DAVID BOWIE AT THE BECKENHAM FREE FESTIVAL
The Art Lab – “I run an arts lab which is my chief occupation. It’s in Beckenham and I think it’s the best in the country. There isn’t one pseud involved. All the people are real – like labourers or bank clerks. It started out as a folk club, arts labs generally have such a bad reputation as pseud places. “There’s a lot of talent in the green belt and there is a load of tripe in Drury Lane. I think the arts lab movement is extremely important and should take over from the youth club concept as a social service. “The people who come are completely pacifist and we get a lot of cooperation from the police in our area. They are more than helpful. “Respect breeds respect.
We’ve got a few greasers who come and a few skinheads who are just as enthusiastic. “We started our lab a few months ago with poets and artists who just came along. It’s got bigger and bigger and now we have our own light show and sculptures, et cetera. And I never knew there were so many sitar players in Beckenham”….. David Bowie, September 1969.
Bowie in Haddon Hall. Photo: David Bebbington.
The Three Tuns
This is the scene of the Beckenham Free Festival as it is today. Nothing has changed, you can see the dome shaped building in the background. This photo was taken from where I was sitting on the day of the concert. I was with Des Taylor, Tony Browning, Roger Banks, Paul Erser and a few others. There were a group of skinheads on one side of the grass and another group of bikers on the other, there was no trouble at all.
It could be there was a mod/skinhead night at the Three Tuns on a Friday and Saturday night run by Mike Wiltshire and on Sundays it was Bowie’s group that were in. Many thanks to Keith Christmas, David Baird, Bridget St John, Al Lovelock, Rob Jackson, Bill Liesegang, Mary Finnigan, and Dave Bebbington for their help in making these pages possible. If you were at the festival or a performer and you have some information or photographs that you would like to share, please get in touch
Beckenham Free Festival September 15th 2013…
This festival will be homage to the Free Festival, organised by David Bowie & the Beckenham Arts Lab, which was held at Croydon Road Recreational Ground in Beckenham on 16 August 1969.
The aim of the festival is to raise funds to save the Bandstand on which David Bowie has performed at the Free Festival in 1969. This is no ordinary bandstand! This Late Victorian Cast Iron Bandstand has historic and sentimental value and is presently in a desperate need of restoration.
Friends of the ParkThe Friends of Croydon Road Recreation Ground, Beckenham organized the ‘Memory of a Free Festival’ musical festival on 15th September 2013
memoryofafreefestival2013@gmail.com
Friends of Croydon Road Recreation Ground
Short video of the days events
The Friends of Croydon Road Recreation Ground, Beckenham
Please click here Poster for poster of the Festival.
Unpublished Images of Haddon Hall can be found in the B, Junction – Southend Rd album, then images 24, 25 and 26. Haddon Hall
25 responses
My band, Oswald K Aldehyde (I think we were called at the time) played at the Bandstand Gig at the original festival in 1969, but I missed the gig. Apparently at some point the park keeper got into a fight with our drummer (I would love to have seen that). We already knew Bowie as my brother and I were pretty regular attenders at the Sunday night gigs in the Three Tuns. The first couple of times we went it was a folk club. Then DB and pals arrived and took over. Suddenly the space was more flamboyant with posters and those swirly oil and water projections that were big at the time.
David himself was going through an artistic transformation. The first time he turned up he just had his guitar, sat on a stool and played folk tunes. Then we had some mime, and a few weeks later he brought his Rolf Harris Stylophone and played Major Tom. Around that time I met him on Beckenham Junction Station (near Foxgrove Rd where he lived, and he spent about an hour telling me about his plans for creating a local Artslab, based on the model that had been created in Dury Lane, London. A passionate young man!
I was just 16 and went along to see The Strawbs since I wasn’t a fan of Bowie at the time. Derrr!
Dave mentions that everyone went for a Curry afterwards. For historical reasons does anyone know which curry house they went to? At that time there were 2 in Beckenham, one was The Bengal Cuisine In the High Street a couple of doors away from the Bricklayers Arms. The other was The Curry Cottage in Kelsey Park Lane over the road from The Greyhound pub in the High St. Curry Cottage is still there today.
I was there also. I had rented a candy floss machine and spent the day selling candy floss the proceeds going to the arts lab fund. We used to meet with David in the Tuns to discuss arrangements. David’s dad had left him a Rover P4 but as he hadn’t passed his test my mate sat with him as qualified driver. He swapped the Rover for a Fiat 500 dear dead days!!!
Nice pic of DB in Croydon Road Rec. I wonder if the photographer knows The National Portrait Gallery has a copy of it in its collection!
Yes I thought that was good, It was such a good time! Do you think they will hold another one like in 2013?
Lovely memories David. I was the manager of Gas Works. David Bowie got to know of us when we provided the improvised music for a one-man mime and dance show at the Drury Lane Arts Lab by The Great Orlando (Lindsey Kemp’s partner). Bowie then invited Gas Works to play at the Beckenham Arts Lab several times and they also played at the Free Festival. When Starman became a hit in America we were invited to the big house for a party to welcome David home from the States. He travelled home by theTrans Siberian Railway. He was scared of flying. We met Tony Visconti at the party and when Tony got his first independent deal to make records his first two artists were Sparks and Gas Works. There’s an appreciative and truthful paragraph about his involvement with Gas Works in his recent auto-biography.
Hi Bob.
Wow, good to see your post ! I asked Tony V a little while back whether he know of the whereabouts of John & Mick. Said he hadn’t heard of them for some while. A bit of history – Tony Kingsbury and I were at the 1969 Beckenham gig. We ran folk clubs and concerts around East London ( Leyton, Walthamstow ) and West Essex ( Loughton, Epping) we had Gas Works many times on at our clubs. I seem to remember in those hazy days coming with my band ( Annick and John. / collectively Thyme) down to visit yourself and the guys at your house in ( Sth ?) London. I remember having a good old reminisce plus a game of tennis!!
Fab days. We’re still running clubs on an ad hoc basis. Be good to hear from you Bob.
Terry.
Hi Bob. Just read the bit in Tony V’s autobiography.
It was my club at the William IV in Leyton that he saw and signed Gas Works !!
It’s was awesome!
It was great festival!
Interesting and nice story and well appreciated about a great person, such an icon and it seems even more now. So sad of his death – tragic! Will be at the Beckenham Festival on 13th August to celebrate and be part of this funding excercise. Best regards RS 🙂
Thank you for your article about David Bowie.I like to listen his music, especially, his albom “Reality”. And I very sad, that I can’t listen David Bowie’s alive music again.
Comus played here too! I woz there 🙂 x
It was very moving visiting that bandstand today with my two young boys and seeing the tributes. I grew up in Beckenham and was 11 in 1972 when the fame really hit. I did have the good fortune that year to see Mick Ronson in Beckenham Junction car-park wearing a shiny metallic jumpsuit and stack boots. I followed him a bit, pushing my bike, as he headed up the road to Haddon Hall but bottled it…
Clem,
Contact me via the site http://www.beckenhamhistory.co.uk/contact-beckenham-history
Hi I also used to play sitar at the Arts lab in the Three Tuns on a Sunday evening. Bowie used ask me to come down and do a spot. I used to live just along the road from there. It was quite a scene in those days and full of new stuff.
Hi Clem,
I tried tracking you down when I was putting these pages together. If you have anything that you would like to contribute contact me via the site.
Admin
I played sitar at that gig. Bowie asked me after I got back from India.
I went to Beckenham Free Festival but got there late and missed Bowies’s set. Mind you, I did see him play the Three Tuns on several occasions.
I have great memories of the music of this era, and of various festivals. I saw the Blind Faith and Stones Hyde Park shows that year (1969), and also went to the National Jazz and Blues Festival at Plumpton in East Sussex (The Who, Floyd etc).
I could have sworn Ravi Shankar also played
Many of these acts are still performing after all those years. It was good to see Bill Leisagang of Appendix Part One perform at this years festival. Bowie himself contributed items for the raffle.
Yes Bowie did go to Ravenswood. It was called Bromley Tech at that time.
Didn’t Bowie go to Ravenswood School?
Wow, the first time I have ever seen anything on the BFF. I was at the original festival in 1969 and this brings it all back. I dont think I remember The Strawbs all the same.