by Ian Carroll
Whitesnake were in the special guest spot and they were becoming bigger with each release. They had recently brought out the ‘Come an’ Get It’ album, hitting the UK album charts and spawning the singles ‘Don't Break My Heart Again’ and ‘Would I Lie To You’.
Elsewhere on the bill Blue Oyster Cult weren’t having a good day and as Joe Bouchard put it ‘it was probably the worst show in BOC history’; drummer fired in the morning, poor sound and Eric Bloom going crazy on his plaque (read on for his account of the day).
Slade played before BOC with toilet rolls in large quantities being thrown into the crowd from the stage and vice versa. Noddy and the boys were at the time having a ‘second wind’ due to their successful slot at Reading Festival the previous year, where they were last minute replacements for Ozzy Osbourne. Unfortunately Slade played during the worst rain of what ended up being a somewhat wet day.
Blackfoot played their brand of Southern Rock, with Rickey Medlocke on lead vocals and guitar; Medlocke now plays guitar for the ultimate Southern Rock band Lynyrd Skynryd.
The opening slot this time was given to More, another band that had been added to the ever increasing category of NWOBHM bands, flooding venues up and down the UK at the time. Laurie Mansworth, lead guitarist of More, went on to manage Roadstar who opened the 2006 Monsters Of Rock festival at the Milton Keynes Bowl; Roadstar have now transformed into Heaven’s Basement.
Another year was over, a very wet year and the first to feature the Radio One DJ Tommy Vance as the shows compere; Tommy hosted the Friday night Rock Show on Radio One from 1978 to 1993. ‘TV On The Radio’ was the new voice of Monsters of Rock at Donington for the next 5 years.
“The first one I worked was with AC/DC in 1981, which was as cracker.”
David Coverdale (Whitesnake – Vocals)
“I have very fond memories of Donington. I played in 1981, as I am sure you are aware on the AC/DC bill. I regard the show as the most memorable of festival gigs, even though we were not headliners. On the day we felt very pleased to say the least, the crowd were amazing and I felt that our recent return from the USA had been very personal from the vast UKaudience. Backstage I remember one thing very clearly. Those US people from Blue Oyster Cult deemed that they were “disrespected” on the bill, and took great pleasure smashing their memento mounted posters from Maurice Jones the promoter, Maurice had made one for each member of every band, a nice gesture, I still have mine. The BOC guys said they were making their point, but the only people that saw their act were other members of bands on the bill, of whom all just looked at one another and shrugged, “Americans”…. On stage I personally remember looking out from the stage and realizing the crowd was as big in width as it was in length, and that shook me a little, word has it that 140,000 could have been there that day, well I believe it. I continued a friendship with Rick Medlocke, now in Lynryd Skynyrd, he was in Blackfoot when I first encountered him at a radio station in Nottingham the night before.” Bernie Marsden (Whitesnake – Guitar)
“1981 was BOC's only Donington appearance, part of a larger tour of the UK, having played in Dunstable, W. Runton and London a few days before.
The headliner was AC/DC, an act that had opened for BOC in the USA previously but was now undeniably a bigger band. My memories of this day haven't faded much since it was the same day our drummer was let go, but that's another story.
The drum roadie, Rick Downey, drummed his first 'real' show with us...quite a first gig, in front of 70,000 people. If you're running the often-used photo of me jumping on the festival plaque, that would tell a lot, but not the whole story. Of course, I don't have the same perspective as the AC/DC folks (and by the way, I love AC/DC's music, great band) but as I recall there was some bad blood on their part about some slight when they opened for us somewhere in the USA, not getting all our lighting system or something like that. (It's quite standard practice that the headliner doesn't allow the opening act to have the entire lighting system at their disposal, i.e. when we opened for Alice Cooper ( a legend who should be in the R&R Hall of Fame) we got some lights, not all, but that's quite normal and we didn't cop an attitude about it).
I showed up at Donington and was told straight off that AC/DC's folks weren't allowing us to use a motorcycle on stage (a gag that I often did in those days). Ok...so right away things were stirring. We finally get into our set and after a few songs our soundman uses his talkback from the mixing desk telling us to play ‘Reaper’ immediately and get off...the sound system wasn't working for us and no one could hear a thing we were doing. I immediately thought 'sandbag'...an oft-used term for the headliner's sound people ruining the sound of opening acts, like only using half the system or worse. Hard to believe, but this was stuff that would happen on occasion, not unknown.
It was a tough day...first our drummer was fired in the morning, the attitude I received upon arriving at the grounds, then sounding terrible in front of a festival with 10's of thousands of fans.
To take out my frustration I took the plaque given to all the band members and laid it across a rock and stomped on it. Impetuous youth, perhaps :) Our sound man George Geranios can tell the sound story on his own and his perspective is an important part of the whole festival. Nowadays, I love playing the UK, always did except for that one unfortunate afternoon 26 years ago.”
Eric Bloom (Blue Oyster Cult – Vocals/Guitar/Keyboards)
“It was not the best show for us. There has been much discussion of that concert with fans on the web.
It seems it all started as a tiff we had with AC/DC's management when they denied letting us use of pyro and our motorcycle onstage. With that rumbling behind the scenes and the replacement of our drummer the day before the show, and the sabotaged sound system, it was probably the worst show in BOC history.”
Joe Bouchard (Blue Oyster Cult – Bass)
”In 1981 the Castle Donington music fest featured the bands More, Blackfoot, Slade, Blue Oyster Cult, Whitesnake and AC/DC. The weeks leading up to this appearance had been stressful for the Oysters. Serious internal problems had developed between Albert Bouchard and other band members. They ostensibly revolved around Albert's choice of travelling mate, a young lady who was not his current wife. Band wives in the party were incensed. Tensions were high. Albert and his paramour travelled separately and he was late for two shows. He was summarily fired just before the band was to play the main event on this English run: the massive Donington show. Up to 60,000 are expected to attend. Rick Downey (the lighting designer) had stepped in earlier in the week when Albert was late. He was now tapped to do the show rather than have the band suffer a humiliating cancellation. Given the subsequent events, perhaps a cancellation would have been better. At the time, however, we thought we had found a clever solution for the sudden departure of the band's drummer on the eve of this hugely important English festival.
Bands would come to Donington Park a day before the actual concert. The first day was for sound and equipment checks. Various wrinkles were ironed, stage space was allocated, and input lists were checked and implemented. Ideally all the bands were given a chance to play a song or two through the sound system. Settings for monitors and front-of-house could be logged for recall the next day so that the band techs were not starting “cold.”
The sound contractor for this festival was Malcolm Hill. Hill Audio was a well-known native company based in Hollingbourne, UK in the great Tradition of the Times the company was named after, owned and run by Malcolm Hill. Malcolm and his employees designed and purpose-built a great deal of the equipment in his own shop. Speaker cabinets, power amplifiers and mixing consoles were all custom made and proprietary.
We arrived the day before for our sound check and set up the gear. I ambled out to the mix position and begin to set input levels. I remember trying to reset Joe Bouchard’s bass direct level at the console. For some reason I did not have enough range on the channel's input attenuator. I was surprised when I was informed that the console had only a limi
ted range of adjustment and a call had to be made back to the stage to set another level control there. This, I felt, was a less than ideal system but a lot of Hill's gear was like this. The speakers themselves were a custom one-box design with several new elements. This show was to be the debut of this new design. A wall of these untried boxes flanked each side of the stage.
I remember that despite my unfamiliarity with the console the sound check went OK. The system, though not thrilling, was adequate. There certainly was enough of it up there to make a big noise. However, those who play Donington as support soon learn not to count their decibels before they hatch.
The day arrives. We in the Cult Camp were in a state. It was Rick Downey's first huge show. The audience was quite large, something like 60K. It was, of course, a miserable day of overcast skies and intermittent rain. There was schism regarding our use of the motorcycle gag. AC/DC said we couldn't do the motorcycle thing because they are doing the motorcycle thing. The situation (I learned later) got heated. There were bad vibes in the air.
I, however, must perform my hour or so of work so I trudged dutifully to the front of house position. I don't really remember exactly when I went out. It may have been during Blackfoot’s set. I know I was there for the entirety of Slade’s set. At some point it was evident that something was wrong with the system. Things did not sound good. Things did not sound right. It was not simply ‘operator error.’ In the old days the only real qualification for getting work as a live sound mixer was having the job. Power was (and still is) put in the hands of fools. “Hey, my brother-in-law once owned a stereo. He can be our sound guy!” This was not that. This mix was OK, the system itself sounded wrong.
I remember distinctly, I was standing in back of the mix riser and a fellow emerged from the vast mass of soggy humanity. He was quite upset.
He got my attention and said, “Is Blue Oyster Cult going to sound this bad?”
I said, “I hope not.” Optimism, however, was fleeing.
Toward the end of Slade’s set the sound simply disappeared. Noddy, the lead singer, realized something had gone wrong. I remember that he launched into something obviously quite familiar to the assembled horde and, surprisingly, got most of the audience singing along! Perhaps it was their BIG HIT. I think it was their last song.
It was now the Cult's turn. There was much consternation during the set change. No one seemed to know exactly what the problem with the system was, but we all knew there was a problem. We started the set and there was very little volume available. The sound check settings produced an anaemic squeak from the huge mass of boxes flanking the stage. At some point during the set I looked up to see Malcolm Hill himself crawling around the stage right stack at a great height, ears into boxes. I was told not to try to turn the system up, but the band is inaudible. I try anyway and as I push the main faders up, the system volume decreases even more! Things are upside down, and I would be upside down if I tried that again, so said my minders at the front of house. At one point during this farce I got on the talkback mike between songs and told the band to simply leave the stage. Maybe they could come back out when things were sorted. If they continued without acknowledging the problem then our Donington appearance would be shot. They do not do this and our Donington appearance is shot. The Band finishes with a flourish and…….there is nothing. No response from the audience. Sixty-thousand metal fans stand sullen and silent. It is, as they say, an oil painting out there.
As interesting as the actual performance was, some of the later developments were fascinating. Jake Berry, AC/DC’s production manager took on the role of damage control for the band and Malcolm Hill and apparently told the assembled press that I blew up the system. As you can see from this account,
the system was already in deep trouble well before B.O.C.’s set. Let us consider the essence of the definition of “blow up.” It is to destroy and hence render inoperable. By most accounts the system was fully operational by AC/DC’s set. It was rendered inoperable by a basic power distribution problem, a mobile recording truck had apparently been hooked up improperly and the main system had “dropped a leg.” In laypersons terms, the system was running on inadequate and unbalanced power. This fact did not alter Berry's spin, as senseless at it was on closer inspection. Year's later, when he was with Whitesnake and I was with Anthrax, he bent my then girlfriend's ear at a show in the US, describing me as a bad guy, a representative of Satan, and who knows what else. Tell the same lie often enough and it becomes the truth.
The Band survived this debacle to move on to other debacles in other large venues: dare I say Pasadena Rose Bowl with Journey or shows in Germany with Whitesnake (where our own sound company “sandbagged” us). These “festivals” always bring out the knife sharpeners. I believe the band bled for a long time in the UK due to this. But in the end it isn't useful to discuss who was at “fault.” It was a big, complicated show and something went wrong. There was an error and, unfortunately the audience didn't get all the show they paid for.”
George Geranios (Blue Oyster Cult – Sound Engineer)
“I went as a guest to all the other Doningtons and was at the side of the stage for AC/DC the following year and the fire works at the end were awesome.
By this time we had wrote ‘And The Bands Played On’ all about Donington ’80. I came up with a riff Quinny the chorus and Dobby, Biff AND Gilly did the words; a team effort which proved to be a top twenty hit rising to 12 and we performed our tribute to Donington on Top Of The Pops.”
Graham Oliver (Saxon – Guitar)
“I first went to Castle Donington in 1981, aged 15, and 5 foot nothing, with my older brother.
We somehow got separated while in line at the fried chicken stand between Blackfoot and Slade. The rest of the day I spent alone in a crowd of 30,000 metalheads. My innocence hid the fact they were mostly drunk or stoned. Never once did I feel I didn’t belong or was in any danger. I was ok; I still had enough sandwiches and pop to last me.
Not that I could see, but soon there would be, live onstage, 2 of the bands which had turned my life around and given it meaning, Whitesnake and AC/DC. All the songs I knew word for word and would scream the lyrics without seemingly being heard over the deafening PA.
Fireworks over, I turned and headed for the Goodyear Tyre.
Near the top of the hill I saw the familiar patched combat jacket of my older brother. I ran up to him.
"What did you think?"
"Fucking amazing!"
Floyd London (The Almighty – Bass)
“My first Donington experience was when I was a teenager in ’81 when it was AC/DC and Whitesnake.
Whitesnake were on their ‘Come and Get It’ album and it was awesome and all the bands that played were excellent. I just remember it so well and it was one of my first festival experiences and I was just hooked.”
Pete Spiby (Black Spiders – Vocals / Guitar)
“Monsters Of Rock was the highlight of our year. We worked it for 11 years right through the glory days of Whitesnake, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, ZZ Top, Kiss and Ozzy. All the heavy metal bands that meant anything played Donington...the names are legendary now – Guns N Roses, Metallica, Bon Jovi, David Lee Roth, Dio, Aerosmith, Uriah Heep, Anvil, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Wasp... too many to recount. Donington was fun. It was always the same team meeting up at the Priesthouse Hotel under the watchful eye of Maurice Jones. There was a great feeling of camaraderie, we understood the job in hand and even if we never had time to chat on the day, a snatched encounter in catering at most, we’d always have a drink or three back at the hotel later and regale our highlights. I remember one memorable festival where Maurice had had some bad news and wanted to talk, I sat up till 4am just listening, the least I could do for an old friend.” Judy Totton (Monsters Of Rock PR)
“Just 12 months before people were saying it was over for AC/DC after the death of their vocalist Bon Scott but the ‘Back In Black’ album catapulted AC/DC to worthy headline status. For sheer energy a
nd balls to the wall simple effective rock ’n ‘roll they are hard to beat.
One of the surprises on the day was Slade. They were really entertaining and went down a storm.”
The Bailey Brothers (Mick & Dez Donington Comperes)
“After a few initial rumours about who was to headline the second festival (Rush, Kiss, Black Sabbath), it was announced that AC/DC would be the main band with Whitesnake as special guests.
Our entourage more than doubled this year (5 in 1980 to 12 in 1981), including a couple of girlfriends. We travelled down in a transit van. This was to become our normal form of transit for the next decade or so.
For me, the band of the day title was taken from under AC/DC’s nose by the mighty blues rock of Whitesnake. Coverdale and co were one of the best live bands around in the early eighties.
AC/DC were let down by over-long gaps between songs. Also, apart from ‘THE’ Bell, their stage show was a bit sparse. Their shows at later Doningtons were much better.
Blue Oyster Cult had a ‘very’ bad day at the office.
Slade were a breath of fresh air on a wet Saturday afternoon. I can’t recall whether it was footballs or toilet rolls (or both) that they threw into the crowd, but I do remember Noddy Holder proclaiming that the rain was ‘pissing’ in from the (AC/DC)Bell hung from a crane high above the stage. Great fun.
Blackfoot were also in the form of their life in August 1981. ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Wishing Well’ going down a storm, but the piece de resistance was ‘Highway Song’ (a song almost, but not quite as good as Lynryd Skynyrd ‘Freebird’).”
Paul Hartshorn (Chesterfield)