Let's go to Glasto again

Great excitement a couple of months ago in the Holden household - well half of it anyway - when it was announced that Roy Harper would be headlining the Acoustic stage at Glastonbury on Sunday 29 June, a few weeks after his 84th birthday.

There had been no signs of Roy playing live since his last tour in 2019 (and before that it was 2016 and then 2013). Most Harper fans had begun to suspect he had, this time, retired from live performance for good. His blog and facebook posts had become very rare and totally silent on the issues of recording and performance. Inevitably I began to wonder if time and age had taken too much toll.

Harper originally retired from playing live more than 15 years ago but was persuaded back into performance by the American singer Joanna Newsom who, like Kate Bush and several others, attributes her presence in the business to being inspired by him. We saw Roy support Joanna in 2010 and, while he played well, his voice seemed a bit frail. But the tour prompted a resurrection. More gigs, a new album Man and Myth - which I'd put in the top half of his career bounty of more than 20 albums - then a tour (when he sang strongly and well) and a burst of recognition greater than he received in most of his career which will now go into a seventh decade. That recognition included a Lifetime Achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 folk awards, a slew of interviews in daily newspapers and music mags, several appearances on TV including BBC Breakfast and a guest spot on Test Match Special playing his 1975 classic When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease.

Disastrously for Roy's Indian Summer period (and quite possibly prompted by the extensive publicity) this was all soon followed by a historical sexual abuse allegation which put everything on hold. Roy's had a knack of upsetting a lot of people over the years. He was persona non grata for 3 years with the media until the case against him, which always sounded tenuous in the extreme, collapsed. 

So it was a relief to see him playing again in 2016 and 2019. And playing without blemish, apart from one song where he caused his backing "orchestra" of a string quartet, double bass and second guitarist to chuckle when he said, after the applause had died down, "you know I always thought that song had four verses, but I found it only needed three". 

Of course people can be forgetful at any age and all musicians make mistakes which they either have to cover or recover from. When we saw Harper in 2013 he was backed by another of his young American acolytes, Jonathan Wilson. Harper had gone to Los Angeles where Wilson produced four of the seven tracks on the album and then they toured together, Wilson playing his own set and then backing his mentor on second guitar and various percussion. I have a vivid memory of two things from that gig. The first is that Wilson took to the stage barefoot, which would always seem odd to someone like me who gets cold hands and feet almost year round - but in Manchester in late October? The second was how gently and with great respect Wilson supported Harper's performance, most notably during Twelve Hours of Sunset which has featured in Harper's stage set since 1974. At a conservative estimate Harper must have played this song to an audience several thousand times. With rehearsals that number must be into five figures. But we saw quite clearly from our front row seats a look of panic in Harper's eyes part way through the song as he reached a transition from verse to chorus: it was clear as he looked up towards Wilson that he couldn't remember the next chord sequence. Fortunately the previous chord is held on sustain anyway and Wilson mimed the next four fret positions which introduce the chorus. Harper's head snapped back round to the front and he went straight into the main motif in the song with such a slight delay that it was probably noticed by few present and certainly no-one beyond the first few rows of seats. These are the moments that I think make watching a live performance so special. But I'm hoping Roy doesn't have any of those heart in mouth  moments at Glastonbury. I'm expecting he will have his son Nick filling the second guitar role this weekend. Nick, a performer and recording artist in his own right of long standing, has made 15 albums of his own. And nobody other than Roy knows the songs better as Nick grew up hearing them. The photo below shows Nick on stage with his dad at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 1967

But there is another, tantalising prospect. Harper's big buddy since the late 1960s might be a special guest - Jimmy Page. We can but hope.

Having played there several times before Harper is a link to an earlier, simpler, less commercial and, yes, more "hippy" Glastonbury, though Harper would reject the hippy label just as much as he would the folk label.  He was on the Main stage in 1970, in 1981 on the newly built Pyramid stage, again on the Pyramid in 1982 and, most recently, the Acoustic Stage in 1990. Indeed he headlined in 1982 and there's a story behind that. 

In 1981 Ginger Baker's band headlined on the Friday, with Roy on next to last. There are many accounts on the internet of what happened that night, succinctly summarised by the BBC as follows:

In a moment that certainly trumps Lee Nelson's stage invasion during Kanye West's set, Baker caused an almighty ruckus by setting up his equipment while the previous act, folk-rocker Roy Harper, was still playing. Understandably miffed, Harper confronted him and the two ended up scrapping on-stage. According to an eyewitness account on UK Rock Festivals, the crowd then pelted Baker with bottles during his set, with one hitting him square on the forehead. Some claim that Baker, hardman that he is, simply carried on drumming.

Apparently Michael Eavis felt so bad about what had happened that Harper was immediately invited back as a headliner the following year.

When I told Mrs H about the Glastonbury announcement she reminded me that we "don't do festivals". I said that was irrelevant, which worried her - but then clarified that all the tickets, costing several hundred pounds each, are sold long before the line up is announced. On TV then? Harper fans wait to see whether any of his show will be broadcast: the Beeb doesn't routinely broadcast from the Acoustic stage (there are ten stages at Glastonbury these days). Given Harper's status as one of the few significant performers from the 1960s still around I expect BBC will at least show a snippet (he's due on stage from 9.30 to 10.30pm).

But, on the back of the Glastonbury announcement, a "Final tour part 2" was revealed, comprising 3 gigs in Manchester, London and Birmingham in September. Yes, of course we're going, though in Mrs H's case she says only to keep me company driving back afterwards. But she has always enjoyed Roy's Me and My Woman which I think he has played on most of the occasions I've seen him - around a dozen, since 1971. The song starts with (for me) a classic couplet:

I never know what kind of day it is

On my battlefield of ideals

That's certainly a possible for the Glastonbury set, but if Jimmy Page is with him, they'll play the equally classic song from the very same album as Me and My Woman, Roy's withering take on Christianity and Catholicism in particular, The Same Old Rock.  Oh please....

You can take a listen here. The song is a good, but far from the only, exemplification of one critic's categorisation of Harper as "epic, progressive acoustic - a category of one". I expect mainly shorter songs on Sunday, but we don't have long to wait and, hopefully, see and hear.

PS There's a brilliant book published by Penguin on the history of the Abbey Road studios by music author David Hepworth. After 11 chapters on EMI, the Abbey road building and it's uniformed commissionaires, the producers who wore suits but sports jackets at the weekends, the in house development of equipment and recording techniques, the many famous artists of all types from classical to stars like Noel Coward and Gracie Fields to comedy artists like Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers and of course pop musicians including the Beatles, I came to the chapter where EMI, speculated by creating the Harvest label. They gave studio time and resources to a gamut of obscure artists from the college scene like Edgar Broughton and the Third Ear Band. Amongst them was Roy Harper and I was delighted to find this unexpected excerpt:

...by common consent the zenith of Harper's entire career as a recording artist, also took place in Studio One. Harper had a passion for cricket, one he shared with Ken Townsend (a long serving EMI producer) and the members of Pink Floyd. This had led him to write a song about the strange vibrations which thoughts of the game set off in the English breast. It was decided, with more thought for history than accountancy, that what would set this song off a treat was a brass band. Thus no less august a body than the entire Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band was brought down from south Yorkshire and set up in Studio One, where they performed under the baton of David Bedford. The resulting record, When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease, is one of the dozen greatest records ever made at Abbey Road.

Wow. Hepworth's rationale for that comment is that, while the sound of that brass band could have been attempted by some local session musicians or, in another era, digitally dubbed in, it just wouldn't have the same emotional effect. The song endures in the imagination because one can "close our eyes and imagine the performance taking place", "we knew it had been delivered by a bunch of burly men in their cardigans, men who sprang from the same soil as the song". He called it "proof of the genius of the studio system".

PPS I feel able to call my hero by his first name having met him and spoken one to one for several minutes. Roy being Roy he made as much eye contact with Mrs H standing silently beside me. She said she immediately understood why his compendium of lyrics, The Passions of Great Fortune, is littered with photos of his many lovers (and those were the ones who were happy to be in print...) But he's settled down a bit since the 1990s and I've also met his lovely wife Tracey, who sends out email and facebook updates and deals with all the mail orders personally, on two occasions.

The title of this piece comes from a song called Glasto on Roy's penultimate (as yet) album The Green Man released in 2000:

It has some classically whimsical Harper lyrics:

Michael is running the party (actually his daughter does now of course)/Helping us all pay the rent/So that Billy the kid/Can spend a few quid/Being out of his tree in a tent

 and

And watching the bare naked protest/Is the giggly teengirl from Tring/She can't understand/How a man could have planned/To protest the odd shape of his thing

 with the chorus

Maybe there'll be summer/Maybe It won't rain/Maybe it don't matter/Oh let's go to Glasto again

12 artists you never knew headlined Glastonbury, BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/f4764a16-9f5f-4405-bed0-6d9d0651e4cf

Farewell to the Grand Old Lady

Quite a few words to start with in this post, but - to give you some incentive - later on it's nearly all pictures.

In 1999, The Independent newspaper journalist David Conn gave Goodison Park the nickname "The Grand Old Lady". Over the last decade I've used that phrase many times to excuse the obstructed views, the limited (though generally adequate) refreshment and toilet facilities and the general condition of the stadium, which looked a throwback at best and not like a "Premier League" ground. How are the mighty fallen, given that when I first went in 1963 it was commonly considered the best club ground in the country - and by some distance. In conversation I've often described the ground as "an ancient and historically significant monument". And all that was before the club finally got its act together on moving home.

Many people picked up on the "old lady" moniker. But if it is a lady it's not a very polite one and a bit uncouth. Nevertheless the press coverage of Everton's last match at Goodison Park, at least for the Everton team as we've always knew it, i.e. the men's team, was not only extensive but hugely positive. I heard several lengthy features on Goodison on Radio 5 Live over the weeks running up to the last match there. The newspapers gave huge numbers of column inches to many individuals who wrote sentimental and loving pieces about their experiences there with their families. Many football journalists wrote about how it was one of the best, if not the best, football stadium at least for atmosphere. Martin Samuel wrote* about how, after his first visit there in 1985, he told everyone it was the best ground in the country. "I'd still argue" he wrote "on that night, it was". 

Samuel's first match at Goodison just happened to be one of the most famous ever at the ground, the European Cup Winners Cup semi-final 2nd leg when Everton beat Bayern Munich 3-1. I was there and it was a fantastic occasion, though for atmosphere I can think of two matches at least, victories against Liverpool in the 60s and 80s, that felt even more intense, but maybe that was just to to me.

A number of Premier League managers said it was the most hostile stadium for an away team to visit, though I've often experienced it being rather meek. It needs something to kick start the crowd, but when they get going...   Arsenal manager and former Everton player Mikel Arteta perhaps summed it up best when he said after his last visit there in early April:

"If you want to describe to somebody from abroad what the Premier League looks like, go to Goodison Park and experience it." A bit late even then, Mikel, getting tickets for those last few games was all bar impossible, with some changing hands for thousands of pounds. But it was good advice.

I went to an Everton Legends event the evening before the last match. It was a really good night, but Peter Reid said one thing that stuck with me - in recent years it's the fans who have kept Everton in the Premier League. I'd certainly agree with that in season 2021-22, when it looked for all the world that they were sliding meekly to relegation with 3 months of the season to go. The fans started greeting the team buses with an enormous street party. I went to the first match where this was planned and saw the plumes of blue smoke from flares from a mile away as I exited the Mersey Tunnel at the Liverpool end. When I got to Goodison Road it was littered everywhere with beer cans and bottles, discarded flares and ticker tape. The noise outside the reception area, which would be easily audible to both teams, was enormous. Many of the fans looked like smurfs with blue paint from the flares. Everton recorded several vital home wins leading up to the critical 3-2 win over Crystal Palce (from 2-0 down) and I believe Reid is right - that team had lost belief and the fans made the difference.

Everton announced shortly before the last (men's) home match that Goodison would be retained as the home for Everton women's team. Some felt that this took the edge off the last match - it wasn't actually the last match anymore - but given the expansion of interest in women's football and the fact that Everton women have outgrown their home in nearby Walton Hall Park (capacity not much more than 2,000) the decision was perhaps forseeable, though I do wonder about maintenance and reconfiguration costs. Perhaps Everton's owners were influenced by Chelsea FC selling their women's team to their owners for "considerably more than £150 million". One of the reasons the Premier League hasn't apparently made much of that latest bout of financial chicanery by Chelsea is that several other clubs may see it as a future "get out of jail" card for themselves.

It is a fitting home for the ladies team as Goodison Park held the record for attendance at a women's match anywhere in the world for 99 years: 53,000 saw Dick, Kerr Ladies beat St Helens Ladies 4-0 on 27 December 1920, just before the FA banned women's football in England. And at least I'll still be able to do that behind the scenes stadium visit that I've been meaning to get round to.

Talking of financial chicanery, Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters won what one fan called the "Brass Neck of Eternity Award" by showing his face at the game. He ran a gauntlet of "heckles" according to the media as he made his way to the main reception on Goodison Road. I suspect heckles is a very polite way of saying vitriolic abuse, but at least it was no worse than that. There's no hiding place in those narrow streets around the stadium: this photo of the scene in Goodison Road before the kick off. The photo comes from the Times:

There's more on the Everton fans' problem with Masters and the Premier League in the PS below. 

On a more positive note the post match show went very well and was clearly emotional for all Evertonians. Whoever chose the ending - John Lennon's In My Life  followed by a Last Post style rendition of the Z Cars theme, used to greet the team onto the pitch since the 1960s, nailed it. Bill Kenwright, with all his background in theatre, couldn't have done better. It was touching that the scouse singer was either overcome by emotion, or maybe just couldn't sing, but the choice of John Lennon's  In My Life was very apposite, the lyrics capturing how many were feeling.

However, my last match at Goodison was the penultimate fixture a fortnight earlier. A very strange and bittersweet experience. Here are some pictures from that match and some other matches I went to in the last season at Goodison Park.

Having parked in Kirkdale a good walk away from the ground I soon past one of my most frequent stopping points en route to the ground in recent years. This flashy looking establishment is the Medlock Hotel:

I didn't call in on this occasion as I'd been in there very recently and the journey had been quite quick so I wasn't in need of the loo. However it does have behind the bar one of the most apposite signs I've ever seen in a pub:

Funnily enough I've never asked how much they charge for rooms at the Medlock Hotel.... I pressed on and got some refreshment in another favourite haunt, the Barlow Arms, about 400 yards away from the ground:

This pub was given Mrs H's seal of approval on her last visit to Goodison (and her first for 30 years) in September on account of the ladies loo being "quite nice, clean and with plenty of soap and handtowels". It has my seal of approval because, unlike some of the pubs near the ground, it still serves draft bitter as well as the now obligatory huge range of lagers. But also because the bar has a remarkable and beautiful backdrop:

Note the "cash only sign": in the stadium it's card only even for a cuppa. As this was a 3 o clock kick off and I 'd parked up by 1230 it was time to get lunch from my regular if dodgy looking Chinese chippy:

To be fair I mainly pick it because the ones right by the ground get very busy and I don't like standing in a queue tens of yards long, whereas here I've rarely been in a queue of more than 4. On Mrs H's visit she surprised me by declaring it to be "cute" (and yes, she did get some chips). For me it was the usual sausage, chips and curry sauce which was absolutely standard and therefore just to my taste:

I couldn't help reflecting that, sadly, with the ground relocation some of these businesses will struggle to survive in the future. While consuming my feast as soon as it was cool enough, I walked towards the stadium, soon getting into bigger crowds as I neared Spellow Lane and my next nostalgic call at the "Spellow Brick Road". This was built by the club adjacent to the Everton in the Community hub and the successful free school it runs. Fans could buy the commemorative bricks laid in the curving pathway around 5 years ago:

As it's probably fifty to a hundred yards long the first time I went to find the brick my son got for us I couldn't find it, though in my defence it was dark and I didn't have much time on that occasion. But once I found it and an associated landmark it 's easy to spot, if already looking a bit faded:

"Phil and Dave Holden COYB" (Come On You Blues, of course).  Everton have built a far more ambitious walkway by the new stadium, the Everton Way, with 36,000 personalised stones. Yes, I've bought one. Imaginatively it says "Dave and Phil Holden COYB". It should actually be easier to find as they are embedding stones to commemorate Everton "legends" at regular intervals so you just need to know which legends your stone is between. Hopefully.

Another hundred yards and Goodison Road and the ground came into view, always a great sight on match days - a bit flat when the streets are deserted:

  

Just a bit further on you come to the Everton shop, built in the style of the Everton lock up (or Prince Rupert's Tower) landmark in Everton:

This shop is called Everton One, the shop in the Liverpool One shopping centre being known as Everton Two. So it's address is, of course, Everton Two, Liverpool One. 

I didn't go in the shop this time as  the chips and curry had left me needing a liquid top up so I called in a bar at the top of Spellow Lane, near Dixie Dean's statue, that has been there for many years but I don't recall visiting before:

The time it took to get served reminded me why I prefer to call at the Medlock, the Barlow Arms or the  Saddle Inn on the other side of Walton Road. Or the Thomas Frost or the Brick on Walton Road, all better bets. Then on through the growing throng up Goodison Road past the main stand:

and the "Evertonian's pub" the Winslow, right opposite the main stand:

I have been in the Winslow but only once that I can recall and then only to tick it off as it were as, of course, on match days it's chocker. Even the Spellow, up Goodison Road past the ground, isn't quite as manic:

I popped along to have a look for old times sake as this has been the most common meeting point with friends over the years, though I fell out with them a bit a year or so ago as now the only bitter is canned Boddingtons (I tend to find the lagers far too cold, especially in winter).  So it was time to go past the statue by St Luke's Church of Everton's Holy Trinity:

 

This of course is Alan Ball (man of the match in the 1966 World Cup Final), Howard Kendall and Colin Harvey from the 1970 championship winning team. Which was the last time I had a season ticket - but next year...

And along Gwladys Street with the street vendor on the corner

A great uncle (or maybe great great uncle) of mine lived in Gwladys Street but I never thought to ask my father if he knew whether the house was in the row of terraced houses still standing off to the left in this picture, or those that were demolished in 1938 to enable the Gwladys Street end to be enlarged, making the ground entirely two tier with seats on the top deck and terraces below all the way round

And then round into Bullens Road where I was going in:

It's very tight in there under the Lower Bullens Road stand but, remarkably, both here and in Gwladys Street I could nearly always stand up when the ref blew for half time, navigate the queues for the loo and the half time cup of tea and get back just in time for the 2nd half.

I hope the new stadium is as well designed, haha. I had the use of my buddy's season ticket on this occasion - luckily as getting a ticket through the official members scheme would have been nigh on impossible (my relatives all failed). In the paddock and close to the halfway line it had one of the best views in Goodison Park and not just because there are no pillars in the way:

Close to the pitch but not too low and far enough back to be under the roof when it rains! (I didn't take the equivalent shot this time so this photo is actually from the game against Manchester City in February - you can see City's Bernardo Silva nearest the camera who impressed me for one moment of superb skill but also for having one of the smallest pairs of feet I've seen on a men's football pitch). Well, I did take an equivalent photo, as the teams were coming on the pitch. But as Everton made quite a song and dance about this penultimate match as well as the last one, there were banners in the way so at that point you couldn't see a thing:

Though that is still a better view than some of them I've had over the years. Earlier this season the "letterbox" view from the Lower Bullens:

And here a very typicl Goodison view. This was from the corner of Upper Gwladys Street stand for a match in 2023:

I know that pillar is blocking out one of the goals but you can bob either way and that is far more exhausting if the pillar is across the centre of the pitch, so I counted that seat as not too bad!

This time the match itself was an odd affair - the atmosphere was understandably a bit strange with nothing at stake. It was almost - but not quite - the last match and a lot of spectators seemed quietly reflective rathert than overtly emotional. Everton took a 2-0 lead against relegated Ipswich and an easy win seemed likely but Ipswich scored a "worldie" to make it 2-1 before half time and got a second half equaliser. But the day wasn't really about the football. So I took some photos of the famous Archibald Leitch architecture:

Got a long suffering steward to take my picture by the pitch (the nearest I've got to going on it) - a few others had asked already but after me a long queue had formed. And yes I am wearing a vintage 1990s replica shirt, bought recently for me by my son (the son who's a red, like his mother):

A last picture from the corner of the Lower Bullens where I used to sit regularly with my two then quite young sons in the early 90s (now that was a good view when we could bag one of those):

And, after getting hurried along by a steward keen to get home, out of the ground with a last look at that amazingly tight area under the Lower Bullens Road stand:

And away from Goodison Road with a last look back from Walton Road down a side street:

Yes, that's The Brick, but I didn't go in it, it was time to drive home. But, on a whim, via the Dock Road and a glimpse of the new stadium. Which looks, as one scouser who went to one of the test events there said "like a f**king spaceship has landed".

Beam me up Scotty. It's time for a new era, new episodes, some new characters and, hopefully, plenty of drama. After a strange, happy/bittersweet/sad kind of day, I can't wait. 

P.S. The Everton fans have been booing the Premier League anthem since the points deductions and that was no different at the last game. I'm glad Masters was there to hear it. After all, if you don't know why the Everton fans sing "Premier League, corrupt as f*ck" (to the tune of Tom Hark if you were wondering) then consider this - why is the Manchester City case still outstanding? I know it's complex but Pep Guardiola  expected the result within one month back in February. Then it was "before the end of the season".That has come and gone and there is a deafening silence.  Now I've always thought that most of the charges against City are unproveable, for example off book payments to Roberto Mancini when he was manager. If the Inland Revenue isn't interested I don't see how the Premier League can prove that one. However, City were found guilty by UEFA on several charges which it was eventually decided were time barred. Those same charges are on the Premier League's rap sheet and the Premier League has no time bar so those, for me, are a slam dunk case of guilty. Though UEFA normally levy a financial sanction - and a modest one at that - so City would certainly appeal any other form of penalty.

 I suspect the Premier League want to get an agreed result, with some guilty charges which City won't contest, so the case doesn't rumble on indefinitely, consuming huge legal fees (which don't seem to count for "fair play" calculations, else City couldn't threaten to litigate till hell freezes over). I also suspect that City aren't playing ball and won't accept any punishment without contesting it. Either way, when City eventually escape with a penalty not much more than Everton's 8 point deduction - or even a small multiple of it - you might agree with the Gwladys Street's verdict about how corrupt the Premier League is.

Everything possible at the new place, but it will never be Goodison, by Martin Samuel, Sunday Times 18 May 2025