2nd British Rock Meeting

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The 2nd British Rock Meeting was a music festival with 50,000 to 100,000 visitors, which took place from May 20-22, 1972 on the island of Grün near Germersheim .

prehistory

The festival organizers were Marcel Avram and Marek Lieberberg from Mama Concerts . As the successor to the British Rock Meeting in Speyer in 1971 , it was announced months before the date, but the company was only registered very late. The superiors of the city of Germersheim only found out about it after ticket sales had started and immediately banned it. As a result of the realization that the mass rush of visitors could no longer be stopped and that holding the festival was the lesser evil, the ban was lifted on May 18th.

procedure

Sixty thousand young people and many GIs traveled to the festival. The police had difficulties getting the traffic situation under control, and the band's vehicles did not always get through without any problems. The only access road, almost five meters wide, was lined on both sides by parked cars.

Not all of the announced groups actually appeared, including a headlining provided The Faces . Instead, Wishbone Ash performed unannounced . Pink Floyd , Ekseption , Wishbone Ash, Karthago and Home were celebrated by the audience, The Strawbs , Atomic Rooster , Frumpy , Family and others were less well received. The kinks were clearly drunk on the stage, who even had to leave Uriah Heep prematurely under the cans.

For the performers there was neither a cloakroom nor a toilet trailer, caravans only for prominent groups like Pink Floyd and Beggar's Opera . Inga Rumpf complained that the German musicians were being disadvantaged, that they always had to play first and had no way of preparing for the performance.

The two-part stage was set up by English stage managers and sound engineers. The martial stage stewards were armed with iron chains, fixed knives, steel pipes and knuckles, and they caused several bloody incidents. The meadow area on which some of the visitors camped - also directly in front of the stage - was boggy. The tents near the stage hindered visitors and had a negative effect on the acoustics . Even in the middle of the area, the music was difficult to hear. The toilet cars were opposite the stage at the other end of the square, where the water points were also located.

More than three hundred people had to be hospitalized for drug problems, and another 1200 received outpatient treatment, often for foot injuries from broken glass.

According to a press release from the following Tuesday, Germersheim's citizens “did not leave their homes because of the invasion of long-haired people”. The mayor expressed his satisfaction with the behavior of the visitors, there were no incidents to report

American soldiers

The American army initially supported the organization of rock festivals in the Rhine-Main area , including the 2nd British Rock Meeting. The GIs were able to purchase tickets at advance booking offices in the army grounds, the AFN soldier broadcaster advertised them, and bus trips from the barracks to the concert were organized. The soldiers made up an average of 50 to 70 percent of the festival visitors. In the summer of 1973 this cooperation was terminated by the US Army. Lieberberg canceled a third British Rock Meeting at short notice on the grounds that "without our regular American audience the whole effort would be wasted".

Bands

AR & Machines , Abacus , Amon Düül II , Atomic Rooster , Beggars Opera , Buddy Miles Express , Curved Air , Ekseption , Eloy , Family , Frumpy , Rory Gallagher , Guru Guru , Home , Humble Pie , The Incredible String Band , Karthago , The Kinks , Linda Lewis , Lindisfarne , Albert Mangelsdorff , Max Merrit , Milkwood , Osibisa , Pacific Gas & Electric , Tom Paxton , Pink Floyd , Quiver , Sam Apple Pie , The Spencer Davis Group , Status Quo , Strawbs , Uriah Heep , Wind , Wishbone Ash

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rock festivals of the seventies at krautrockseite.de , accessed on February 13, 2014.
  2. ^ The Berlin Observer: Germersheim Concert ( Memento from February 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on February 13, 2014.
  3. ↑ 2nd British Rock Meeting in Germesheim [sic!] ... Musikexpress No. 199, July 1972, p. 25.
  4. ↑ For the cat. In: Der Spiegel. September 17, 1973, accessed February 13, 2014.