The Stonehenge Rampage

THE STONEHENGE RAMPAGE

That summer of 1980, in an entirely different corner of society another smaller yet far more grievous riot of sorts took place, this time out on the Wiltshire plains at the annual Stonehenge Free Festival.

Unbeknownst to their burgeoning audience at that time, members of Crass had been seminal to the setting up of the first Stonehenge festival in 1974. From it beginning as a gathering of a few hundred hippies in those early days, it had steadily grown and developed into an absolutely unique cultural phenomenon that by 1980 was attracting thousands. The Stonehenge festival was an example of freedom in the raw where practically anything was allowed due to the total lack of police presence. Standing like a post-apocalyptic shanty town where the music was free (courtesy of Hawkwind et al), the food was cheap or even free (courtesy of the Hari Krishnas), and the drugs were in abundance; it was a glimpse into how anarchy might - or might not - work.

Crass had played at the festival the previous year but on returning that following summer, due to their rising popularity they had attracted a large number of Punk Rockers to the site. Though Punk had moved on somewhat from the days of Sex Pistols-type outrage, to some, Punk still represented a challenge that was difficult to come to grips with. Teddy Boys, of course, were famously known for their dislike of Punk but unexpectedly there seemed to be certain bikers who also shared that disdain.

From its outset, Stonehenge was a predominantly hippy affair but as it grew so did the composition of its attendees, pulling in all kinds of people from different sections of society including straight-dressed kids from council estates (taking full advantage of the drugs sold openly there) and chapters of bikers (taking full advantage of the drugs also, of course). The council estate kids were fine and treated the festival like a narco Butlins so were simply there for a good time (and all the rest was propaganda) but a lot of the bikers seemed to have something to prove. Arriving on site usually in convoys, they would park up in circles and claim areas of the site as their own. Which was fine - anything that made them happy. Some, however, would claim the whole festival as their own and it was these who didn't take too kindly to what they saw that year as a Punk invasion.

Throwing bottles at Punk band The Epileptics was the first sign of their displeasure, which then quickly escalated to them seeking out and attacking any Punk Rocker they could find. The ensuing violence was brutal and frightening.

'Bikers Riot at Stonehenge' read the headline in the following week's NME though in truth it was more of a mindless rampage. The incident, however, convinced Crass to decide never to play Stonehenge or any other free festival again, which was really unfortunate. Nevertheless, by Crass being there at all a chain reaction had started and the floodgates were now opened. The budding Anarcho Punk culture had met face-to-face with free festival culture - causing a mutation in both.

The year 1976 and the advent of Punk is often cited as Year Zero. For some, this is undoubtedly the case but at the same time, Punk - and in particular the Sex Pistols - opened up the past and shone a light upon a veritable treasure trove of reference points and influences: The New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, the MC5, Captain Beefheart, Dr Feelgood, The Doors, The Who, Alice Cooper, the Situationists, King Mob, nihilism, anarchy, the mythology of the Berlin Wall and the Chelsea Hotel, Paris '68, Dickensian London, amphetamines... and heroin.

Likewise, Crass also illuminated a plethora of references, ideas, influences and possibilities; many intentionally but others not so: John Lennon, Walt Whitman, RD Laing, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Sartre, Arthur Rimbaud, Baudellaire, George Orwell, Richard Hamilton, John Heartfield, Wilfred Owen, anarchism, pacifism, feminism, atheism, existentialism, pop art, collage, Dada, graffiti, CND, black clothes, squatting, free festivals, hashish... and LSD.

All links in a chain. All important stepping stones to an ultimate yet unknown destination.

Worlds were colliding - be they political, social or cultural - causing metamorphosis, unification, friction and (as at Stonehenge) sometimes outright conflict.

It was the dawn of a new decade and as events unfurled in St Paul's in Bristol and at the Stonehenge Free Festival, less significantly (or perhaps more so?) the music charts were being assailed by such classic bands as The Jam, Dexy's Midnight Runners, and The Specials. It was Crass, however, who were arguably becoming the most important band in Britain due not only to their own records but also to the records they were releasing by other artists on their label...