Jeremy Beadle promotes the Grateful Dead

Others might locate the high point of the San Francisco acid rock scene to one of Bill Graham's promotions at the Fillmore. But, for sheer oddity, nothing can beat future TV prankster Jeremy Beadle putting on a rock festival in a flood-ridden site outside Wigan, and booking the Grateful Dead to headline. So wet was the Bickershaw site – the area at the front of the stage was a bog – that the Dead began their 245-minute (yes, 245-minute) set with the words: "For all our muddy friends …"