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From page 18 of Classic Rock Magazine July 2001
Cover of July 2001 issue.
R ock history was made on May 23, 1970, when three UK festivals were held on the same day. The Bath City Festival boasted the talents of Wishbone Ash, Argent and Fleetwood Mac, not to mention the heavyweight trio of Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa and Santana. Plumpton Racecourse played host to the chart-storming Free, whose 'All Right Now' was released that month, backed up by Audience and Van Der Graaf Generator. But the only destination for 1000s of Dead-heads was the Hollywood Music Festival at Newcastle Under Lyme, headlined by the Grateful Dead on a rare transatlantic visit.
The Dead played for four hours, only to find their thunder stolen by Mungo Jerry, a little-known jugband fronted by Ray Dorset. Melody Maker called Mungo Jerry "the only band who let the audience use them, and not vice versa". And instead of going home with the Dead's acid fantasies in their brains, the crowd headed straight for their local music store humming 'In The Summertime', a hit that couldn't have been better timed to cash in on the brief British sun.
