Photo by Bert Verhoeff/National Archives Netherlands
Whilst “bouncing around the net” recently, I thought I’d Google “Hilversum 1974” as I was there on my first trip to Europe. When I Googled (under Images) Hilversum 1974 Pop Festival, I saw this high quality photo… hence, the photographic memory jolt. After spending a week in Amsterdam, my friends and I traveled a short distance to Hilversum to attend the Pop Festival, a day long event (we “camped” in this field the night before), the event featured the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jean Luc Ponty, Tim Buckley(!), The Doobie Brothers, The Allman Brothers and Van “the man that didn’t play” Morrison. His was a last minute cancellation, oh well, I have had the opportunity to see him approx. a dozen times now. I took a Kodak Instamatic with one roll of slide film for the whole trip (my one image that day was of Tim Buckley). This was just before my first real camera purchase, my Pentax SP1000. The Instamatic is like an iPhone at an indoor concert… don’t bother. My career in photography was just beginning that year, my art of choice while in Europe was poetry, journaling (paper blogging) and, of course, art history at galleries and museums.
Back to the image above, when I saw it, my jaw dropped and I had one of those “EVERYTHING has been recorded, eventually I’ll see it on YouTube” moments. Way back in the image, by the square tent (the soundboard), I blew up a section of the grainy, pixelated, out of focus area that shows 3 guys standing, that could be us, I believe it is:
