Category Archives: Festivals

Festivals, Music of the 60s, Today in history

Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival 1969

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Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival 1969

September 14 – 15, 1969

1969 festival #42

Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival 1969

“I finally figured out the difference between this and a love-in,” someone said Sunday. “Four dollars.”

Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival 1969

Low key

The Big Sur festivals were never meant to be like a Woodstock or even a Monterey. The first Big Sur festival was in 1964. Big Sur is one of the most beautiful places in California and some say the world.

When asked how to get there, a sensible response is, “You can’t get there from here.”

The festivals became a place as much for the artists as any attendees who managed to get in. And the stage and seating were basically at the same level, guests often sitting around the stage.

Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival 1969

Sixth

Such an approach did not mean that the performers were unknown. In fact, most were quite well-known. The line-up for 1969 demonstrated that. Keep in mind that the artists, in addition to doing their own sets, joined each other as well.

Sixth Big Sur Festival
Graham Nash, Joni Mitchell, John Sebastian, Steve Stills and Joan Baez performing at the Big Sur Folk Festival, California, 1969, from the documentary “Celebration at Big Sur” directed by Johanna Demetrakas. 20th Century Fox/Getty
  • Julie Payne
  • Ruthann Friedman
  • Carol Ann Cisneros
  • The Comb Sisters
  • Chris Ethridge
  • Flying Burrito Brothers
  • Struggle Mountain Resistance Band
  • Incredible String Band
  • James Hendricks
Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival 1969

Celebration at Big Sur

Like the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival the same weekend and Woodstock a few weeks before, filming occurred allowing us today to view the differences between a Woodstock v a Monterey v a Big Sur v an Altamont.

Only 10 to 15 thousand people attended and Rolling Stone magazine later reported that “Everyone performed without charge. Some of the best batiks ever made decorated the spongy Esalen lawn. Children danced. Conga drummers gathered to pound the earth. A flower bed was destroyed, but the audience cleaned the trash from the grounds. The hundreds who hadn’t money to get in lined the highway on top of the hill, and didn’t crash the gates – even though there were no “gates.”

Here is a link to the several Big Sur festivals.

A Rolling Stone magazine link about this festival. Jerry Hopkins wrote in his article’s last paragraphs:

Everyone performed without charge. Some of the best batiks ever made decorated the spongy Esalen lawn. Children danced. Conga drummers gathered to pound the earth. A flower bed was destroyed, but the audience cleaned the trash from the grounds. The hundreds who hadn’t money to get in lined the highway on top of the hill, and didn’t crash the gates – even though there were no “gates.”

Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival 1969

Next 1969 festival: Toledo Pop Festival

Festivals, Music et al, Music of the 60s

1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

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1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

September 13, 1969
Varsity Stadium, at the University of Toronto
1969 festival #41

1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

Toronto Pop Festival

On June 21 and 22, 1969, John Brower and Kenny Walkeron had produced the Toronto Pop Festival in the Varsity Stadium at the  University of Toronto.  Its success encouraged them to do a larger festival in September, but like many musical enterprises, problems ensued.

Kim Fowley to the rescue

Because of poor ticket sales, Brower and Walkeron almost had to cancel the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival when their main backer pulled out.

Musician, producer, and general bon vivant Kim Fowley was going to be the MC of the show. He suggested to Brower to call Apple Records and invite John Lennon and Yoko Ono to be MCs as well. Fowley’s reasoning was Lennon’s love for roots rock and that Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Gene Vincent were among those in the festival.

Plastic Ono to the rescue

Lennon not only accepted the suggestion, he offered to play at the festival as well. Accompanying Lennon and Ono were Klaus Voormann, Alan White, and Eric Clapton. At first no one believed Brower, but once the recorded conversation of Brower ordering tickets for Lennon et al, tickets sold out.

Line up

As mentioned above and as the event’s name implies, this festival (though just one day) had a basic rock line up:

  • Whiskey Howl
  • Bo Diddley
  • Chicago
  • Junior Walker and the All Stars
  • Tony Joe White
  • Alice Cooper
  • Chuck Berry
  • Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys
  • Jerry Lee Lewis
  • Gene Vincent
  • Little Richard
  • Doug Kershaw
  • The Doors
  • John Lennon and Plastic Ono Band

80 members of the Vagabonds motorcycle club rode escort, 40 in front and 40 in back, for John and Yoko’s limousine from the Toronto airport to the university stadium.

1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

D.A. Pennebaker

Luckily for history and us today the organizers filmed the event. D.A. Pennebaker, maker of Bob Dylan’s Don’t Look Back and Monterey Pop again did a great job. There are many pieces of the film, Sweet Toronto on YouTube. The more you watch the better an already great concert gets. Great great rock and roll!

1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

Lights on…

It is a sad commentary that the show’s great stars needed the light of John Lennon to bring a sold out mostly young white audience to listen, but that’s what happened. Ironically, the story is that John Lennon, performing for the first time without Paul McCartney since their 1950s meeting, needed encouragement.

The hitherto imaginary band consisted of Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voormann on bass, and session musician Alan White on drums. [see Beatles Bible article]

Before introducing the Plastic Ono Band, Kim Fowley had everyone get their matches ready to greet Lennon , Ono, and friends. Whether this was the first time an audience used matches to greet a performer is unknown. It is likely one of the first times.

The band’s set list mostly reflected the festival’s revival theme:

  1. Blue Suede Shoes
  2. Money (That’s What I Want)
  3. Dizzy Miss Lizzy
  4. Yer Blues
  5. Cold Turkey
  6. Give Peace a Chance
  7. Don’t Worry Kyoko
  8. John John (Let’s Hope for Peace)

For more coverage, see a noisey article.

1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

Next 1969 festival: Sixth Big Sur Folk Festival

Festivals

Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

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Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

aka, the…

Labor Day Soda Pop Festival

September 2, 3, & 4, 1972
Labor Day Weekend
Bull Island on the Wabash River, Illinois
Mills Brothers, “On the Banks of the Wabash (Far Away)”

Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

Not 1969

While waiting for the next 1969 festival to arrive, I thought I’d mention one that has a great name. Unfortunately, it did not turn out well.

First of all…

Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

Why the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival?

The Erie Canal runs from Albany, NY on the Hudson River to Buffalo, NY on Lake Erie. Thus the name. The Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival was on Mud Island (though not quite an island) on the Wabash River. Nowhere near the Erie Canal. The Wabash River’s head is in Ohio, runs across Indiana, and eventually forms the southern border between Indiana and Illinois before running into the Ohio River at mile 491.

Why the above explanation? Because I cannot discover why Bob Alexander and Tom Duncan, the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival organizers, called it that. Perhaps at one time the Wabash was a piece of the route that got to the famous Canal?

Background

The month before, on July 2, Alexander and Duncan had organized the relatively successful Bosse Field Freedom Fest in Evensville.

Approximately 30,000 people came. Some of the performers were Ike and Tina Turner, Edgar Winter, Dr. John, Howlin’ Wolf. and John Lee Hooker.

Though financially a success, Evansville, Indiana Mayor Russell Lloyd was not happy and did not want a repeat.

Festival Wallkilled

48 hours before the scheduled start of the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival , Alexander and Duncan had no site. Local opposition wall-killed the Chandler Raceway, their original choice. Other local legal actions prevented most other choices.

They had already spent $700,000.

Chicago’s powerful radio station WLS began to follow, and thus promote, the story.

100s of fans started to arrive in the area more than a week before. Alexander and Duncan kept silent (other than radio interviews) thinking if they don’t announce where the event will be, locals can’t start proceedings to stop it.

Bull Island

Rumors began to mount. Bull Island. Bulldozers were seen there. Workers digging wells.

Thursday 31 August 1972: Bob Alexander met with Evansville, Indiana Mayor Russell Lloyd. He didn’t want the event, but knew as more and more fans arrived something he had to do something.

Bull Island (“island”) was along the Wabash straddling Indiana and Illinois. Lloyd was able to get Illinois to approve Bull Island as a site. The festival was on.

Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

now the…

Labor Day Soda Pop Festival

Saturday 2 September

Thousands arrived. Interstate 64 came to a standstill. Thousands abandoned their cars. Some set up “shop” and one stretch along the festival site became known as “Alice in Wonderland Avenue.”

Late starts and restlessness. Joe Cocker never showed. Black Sabbath, with Ozzy Osbourne, refused to play unless paid more. No more was to be had.

Sunday 3 September

Tow trucks removed cars from I-64. Food ran out. Destruction by fans of trucks on site. Fires.

Ravi Shankar played first on Sunday. Canned Heat. Black Oak Arkansas.

The Faces, featuring Rod Stewart, fearing the site’s mood, refused to appear. Promoters had paid them $100,000 in advance.

By day’s end perhaps 200,000 and 250,000 people were on site. Gates that still existed were opened. It was a free concert.

Monday 4 September

Like Woodstock, but completely unlike Woodstock, fans left after the second day. Not because of weather and lack of food so much as because of a lack of music.

By Monday only 20,000 people remained. The festival lost $200,000.

Not Woodstock.

In fact, Ozy dot com refers to it as “the worst festival in history.” Everfest dot com simply asks the question.

Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival