Concerts at Knebworth House

Updated on Jan 20, 2024

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The Knebworth Festival is a recurring open air rock and pop concert held on the grounds of the Knebworth House in Knebworth, England. The festival first occurred in 1974 when The Allman Brothers Band, The Doobie Brothers and other artists attracted 60,000 people.

Since then the venue has hosted numerous outdoor concerts, featuring artists including Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Rolling Stones, Genesis, Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, Deep Purple, Queen, Status Quo, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Robert Plant, Dire Straits, Oasis, Robbie Williams, Europe and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Major concerts

In 1976 Lynyrd Skynyrd performed at Knebworth together with The Rolling Stones and are widely acknowledged to have "played The Stones off the park".

In 1979, Led Zeppelin performed at Knebworth for two gigs, their first concerts in the United Kingdom since 1975. The band reportedly played to record crowds in excess of 200,000 people, even though official admission records only list 109,000 people. The New Barbarians, Ron Wood's solo outfit with Keith Richards played at the second show on 11 August.

The 1985 event was the first UK gig by the re-formed Deep Purple.

On 9 August 1986, Queen performed their last show with their original lineup. The band did not perform live again until after the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury, at his tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1992.

On 30 June 1990, the park was the location for The Silver Clef Award Winners Concert which was recorded and released on DVD. It included the performance of artists including Pink Floyd, Cliff Richard & The Shadows, Tears for Fears, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Ray Cooper, Robert Plant (with guest Jimmy Page), Status Quo and Phil Collins with Genesis.

In 1996, Oasis, who were supported by The Charlatans, Kula Shaker, Manic Street Preachers, The Bootleg Beatles, The Chemical Brothers, Ocean Colour Scene and The Prodigy, played two shows with an audience of 125,000 per night. Over 2.6 million people applied for tickets for the shows, making it the largest ever demand for concert tickets in British history.

In 2003, Robbie Williams headlined at the main stage in Knebworth over a three-day period, drawing crowds of over 375,000, and a further 3.5 million who watched live on television and online. Other acts to perform on the same stage were The Darkness, Ash, Moby and Kelly Osbourne. This was reputedly the biggest UK pop concert ever and caused a huge traffic jam on the A1(M) as an estimated 130,000 cars tried to reach the venue. A subsequent album, entitled Robbie Williams – Live At Knebworth, was released, and reached number two in the UK charts. A DVD release followed.

In 2009, Metallica and Linkin Park headlined the first ever UK Sonisphere Festival. Other bands included Nine Inch Nails and Heaven & Hell. The festival took place again in 2010 with Rammstein and Iron Maiden headlining plus performances from other big acts such as Alice Cooper, Iggy and the Stooges and Mötley Crüe. In 2011, the festival hosted the first UK performance of the Big 4 bands of thrash metal.

References

Concerts at Knebworth House Wikipedia

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