Wally!

Keeping to the musical theme and progressive rock concerts in particular, I wonder how many of you ageing Hippies can remember being in the Liverpool Empire, or, the Manchester Free Trade Hall before a show and hearing the constant cries of, WALLY!

This went on for some time as the auditorium filled up.

I often wander who Wally really was.

Did he turn up late? Or did he ever exist...?

Wally! Wally!....WALLY!

You did the best thing ignoring them calling you names .

Trust you to ruin it...

Wally

Although many people think that the Wally chant started at Weeley, ( lets face it '"Wally of Weeley "just has certain ring to it ) we believe it began in 1970 at the Isle Of Wight Festival , as Roger Gray testifies .

The Wally saga started at the IOW festival the year before. I was at both, and there must have been a fair number who were, so it's no surprise that the 'WALLY' chant started up again at Weeley. At the IOW in '70, my fiancee and I were sitting next to a crowd from Yeovil - sometime during (I think) the second day, in a break between bands, one of them said to his mates "Is that Wally over there?", pointing at someone picking their way through the crowd about 50 yards away. They agreed it was, and started shouting at him "Wally! Wally! Over here mate", etc. Within a minute, we, and others around, joined in, all shouting "Wally - over here". Soon, hundreds of people were shouting, and before the next band played, the chorus was taken up by thousands around the arena. The irony is that our neighbours never got to talk to Wally, because there were so many people shouting out his name from every direction, he (if he even realised it was him they were shouting for) never looked in their direction. So, as I said, with so many people from '70 IOW going to '71 Weeley, it's no surprise that the "Wally" shouts started again during the more boring moments.

Weely


Where's Wally

The first time that I heard it was at a Jethro Tull gig at Liverpool Stadium.

Later, it was a regular thing: Pink Floyd at the Empire,
and Tull again, at The Opera House, to name but a few.

Audiences are rather dull these days or too old to Rock and Roll, so you don't hear it.

It was an era - that's now sadly gone.

Poor Wally.