Let’s face it, this rock festival malarkey has gotten way out of hand. Too corporate, too ginormous, too many bands, too many stages, too many people in rainbow wellies practising goat yoga in air-conditioned yurts…
This album is a reminder of simpler, more ramshackle times, when all you needed was a field (a meadow, for those of a prog inclination), an electricity generator, some scaffolding and Stack Waddy to make a happening happen. Forget tofu, let’s hear it for Snafu!
This writer assumed initially that Incident At A Free Festival was a collection of live recordings resurrected from long-ago Lollapaloozas. We expected to hear ‘Jesus’ rattling his tambourine and cries of “Wally!” Fact is, it’s a straightforward (if determinedly eclectic) compilation of studio cuts from the era, a Now That’s What I Call Music! for the loon-pant generation.
Masterminded by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienne, focuses on the mid-afternoon slots at Deeply Vale, Bickershaw, Krumlin, Weeley, Plumpton and the like, and features tracks from those halfway-house bands charged with getting a slumbering crowd up and groovin’ before the headliners. The vibe is summed up by the aforementioned Stack Waddy:a haphazard freak-out (think
