| Hollywood Music Festival | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Rock andfolk, includinghard rock andpsychedelic rock styles |
| Dates | 23 and 24 May 1970 |
| Location(s) | nearNewcastle-under-Lyme,Staffordshire, England |
| Years active | 1970 |
| Founders | Onista Ltd |
| Attendance | 45,000 people (estimate)[1] |
TheHollywood Music Festival was held atLeycett in an area called Hollywood on the grounds of Ted Askey's[2] Lower (pig) Farm at Finney Green,[3] betweenSilverdale andLeycett,[4] nearNewcastle-under-Lyme,Staffordshire,England, on 23 and 24 May 1970. It was notable for the first performance ofGrateful Dead in the UK and also for the performance ofJose Feliciano andMungo Jerry, and featured such notable bands asFree,Ginger Baker's Air Force,Colosseum,Family,Black Sabbath andTraffic. The company responsible for the festival was Onista Ltd, who promptly went bankrupt unable to pay festival staff. Onista was an offshoot of Eliot Cohen's Red Bus company, with Ellis Elias and Elliot Cohen as the promoters. It was estimated to have been attended by an estimated 45,000.[1]
This was the first of the major festivals held in the summer of 1970 and part of the festival was to have been filmed by theBBC. Andrew Burgoyne of Burgoyne Film and Audio Services also filmed and recorded audio of some of the festival. Film crews can be seen on 8 mm footage of bands taken by fans at the festival on several occasions, notably during Quintessence and the Dead's performances. A DVD and CD set was issued in 2010, featuring archive material from the Grateful Dead's set, and one number each from Free, Family, Screaming Lord Sutch, and Radha Krishna Temple along with a biographical booklet of the event.
Rumours circulated in the music papers about the supergroup thatLord Sutch was supposed to be fronting,Eric Clapton,John Lennon, and others were supposed to join in a super jam, but none of these luminaries showed up, nor did scheduled acts such as theJames Gang andThe Flying Burrito Brothers which tended to dilute the overseas offerings. FormerTyrannosaurus Rex percussionistSteve Peregrin Took was billed to debut his new bandShagrat (featuringLarry Wallis on guitar) at the festival but this also fell through. Shagrat would eventually play their first - and only - gig at thePhun City festival that July.[5][6]
The festival has generally tended to be eclipsed by the larger, better known festivals of 1970 such as theIsle of Wight Festival and theBath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music 1970.
Across the road from the festival site is Highway Farm, where the bands waited until they were required. In December 1970, Free released an album calledHighway.
53°00′00″N2°18′00″W / 53.0000°N 2.3000°W /53.0000; -2.3000
