When the 'Dead did Wigan: A look at the Bickershaw Music Festival
*First published in The LINC magazine, Summer 2009
So, Glastonbury has been and gone, Reading and Leeds are still to come, and our own Haigh Music Festival, a celebration of the brightest and best live music in the borough, is also in the history books.
Despite the ongoing success of Haigh, a one-day event which seems to grow in popularity year after year, it’s probably still quite difficult to imagine something on the scale of Glastonbury, Leeds or Download taking place on our doorstep.
Yet once upon a time, something that big did take place as scores of music fans, along with some of the biggest acts of the era flocked to the area for the Bickershaw Music Festival.
It happened in 1972, was organised by the late Jeremy Beadle (yes, that Jeremy Beadle, famous TV prankster) and at the time was the only major music festival in the North West of England to run over several days.
As such, crowds flocked to the little area near Abram to see the likes of Hawkwind, The Kinks and Grateful Dead, acts who at the time were on the level of success that bands such as Green Day, Metallica and U2 are enjoy today.
It was certainly an impressive line-up and, according to legend, future stars such as Elvis Costello and ‘Clash frontman Joe Strummer were inspired to pick up guitars and become musicians after attending the event.
Though whilst Bickershaw delivered the goods on a musical and creative level, for its organisers, the festival was anything but a success.
For one thing, it absolutely chucked it down.
The site itself was prone to flooding and fans who were there recall their few days in Wigan as being one of the wettest, muddiest festivals in history!
What’s more, security was less than stellar. Can you imagine being able to get a ‘pass out’ of Glastonbury, flogging your unmarked ticket outside for half-price and then being able to walk back in freely?
No? Well, that’s what happened at Bickershaw.
In fact, the security got that bad that locals were apparently able to walk onto the site for nothing to catch the Grateful Dead set on the Sunday, by which time chaos reigned supreme and from an organisational stand-point at least, Bickershaw Music Festival was officially a disaster.
But that doesn’t stop fans of the festival holding it in high regard. One man in particular, Chris Hewitt, who helped promote the original festival, hoped to bring the festival back, and in 2007 and 2008, rumours abound that modern acts such as The Kooks, The Fratellis and others had signed up to play.
For one reason or another, the event never happened but, if it had, could possibly have done for Wigan what Michael Eavis’ festival does for a small village in Somerset and, along with the annual Haigh Music Festival, further cemented Wigan Borough’s status as one of the best places to catch live music.
By Chris Skoyles