{"id":662383,"date":"2026-06-28T07:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/662383\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:24:09","slug":"stevenage-at-80-mars-rovers-robbie-williams-and-bouncy-balls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/662383\/","title":{"rendered":"Stevenage at 80: Mars rovers, Robbie Williams and bouncy balls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When it comes to iconic UK concert venues, few can rival Knebworth House.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Some of the world&#8217;s biggest acts have played there, including Elton John, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Freddie Mercury did his last concert with Queen at the venue in 1986, while Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson staged a World War One aerial dogfight above the site before taking to the stage in 2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Oasis famously played two nights at Knebworth in 1996, performances later immortalised in a live album and 2021 documentary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Robbie Williams broke concert attendance records when 375,000 fans came to watch him over three nights in 2003.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The gigs were so significant to him that Knebworth features prominently in his biopic Better Man, where he is portrayed as a CGI chimpanzee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In the film, midway through performing Let Me Entertain You, the singer uses a sword to violently battle an army of armed chimpanzees dressed as past and future versions of himself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That didn&#8217;t happen in reality; he actually ended the show with Angels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Do you have a story suggestion for Beds, Herts or Bucks? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to iconic UK concert venues, few can rival Knebworth House. Some of the world&#8217;s biggest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-662383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}