It was forty years ago today, that legendary Cardiacs performance on the Sunday of the 1986 Reading Festival and this is a slice of thought, a slice of life, some of it originally written for a much longer piece that we published here on these pages last year when the LSD album came out. We couldn’t let it pass today, not without a quick mention, it is a day that those of us who were lucky enough to be there still talk about.
Here we are forty years on, recovering from yesterday’s festival actually (and seeing a great band we really wanted to see for the first band, a band called Concrete Vehicles, more on that and them and yesterday later). Cardiacs were a big big (big) part of Organ for many many years and we’d like to think we were at least a small part of Cardiacs back there. We’ve probably been to far too many music festivals over the lifetime of Organ (and quite a few before Organ as well), there’s been some brilliant days, some excellent weekends, a top ten list would probably be impossible (although we could write a damn good book). If there was to be a list of best things to happen at festivals we were at then that early afternoon performance in that field at Reading forty years ago today, the reaction, the people and that whole adventure over that weekend would without a doubt top it.
1986 probably was the last great Reading Festival, it wasn’t quite the last Marquee/NJF version of the festival, that homely version of Reading (that did feel like the Marquee’s weekend away from Wardour Street) did go on for one more year before evolving (it probably needed to). That Sunday forty years ago really was an adventure and today, we just need to mention it and raise a smile to Tim Smith, Tim Quy and all those who were there that day…
One of the big memories of that day is of people hearing Cardiacs from the campsite and coming running to see who it was; “who was that?!” and “what’s going on!” seemed to be the burning questions as people joined the following who had made a point of being there in good time for every moment of the first band on (back in those days no one was up in time for the first band on on the Sunday, they were for Cardiacs). We know of so so many people who first heard Cardiacs from their tents as they were waking up and came running o join the pond. A lot of friendships were forged that day as well as lifelong obsessions and forty years on that early afternoon still shines bright. Thankfully we have the Rude Bootleg album and especially that version of Whole World Window as well as that still spine-chilling Inner City Lining performance that that version of Cardiacs treated us to that day. Oh you can’t pick out songs, Is This The Life was always brilliant live, everything was on that afternoon. That really was the vital version of Cardiacs and on that day in a field in Reading, that was a very very special day, listing to it now still leaves us glowing, it is still our fuel…
An extract from a piece we called An Organ piece in three parts. Part three, ten of the many moments spent working with Cardiacs…
Reading Festival 1986 – So we spent our first year at art school getting distracted by music, Marina making films, including the one that got Cardiacs on the telly, me painting, us writing, plotting a strictly one off fanzine called Organ, interviewing more bands and at some point The Consultant said, hey we’re playing the Reading Festival, do you want to come along with us? And so off we went to the 1986 Reading festival with Cardiacs, in their van (it was a big orange van I think). Us, the band, The Consultant. I remember spending most of the journey folding covers for the Seaside Tape, a new cover, this one the one with the colourful stripes and Jim on the cover, it was the first time most of the band had seen it properly. Can’t remember if all the band were in the van, Tim and Sarah certainly were, others were there, not everyone, Jim arrived later. I remember everyone being in high spirits as we headed out of London on the Friday afternoon discussing the merits of Saturday night headliners Saxon and Tim mischievously suggesting we should switch the road signs for Reading around so Biff and company would get lost on the way. We went on the Friday, just in time to catch The Mission and a brilliant Killing Joke set in the thunder, lightening and torrential rain (“the gods are with us” yelled Jaz Coleman in the middle of that epic storm). Cardiacs were to be first on stage on the Sunday so we all set up tents and camped for the weekend. Yes, setting up very basic tents in the pouring rain in the dark at Reading in the public camping area when most bands were arriving on the actual day they were playing in their big tour buses or from the hotels that they were staying in although, where did Tim and Sarah disappear to after that first night and their collapsing tent?
It was the last great Marquee/NJF version of the then institution of a festival, it was never the same once the Marquee people stopped doing it. Friday was brilliant just for Killing Joke and the spectacle of tent erection in that heavy heavy rain, Tim was not that good at putting up his tent. The tents were marked with a big Cardiacs flag Marina had made and then used to rally people to the arena and the triumph of that Cardiacs set that started off Sunday’s bill, that bigger than usual for a first band on crowd that built and built as the sound filtered back to the campsite and people came running to catch it – by the end of that half hour set the already healthy crowd had tripled, it was a triumph, it has all been well documented, the set itself was released as the Rude Bootleg live album. The sight backstage before they went on, the sight of Cardiacs gleefully dancing and diving in that big muddy puddle behind the stage in those already rather messy bandsman’s uniforms, legendary! Well Well Well, the band tasked with going on after Cardiacs would later describe the puddle moment as the moment they knew, before Cardiacs had even taken to the stage, as the moment they knew that they had already been blown off. It was brilliant to see and hear the crowd and the reaction dramatically build and to listen to all the reaction afterwards as we rushed around collecting names and details for the mailing list. What a fine adventure that was… Read more – An Organ piece in three parts. Part three, ten of the many moments spent working with Cardiacs…
Recently on these pages
And if you were there ar Reading or indeed you weren’t then you will find some of that spirit and more next month in London, Manchester and Leeds with both Spratleys and Panixphere…
THE ORGAN 