Northern California Folk-Rock Festival
May 23 – 25, 1969
1969 Festival #7
This blog entry is on the second of the three 1969 rock festivals held on Memorial Day weekend. The first piece was on the Aquarian Family Festival in Santa Clara, California.
This entry is on its rival a half-mile away: the Northern California Folk-Rock Festival. The Aquarian was a two-day free event. The Northern California Folk-Rock Festival was a three-day ticketed event.
1968 debacle
The first Northern California Folk-Rock Festival had happened in 1968 and had issues. Some of the bands advertised weren’t actually booked and PCP sent hundreds of attendees to the local emergency room. “Never again” was the immediate reaction by local law enforcement, but a year later the second (and last) NCFRF came off.
How? According to the Rock Prosopography site: After the drug-addled debacle of the previous year, it was surprising that there was an encore. Supposedly the promoters managed to rent the Fairgrounds on false pretenses, and then started advertising Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, even though they had neither under contract. The festival ended up occurring, and was well attended, but the city and county made sure there wasn’t any further events.
Northern California Folk-Rock Festival
1969 happens
The Northern California Folk Rock Festival, organized by Bob Blodgett, was held at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. It had a stellar line-up. I’ve highlighted those who would perform at Woodstock in August.
Jimi Hendrix, now a super-star was the main attraction. It is a portion of his “Red House” performance that is heard at the top of this entry and the full 11-minutes in the YouTube selection below.
Northern California Folk-Rock Festival
A great lineup by any measure
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Northern California Folk-Rock Festival
No recording/no film
Unlike Woodstock, but exactly like the more than two dozen other major festivals in 1969, the Northern California Folk-Rock Festival was not filmed nor recorded. The overpiece song at the top of this entry is Sweet Linda Divine from her solo album. Sadly most of us have not heard of Linda Tillery, but from the powerful performance we hear a piece of, we should have. And I’m sure the same can be said of many of the other performers from this sadly “unknown” festival.
The Concierge Photo dot com site has several photos of the event. Check them out.
Northern California Folk-Rock Festival
Next 1969 festival: Big Rock Pow Wow
Thanks for these comments and details on a not-so-well known festival, but raw and great at $4 a ticket!
Are you sure tickets were $4.00? That was the price for the previous year’s concert (May 1968) as shown on the poster. The poster for 1969 has no ticket price that I can see. However, due to the “high” ticket prices, an alternative festival was held nearby on the grounds of San Jose State and it was called the Aquarian Family Festival. It was free and quite a range of things happened there. I went to all three things – the freebie and the two at the Fairgrounds. So, I am thinking the tickets were $8-10.00, thus the outrage.
I was also at both concerts and swear that Bob Dylan appeared at the free concert around 3:00AM. Perhaps it was just a great imitator as I have never found confirmation. I also noticed that Chuck Berry is not highlighted above but I remember him singing My Ding-a-Ling there.
The “free concert “ was put together by Bill Graham. Jimmu Hendrix flew in on Graham’s helicopter,The timing was well executed, It’s negative economic effect on the Folk Rock Festival was considerable . I was selling posters at the festival, it was perfect for a high school job