· The Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music was a music festival held at the Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England on 27–28 June 1970.
· Donovan was not supposed to be playing at this Festival.
· The vast quantity of people attending to the festival made it very hard for the bands to get there. The country lanes were blocked by cars, which prevented some of the bands trucks get into the place. On Sunday morning this lead to Donovan casually walking out onto the empty silent stage, to address the expectant but bored crowd. Donovan's music style was not what the crowd had gone there to hear in this kind of event. So to test the mood of the crowd out, he engaged in a bit of small talk, where he explained that he had spent the night in his van in a nearby field. Then worked around to asking if they would like him to play a song whilst they waited for the other bands to arrive. The crowd cheered up with Donovan's words, so he played some of his classics. As the crowd seemed to appreciate this, the Open Road band joined him with electric guitars and amps. Still no bands came, so Donovan continued. His impromptu and free performance eventually filled in for 2 and a half hours of what otherwise would have been silence.
· The headline included bands such as Santana, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, Moody Blues, Frank Zappa, Steppenwolf or Pink Floyd. |
