collapsed and died at a London party. Evis recalled the history of the witnesses, which said that many of the 1,500 people at that first festival were shed tears on the news of the rock star’s death. The daily admission to the festival was £1 ($13.67 or $18.44 for today’s money), and festival attendees received free milk from dairy products. The valuable farm kitchen has doubled as a dressing room for performance bands.

It didn’t attract the 5,000 participants the farmer wanted, but as the news of his festival’s reviews had travelled up until now, some believed the event was free, but they walked all the way from London to the farm. “They got to the gate and flaked out at the gate, you know, and they didn’t have any money,” Evis said in 1970.

However, the original festival will not ultimately solve Evis’ money worries. In fact, he was defeated in the event. He eventually became one of the UK’s biggest rock stars in the early 1970s, paying in £100 installments from his five-month milk profit. “[I] I really thought this was a way to deal with overdrafts. At the time, I didn’t realize that it wasn’t all profitable. I didn’t make any profit until 11 years later,” he told Witness History.

The Glastonbury Festival – a name resolved in 1979 – has been around for decades since it became a cultural phenomenon. It remains the ideal celebration behind the music, art, and what inspired Evis, the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Raising funding and awareness for the festival’s chosen charities is one of the driving forces behind hosting it. And experiencing the festival is a rite of passage for both music fans and professional musicians, with everyone from Radio Head and Stevie Wonder to Billy Eilish and Glastonbury’s famous pyramid stage headline line.

Evis told the BBC that he hadn’t regretted the overdraft the day after the first festivities, despite not clearing up the overdraft. “It was absolutely super. It was worth it. It was worth it. We have American and German people who say, ‘My God, that was great.’ And obviously I had no experience with it so it was very good – and from a musical standpoint, it apparently had been appreciated at other festivals. ”

However, the farmer confessed, “I am very happy to be able to return to cows again,” adding, “it was very, very nervous and tired.”

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