“Famous word that, innit, ‘Knebworth’?… You know, Led Zeppelin, ‘n’ all that…”
“Oasis…”
“Everyone… ‘Knebworth’!”
“Happy Mondays” “Happy Mondays!”
Shaun Ryder and Bez of the Happy Mondays – Knebworth Park 01.09.18
It was a happy Monday after the weekend of Cool Britannia last month. An exciting return of live rock music to Knebworth Park after a three year hiatus. The new festival was roundly praised as a fine new event for the summer calendar, and a great ending to the long hot summer of 2018.
The theme of the festival was the music of the 1990s, and it harked back to the record-breaking weekend in Knebworth Park in 1996 when the band Oasis, at the height of their fame and influence, played to a quarter of a million people. The bands Ocean Colour Scene and Cast, who played with Oasis that weekend, were back, along with the Happy Mondays, the Lightning Seeds and other 90s favourites.
Cool Britannia 2018
I was worried before the event that anything that calls itself ‘cool’, is inherently not cool. But what I witnessed was a great summer party of happy families enjoying themselves in the sunshine, and a healthy nostalgia for a time when what split the nation was a simple as whether you preferred Oasis or Blur. Here’s to guitar bands, and the return of live rock music to Knebworth Park!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH