Yes it's definitely the time of the season.. for going to the 2012 Isle Of Wight Festival.
And getting stuck in traffic gridlock with the rain turning parking sites into quagmires and fans getting backed up with tedious overnight stays in their cars missing the first night of the live bands.
Tip for next year people : Go a day or two early. It's a small island!
But it's also the time of the season for the summer solstice. And that means the Stonehenge free festival ! That is, it was until 1985.
The Stonehenge festival ran from 1972 and grew out of the ashes of the Windsor Free Festival that was violently policed out of existence.
These were the days when the true festival hippie could, with bed roll slung over shoulder plan a wandering route around Britain picking up as many free festival sites as possible and with luck stay on the road throughout the summer.
The Stonehenge festival had started as a solstice gathering being spread pretty much word of mouth amongst the counter culture of these early 70's days and was a small peaceful gathering. Bands were more than happy to show up and play for free. You could expect to catch Hawkwind, Zorch, maybe Edgar Broughton Band and a host of lesser known groups "playing for the people". It was a cool thing to do then.
By the late 70's the punk-come-new age traveller took the party on attracting up to 65,000 in 1984. Over the years it had been a home for the alternative cultures of The Tepee People, Circus Normal, the Peace Convoy, The Tibetan Ukrainian Mountain Troop and the Wally's ( don't ask.. they just liked to call everyone and themselves Wally. The cry of "Wally" had been first heard in 1970 at the Isle Of Wight Festival).
By 1985 political interference had legislated against unorganised large gatherings and the end had come for Stonehenge.
The Free Festival was no more.
The last word should be with Graham Cole, drummer in the Hertfordshire band Wandering Spirit who played twice in the warm sunshine of the 1975 Stonehenge Festival.
"One memory I have was as we arrived on the Friday evening the sound of Time Of The Season by The Zombies was blaring out and it seemed so right......A time before this festival got bigger with more police hassles and the vibe changed."
Here it is then. Time Of The Season - The Zombies (1968).
