Tim Buckley

摘要

Who else had a halcyon summer? Mine was in 1974. I'd just left school and was waiting to go to Uni. A few mates clubbed together and bought an old banger and we were off - three months of hi-jinx down to Cornwall and back bookended by a couple of legendary gigs: The Grateful Dead at Alexandra Palace in September; and the first Knebworth Festival, the Bucolic Frolic, in July. For a bunch of lads raised in Wilts in total awe of West Coast Rock, these were not mere gigs, they were pilgrimages, the Knebworth lineup akin to finding the holy grail. Headliners were The Allman Brothers, over here on the back of their lovely post-tragic-Duane album Brothers And Sisters. Support came from The Doobie Brothers featuring sometime Steely Dan guitar hero, the handsomely moustachioed Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter. Then there was John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnu Orchestra, somewhat up his own astral arse, Van Morrison in surprisingly crowd-pleasing form, and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, a bunch of glamrock hooligans who gatecrashed the party with their thug theatrical Vambo Rools. Unobtrusively footing the bill was a soulful troubadour called Tim Buckley on a rare visit here from his native California.