Rocking out at T in the Park, Gig on the Green and Loch Lomond

Ellis: Message must now be that music events are safe

TRNSMT is just one of a number of musical festivals unfolding across Scotland this summer, from the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival (July 27-29) to Connect, at Edinburgh's Royal Highland (August 25-27).

Lewis Capaldi was a huge hit at the TRNSMT festival on Glasgow Green (Image: Lesley Martin/PA Wire)

Scotland has a rich history of outdoor music festivals. Here we look at a few of them.

T in the Park

BACK in 2010 Geoff Ellis of DF Concerts, which promoted this long-running festival, said he still got a buzz from opening the gates at Balado, Perth and Kinross, "and seeing the excitement on people's faces. You kind of wish you were 19 again and you were there with a rucksack".

T in the Park was launched in 1994 at Strathclyde Park, at a time when there were only two music festivals in the UK.

In that first year, 17,000 music fans watched the likes of Cypress Hill, Rage Against The Machine, Bjork, Crowded House, as well as Oasis and Blur.

The festival really found its feet once it moved to Balado in 1997. It grew bigger and bigger. Some acts that originally appeared down the T in the Park bill went on to become huge. 

Happy revellers leave T in the Park, 2014 (Image: Andrew Milligan/PA)

Over the years, everyone from Radiohead, Pulp, Oasis, Blur, Rihanna, REM, Arctic Monkeys, Amy Winehouse, The Who, Beyonce and Coldplay graced the T in the Park stages.

New home for T: Perthshire castle estate to replace Balado

In 2015, after 18 years at Balado, T in the Park relocated 18 miles to Strathallan Castle estate in Perthshire, following health and safety concerns about an underground oil pipeline at the Balado site.

The festival's last edition took place in 2016 before being put on hold the following year because of difficulties at the new site.

Amy MacDonald performs on the main T in the Park stage in 2008 (Image: Julie Howden)

In July 2019 Geoff Ellis, speaking ahead of that year's TRNSMT, said that T in the Park would not be returning. "It was an amazing festival, but it ran its course," he told the BBC. "Everyone loved T and we all had great fun doing it.

"You can always look fondly on the past. It was really the third major festival in the UK. We've got some great memories…we'll always have them and so will all the people who grew up with it".

One fan shows his appreciation of T in the Park at the 2003 festival (Image: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Many acts retain fond memories of their appearances at T in the Park.

Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie once recalled being carried to the main stage in 1994. "For a while I thought I was carried because I was really out of it," he said. "But I think it's actually because it was really muddy. It was pretty cosmic".

The Who's Roger Daltrey at the 2006 edition of T in the Park (Image: Danny Lawson / PA)

Scots band Travis headlined the main stage in 2000 on thr back of the huge sucess of their second album, The Man Who. "T in the Park really helped take us from the bedroom to the top of the bill", said singer Fran Healy. "That crowd is one huge roaring beast, a big soup of crazy energy."

Amy Winehouse was one of the stars at the 2008 T in the Park (Image: Julie Howden)

Geoff Ellis himself summed up T's appeal to its youthful audience.

Speaking in 2002 he said: ''People know what T in the Park is - it's a rite of passage for young people.

"Sometimes you want to go to a show and be home that night, but if you go to a festival in the true sense of the word, then part of the attraction is the escapism of being away for a full weekend.

"When you are a young kid, you don't necessarily want to go home after a music festival. You want to carry on and party".

Loch Lomond Rock Festivals

TWO festivals were held at Balloch’s Cameron Bear Park, the first in 1979 and the second in 1980.

Battles and drugs and rock 'n' roll: a look back at the Loch Lomond festivals

The debut festival had a good selection of groups over the weekend: The Stranglers, Dr Feelgood, The Skids, the Boomtown Rats, Average White Band and The Buzzcocks.

All sorts of idiosyncratic behaviour was on display. An ambulanceman was photographed wearing padded ear-phones to shut out the din. A music fan carried his car-seat inside, presumably so that he could watch the proceedings in comfort.

The Stranglers’ singer, Hugh Cornwell, told fans from the stage: “There's a lot of police here tonight so, if you've got any drugs, you'd better take 'em all now!” The singer and lead guitarist from the band Sneaky Pete reportedly cooled off in the loch after their set - and were promptly picked up by police in a boat and charged with indecent exposure.

There were drug arrests. Some 200 people were treated for everything from cuts and stab wounds to drug overdoses. Music weekly Sounds headlined its report, ‘Never mind the Balloch’. The local pubs had their busiest weekend in years.

The second Loch Lomond festival starred The Jam, Stiff Little Fingers and Bad Manners, while there was more of a hard-rock element on the Sunday - Wishbone Ash, Gillan and Saxon. The Saturday was partly marred by battles between Mods, punks and skinheads and rockers. ‘Bottles fly at Loch Lomond’, read the front-page headline in The Sunday Post.

Fans playing air guitar at the 1980 Loch Lomond festival (Image: Jim Connor, The Herald)

“I was working either for Melody Maker or The Face at the time [of the 1980 festival]", recalled Janette Beckman, a renowned documentary photographer. "… My thing was always, I liked to photograph the fans as well as the band, because I was really into the style stuff.

“I remember going to Loch Lomond though I cannot remember exactly how I got up there. I remember it was raining. There was mud everywhere: it was just so typical of a Scottish summer. I walked around with my camera, waiting for the bands to come on”. She recalls a photo of one kid lying in a pool of mud, playing air-guitar and surrounded by floating beer cans.

Memories and photographs of the 1980 festival

“There was a huge mix of fans there - Mods, punks, all sorts of different people – and that was the thing I remember, because it was rare when you didn’t go to concerts and see so many different types of fans hanging around together. That was really cool".

Gig on the Green, Glasgow Green

"KEY advice: Leave your granny at home", this newspaper advised in advance of the August 2002 edition of this event. "More hard-edged than T in the Park, the Gig on the Green line-up is never short on controversy", we added.

Slipknot at the Gig on the Green, 2002 (Image: Steve Cox)

"Eminem and Marilyn Manson both whipped up a storm last year, while this summer's event has Slipknot, the masked nu-metal rockers who call their fans ''maggots'' and like to throw up on stage, on the bill".

Indeed, the 2001 Gig on the Green stirred some controversy. Around 100 people from different churches gathered in George Square and outside the venue to protest against the 'anti-Christian' message of some of the performers who were playing that weekend. Manson at that time was viewed as "the self-styled Anti-Christ Superstar".

Eminem at the Gig on the Green, 2001 (Image: Nick Ponty)

One evangelical Christian said: ''Manson has the same occultic power over people's lives as Hitler did.'' But a Manson fan retorted: "The people who are standing outside going to prayer meetings don't have a life. If there is a God, he made everyone - including Marilyn Manson".

Eminem's own headlining appearance that year was not without incident. The concert was halted minutes after he had begun his set when around 45 fans were crushed as the audience surged forward. Eminem had to appeal for calm before continuing.

Gig on the Green gets go-ahead despite fears over Eminem

Oasis had been among the successes at the inaugural Gig on the Green, in 2000. Their appearance came only a month after they had played to 56,000 fans at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh.

* https://trnsmtfest.com/