Rob Ayling, project co-ordinator about the Holland Festival CDs...

Pushed by curiosity of some TEB fans, I've asked Rob Ayling, project co-ordinator of the Holland Festival 3CDs for Gonzo Multimedia, if he knows there are TEB recordings left and why he has decided to exclude them from the albums...

Rob with Roger Hodgson (on right) in 2011.

His reply is net and don't admit any doubts: "There are not recordings that I know of... If we had them they would be in. I like the TEB so no reason to exclude them".

So unfortunately no TEB recordings from that festival...

 no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first) 

Third Ear Band at the 1970 Dutch Woodstock.

On June 27th, 1970 Third Ear Band played at the Kralingen festival in Rotterdam (Holland). Named "Holland Festival 70" but known also as "Stamping Ground" or "The Dutch Woodstock" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kralingen_Music_Festival) it was promoted by Holland pop fans Toosje Knap, Berry Visser and Georges Knap and despite the rain, an estimated 100,000 people was in the audience.
Many famous pop/rock bands and musicians played there: TRex, Family, Pink Floyd, Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Al Stewart, Country Joe McDonald, Santana, Dr. John, It's a Beautiful Day, Soft Machine... Also the Third Ear Band with the original quartet (Sweeney, Minns, Coff and Smith), probably with a track taken from the second album...

Firstly, this important undergound event became a movie directed by Jason Pholand and George Sluizer titled "Stomping Ground" (in U.K.) 0r "Love and Music" (in the rest of Europe)  and  various audio bootlegs was circulating among fans. 

Now a vast selection of the three days festival is available on a 3CDs box format (two audio CD and a 97' DVD movie of live performances) published by Gonzo Multimedia on April 2013 (£ 11.99) under the project co-ordination of Rob Ayling.

Maybe it's not too unexpected that the producers of it have decided to keep out Our Holy Band from some horrible (and quite scarse audio quality) music played by bands as Canned Heath, Cuby & The Blizzards, The Flock...

And it's quite incredible that at that time a group as the Third Ear Band could share the same stage of such kind of bands... TEB's project was so exclusive, so unique, with so little connections with blues, rock and the so-called progressive that it was a real hazard to propose its music to a big audience at festivals...

Links of interest:

 For buying the record: www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk
A sampler of the album tracks at AllMusic.com here

A film trailer on YouTube is available here 

Reviews of the album: 

- by Dangerous Mind here

- by Shawn Perry on Vintagerock.com here 

- by Bill Kopp on MusoScribe here

- by Craig Hartranft on DangerDog Music Reviews here  

 no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)