How Jeremy Beadle made Wigan the centre of the UK’s acid rock boom in 1972
For a relatively small, unassuming town in deepest, darkest Lancashire, Wigan has had a colossal impact on the cultural history of the United Kingdom; from birthing the comedic stylings of George Formby, to being the subject of a George Orwell novel, becoming the epicentre of northern soul, and, of course, providing a home to Wallace and Gromit.
Back in the 1970s, though, the town’s industrial surroundings were the unlikely host of Britain’s acid rock boom, thanks to a doomed music festival, a television personality, an eye-wateringly good line-up, and the kind of rain that is so often unavoidable in the north-west.
Music festivals were still very much in their infancy during the early 1970s, with the Isle of Wight having led the charge the previous decade, spurring on a seemingly endless array of ramshackled events, all of which were a far cry from the multi-billion-pound business that music festivals are in the modern age. With that lack of funding came a greater sense of freedom, sure, but also a much more laissez-faire attitude towards planning, as attendees at Wigan’s Bickershaw Festival in 1972 soon found out.
Unlike the comparatively tropical climate of the Isle of Wight, or even Glastonbury, Wigan is renowned for its rain, and the heavens above certainly made their feelings known when future television personality Jeremy Beadle organised the inaugural Bickershaw Festival.
Exactly why the London-born future presenter of You’ve Been Framed was chosen to organise a music festival in Wigan remains something of a mystery, but it is difficult to cast scorn upon the line-up that he created, featuring the likes of The Kinks, Donovan, Captain Beefheart, Hawkwind, and, crucially, the Grateful Dead.
They might have been the hippie kings of acidic experimentation in their native San Francisco, but the Dead were still relative newcomers as far as the UK’s musical realm was concerned at that time, having made their national debut only two years prior, at a festival in Staffordshire. For the blossoming realm of British acid rock, then, Jerry Garcia’s visit to Wigan was nothing short of revolutionary.
Nevertheless, the band’s set – which, it should be noted, went on for 245 minutes – was plagued by the weather. What’s more, a high-dive act (yes, you read that correctly) reportedly emptied their water tank in front of the stage, making matters much worse. At the front of the crowd, the previously green field had been transformed into what can only be described as a bog, and the festival site only deteriorated from them; prompting the kings of acid rock to begin their set with a dedication “For all our muddy friends…”
Mud is part and parcel of any British music festival, of course, but by the end of the Dead’s monumental performance, the event’s Wigan surroundings could easily have been mistaken for the Somme, the only distinguishing feature being the varieties of spaced-out hippies frolicking in the mud.
Unsurprisingly, Bickershaw Festival did not end up becoming an annual event, but it did go on to have a profound impact on the rock landscape of the United Kingdom. In addition to sparking the acid rock boom of the early 1970s, with that magnificent set from the Grateful Dead, the festival was also a key formative experience in the lives of future punk posterboys like Joe Strummer or Elvis Costello, both of whom were in attendance.
