1969 Gold Rush Festival

Country Weather – “Over and Over”

October 4, 1969

Amador, CA

1969 festival #44

1969 Gold Rush Festival

Nice line-up

It’s October 1969 and you’ve heard all about that Woodstock Music and Art Fair back east, but you were on the west coast. You still are. You hear about a one-day festival coming up in Lake Amador, which is about 50 miles southeast of Sacramento. The price is $3 for the day. Very reasonable. You look at the line-up. Not bad. Not bad at all:

Santana Taj Mahal Bo Diddley Albert Collins Kaleidoscope Al Wilson Southwind

Ike and Tina Turner Sons of Champlin Country Weather Linn Cold Weather County Daybreak

1969 Gold Rush Festival

Day in the Country

You knew about Santana before Woodstock and knew they were pretty good. There wasn’t anything like Ike and Tina Turner at Woodstock. Nor a Taj Mahal. Nor an Albert Collins.

This could be a very nice day in the country. It was.

If there is a criticism of Woodstock’s three-day lineup, it is that given the year and perspective, there were no black bands as such. There  certainly were black performers and there were bands playing blues and blues/rock, but there was no Taj Mahal. No Albert Collins. No Al Wilson. And certainly no Ike and Tina Turner. One must imagine the impact Tina would have had on 400,000 people that day, on the album that she surely would have been on, and the movie she absolutely appeared in.

1969 Gold Rush Festival

Robert Strand

Robert Strand promoted the event and 40,000 people showed up. He and his family were the financial backers.  Strand was the manager of Country Weather, one of the bands that appeared. He describes the event as a perfect combination of location, music, stage, PA, and weather. He recently assisted in a video report of the event. That video can be found on YouTube in four parts. Here is a link to Part 1. It is a wonderful story by someone who humbly tells the story with lots of detail. Lots of specific information.

Unfortunately, there is no video or recording of the event.

1969 Gold Rush Festival

Remembrances…

James Hackworth was 22 years old when he and his wife and two kids attended the Gold Rush Festival. His memories include, “…people jammed the banks of Lake Amador to sunbathe, drink wine, smoke marijuana and listen to an all-star roster of musicians at the Gold Rush Rock Music Festival. Since the crowd was peaceful, Amador County sheriff’s deputies chose to ignore the drug use and skinny-dipping. …I remember looking over a sea of people and everyone was really happy and full of enthusiasm.  The music was the catalyst that drew us together. It really was a time of believing in love and peace for humanity.” [Messynesschic dot com site]

1969 Gold Rush Festival

Next 1969 festival: Internationales Essener Festival

1969 Toronto Rock Roll Revival

September 13, 1969

Varsity Stadium, at the University of Toronto

1969 festival #41

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

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