The Text of Festival is an archive album by Hawkwind consisting of BBC sessions and live performances between 1970 and 1971. It was originally released in 1983 after the band had exited their Active Records contract, and has continuously been repackaged and retitled ever since, very often with misnamed song titles on the jacket, missing tracks listed on the jacket but not present on the disc, tracks mushed together under the same disc index, and missing footage within the tracks. The copyright of the recordings on the first disc is owned by the BBC who were not approached for permission for their commercial use, so the legality of this album is questionable. The source tapes used are not from the BBC, but recordings of the broadcast and the quality leaves a lot to desired. These same low quality recordings have also appeared on The Weird Tapes Volumes 1-8, Hawkwind, Friends And Relations, In the Beginning, the second disc of (a.k.a Cosmic Overdrive), and Hawkwind Anthology. A single-disc version bearing the same name was released under the label Thunder Bolt/Magnum Music Group, claiming license rights from Demi-Monde, with some of the material from the second disc placed at the end of the first. In the Beginning states license rights were acquired from Charly International APS/Charly Holdings. Year 2000: Codename Hawkwind Volume One claims to be "remastered" by Demi-Monde.
"Come Home" is listed on the album, following "We Do It", and while it was recorded at the same session, it has never been included on any the releases of this album.
"The Reason Is?" and "Be Yourself" have never be issued on CD.
Later releases erroneously claim that this recording is from the Cambridge Corn Exchange. There is a recording in existence from The Six Hour Technicolor Dream featuring Hawkwind, Pink Fairies and Syd Barrett at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on 27-Jan-1972, but so far it is unreleased - see FraKcman's Blog.
Sources
Track 4: Maida Vale, 18-Aug-1970; Broadcast: Top Gear, 19-Sep-1970. Other tracks recorded at this session but unreleased: "Seeing It As You Really Are" and "Some of That Stuff"[1]
Track 5: Paris Cinema, London, 5-Nov-1970; Broadcast: John Peel Sunday Concert, 15-Nov-1970
Track 6: Playhouse, London, 19-Apr-1971; Broadcast: Top Gear, 24-Apr-1971 (with Quiver, Gnidrolog); Original tracks broadcast: "Inwards Out", "Dreaming" and "You Shouldn't Do That"[1]
