On June 23, 1971, at the crack of dawn, David Bowie took the stage at the second Glastonbury Festival and played an abbreviated set to about 6,000, mostly sleeping hippies, and live debuted what would become one of his best known songs of all, “Changes.”
Pink Floyd was to be the headliner that year but their equipment was delayed so they were forced to cancel. The big acts that did perform were Joan Baez, Fairport Convention, Melanie, Traffic, and a pre-Lemmy Hawkwind.
Cancellations were not new to the fledgling fest, a year prior, the show originally dubbed The Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival as was supposed to have The Kinks headline, but they opted out and were replaced by Marc Bolan who was poised to introduce T.Rex to the world.
Legend has it that Bowie took a train to the festival at Worthy Farm that summer day, but got off about 10 miles away and walked the rest of the journey alongside his wife Angie, his manager, and guitarist Mick Ronson (who was a year away from becoming a Spider from Mars).
read more at: Setlist.fm
