Newport Pop Festival, Costa Mesa, California 

Originally scheduled to be held inside the Orange County Fairgrounds in an outdoor pavilion. The fairgrounds are on Newport Boulevard, just a short distance from Newport Beach.

However, advance ticket sales were triple of what was expected, and it became evident that no area inside the fairgrounds could hold even 25,000 people, let alone the near 100,000 now predicted. In the last three days before the show, it was moved to one of the adjoining parking lots of the fairgrounds. Fencing, staging, sanitation, and food concessions had to be organized within just three days. This must've been very stressful and probably explains some of the failures. 

None of the commercial concessionaires were prepared for the event, and they all ran out of food and drink halfway through the first day, but early August in SoCal is hot and unremittingly sunny, this meant it was a sizzling, shadowless place to sit and watch rock music for two days.

As the crowds came, the site turned into a dust bowl. It was over 90 degrees and by noon on the first day, all the water on the site had been consumed. 

This was classic early festival bad planning by promoters. They just didn't allow for enough supplies of anything - water, food, sanitation. Penny-pinching combined with naivety and downright stupidity made this quickly become a dangerous situation. Worse still, no camping was provided. So people turned up on the Friday and there was nowhere to crash overnight. Consequently, they found their way to the beach in Newport, only to be moved on by the police.

Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed. Costa Mesa officials spotted a disaster was about to happen and allowed a 32-acre site on the fairground to be used for a campsite. They brought in toilets and water. 

But still more people arrived, topping out at 100,000, just sitting there in the heat and the dust, surrounded by their own garbage. 

Harvey "Humble Harve" Miller, a Top 40 disc jockey for 93 KHJ-AM in Los Angeles, was hired to promote the show and hosted the event with Wavy Gravy. 

A lot of youngsters came and got stoned and generally found it hard to handle the vibe, often crashing in amongst litter on the site or just staring, slack-jawed into the middle distance. It was a really bad scene for a while. Stoned is good. Zombied is not. Over 25% arrested on drugs charges were minors. These were early festival days and no-one, not fans nor officials, knew what was going on and how to handle it. Some in attendance thought this was The Revolution. A gathering of the tribes. But it wasn't. It was just a big field of stoned people. 

The music started on Saturday afternoon and while the facilities at the site may have been shambolic, reports suggest some bands really brought their A game. Canned Heat were there on the first day, as were Country Joe and the Fish, the Electric Flag and the Butterfield Blues Band. 

OK, Sonny and Cher did their thing too - which seems very weird now, but they were popular in 66 with their big hit 'I Got you Babe'. however, by 1968, flying in by chopper and with Sonny Bono looking like a narc in hippie fancy dress, it didn't go down well. They were booed off and generally regarded as plastic.

Festival faves, the Chambers Brothers also played as did stalwarts, the James Cotton Blues Band. Weirdly though, it was Tiny Tim, the kind of freak who only the late 60s could ever have found a niche for, was the big festival hit. He performed 'On The Good Ship Lollipop' through a megaphone. The crowd loved him. Maybe he reflected the messed-up nature of the event. Unthreatening and good-natured, maybe he was ideal for a crowd who were, to say the least, uncomfortable and hassled.

Sunday's show was highlighted by sets by Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Iron Butterfly who played the epic, doubtless half-hour-long In-A-Gadda-Da-via to two standing ovations. Eric Burdon and the Animals played and set off a smoke bomb - like the air wasn't polluted enough by the dust. Eric, taken with the moment, poured beer over himself and conducted a dance contest with some women from the audience. 

Blue Cheer played and brutalized everyone with their intense proto-heavy metal. As a relief, the Byrds played too, along with early country rockers, the Illinois Speed Press. Quicksilver Messenger Service were also on the bill, as were the usual raft of local bands.

Rolling Stone reported:

"The highlight of the pop fest on the first day (Saturday) seemed to come when Country Joe closed the bill. The hour was late and Orange County officials were threatening to shut off the electricity when the band went on, finally relenting to give the band time for two songs. As they began their first, "1, 2, 3, 4, What Are We Fighting For," the approximately 40,000 young people still on hand rose as if one, cheering, hands held aloft in the "peace sign." During the second number, a long blues, even the cops on stage were grinning and adlibbing a moderate version of the boogaloo."

The second day's climax came when David Crosby started a planned pie fight with Jefferson Airplane. In all, 250 cream pies flew back and forth ... and the thousands of people present stormed the stage to join in."

 

Apart from Sky River Rock Festival, north of Seattle, The Newport Pop Festival 1968 was the only major festival of the summer and it should have taught promoters a lot of lessons about logistics. It didn't, but it should have. Whilst not being the war zone disaster that some later festivals would become, it was an early warning and showed what could go wrong when a lot of people converge in one place and are not adequately provided for. 1968 was a career high point for Tiny Tim who was neither tiny nor called Tim.

Three days afterwards, the Costa Mesa City Council vowed to prevent another Newport Pop Festival. "To say that we would not like it back here would be the understatement of the year," said the wonderfully-named Costa Mesa Mayor, Alvin Pinkley. 

Newport '69 was held, put on by the same people. but was actually in Northridge in San Fernando Valley. 

Full line-up:

Alice Cooper, Blue Cheer, Canned Heat, Charles Lloyd Quartet, Country Joe & The Fish, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Grateful Dead, Illinois Speed Press, Iron Butterfly, James Cotton Blues Band, Jefferson Airplane, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Rhinoceros, Sky Pilot, Sonny and Cher, Steppenwolf, Super Chief, The Byrds, The Chambers Brothers, The Electric Flag, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Turtles, Things to Come, Tiny Tim.

 

Miami Pop Festival, Gulfstream Park

There were 2 Miami Pop Festivals in 1968 held at Gulfstream Park, a racetrack in Hallandale, just north of Miami. This was the first one held May 18–19 and was promoted by Richard O'Barry and Michael Lang, yes, the Michael Lang who would go down in history as the hip, curly-haired, motorbike and horse riding Woodstock guy.

Bands featured at the festival included The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Mothers of Invention, Blue Cheer, Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. It's not a massive line-up, but all solid festival performers. 

The festival was publicized on promotional materials and in radio ads as the "1968 Pop and Underground Festival," and "The 1968 Pop Festival" which suggested they had big hopes for it being a significant cultural event. An estimated 25,000 people attended though, so it didn't turn out to be the massive affair that the show in December did. That pulled in over 100,000.

The stage was just flat bed trucks. We forget now that a festival in '68 was a totally different sort of thing to today's corporate sponsored events, more akin to putting on a free show in a park today. That the biggest bands of the day might have to stand on flat-bed trucks to play seems odd, but the rock world was more simple, basic and down home back then.

The opening act on Saturday was, as tradition usually demanded, a totally anonymous band. Here it was The Package who I've been able to find out absolutely nothing about. A daytime & night time set was performed by Blue Cheer, Chuck Berry, and Jimi Hendrix, but the second day was marred by rain.

By the time Jimi came on to end the festival, it's reported that only about 400 rather soggy people were left. The rain and technical difficulties which plagued the Hendrix set resulted in Jimi tossing his guitar into the audience.

Later it was claimed by Frank Zappa and he played it years later on 'Zoot Allures' which blows my mind. It was inherited by Dweezil who unsuccessfully tried to sell it for a million dollars. 

In a Guitar Player piece, it's said that as they climbed onto the unconventional stage, Hendrix, Redding and Mitchell were seriously wacked on STP, a powerful, speed-spiked hallucinogen. Originally scheduled as a two-day event, Sunday's concert was virtually rained out. But there was at least one beneficial result - it inspired Hendrix to write 'Rainy Day, Dream Away'. 

This first Miami show went down in history primarily because of Lang's involvement. He later said the seeds of Woodstock were sown at this Miami show. It gave him a grounding as to what could be achieved and also what could go wrong if it rained. He'd need that experience soon enough.

On the 4th of July, 2012, a historical marker was unveiled at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale to commemorate the festivals.

Miami Pop Festival May 1968 wasn't the big Miami fest, that would happen in December, but it deserves it's place in history all the same.

 

 

 

Miami Pop Festival 

Held between December 28–30, 1968 in Gulfstream Park, Hallandale, Florida, this was the east coast's first big fest. A gathering of the east coast tribes like none before it. It must've been so exciting. All the heads that had grown into the counterculture in the previous 2 years, plus even more weekend hippies wanting to get it on, made their way there to see a stellar line-up

The Amboy Dukes, Chuck Berry, Blues Image, The Box Tops, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat, Wayne Cochran, Cosmic Drum (aka Train of Thought) James Cotton Blues Band, Country Joe and the Fish, José Feliciano, Fish Ray, Flatt and Scruggs, Fleetwood Mac, Marvin Gaye, The Grass Roots, Grateful Dead, Richie Havens, Ian & Sylvia, Iron Butterfly, Junior Junkanoos, Jr. Walker & The Allstars, The Charles Lloyd Quartet, Hugh Masekela, Joni Mitchell, Pacific Gas & Electric, Procol Harum, Terry Reid, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Steppenwolf, The Sweet Inspirations, Sweetwater, Joe Tex, Three Dog Night, The Turtles

Not to be mistaken for the fest of the same name held in the same location earlier in year, this was a much bigger affair.

5 weeks before it was due to start, the Man issued an edict, no doubt whilst wearing an ill-fitting suit and fingering his too-tight starched collar nervously..

"It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation, or other legal entity, to engage in the business or occupation of psychedelic and hippie dance halls, shops and establishments." Mayor Ernest Pinto said, "We want to make it clear there is no room in Hallandale for hippies."

But this was typical of the times. Hippies were feared as though they were an alien race, and not actually the sons and daughters of perfectly respectable middle-class people. But as was also quite typical of the times, the festival organisers were more clever, better organized and more resourceful than the stuffy officials in county hall. In this case it was Tom Rounds and Mel Lawrence who had organised the legendary early rock festival at Mount Tamalpais in Northern California back in June 67. They had backing from Tom Driscoll, a seriously rich dude, whose family owned berry farms. That fella had major cash. I love how, so often, the freaks co-opt a rich businessman who, though he has little interest in the music, has an eye for turning a buck. The local straight people must've hated them and seen them as turncoats. 

They rented the racetrack for just $5,000 and 5% of the gate. This was to make it a very profitable festival and as such an early example of how to make these gigs work for everyone.

The promoters were hoping this would become an annual event, so to that end set about schmoozing local officials, getting the backing of the Governor. Even Ernie Pinto got on board near to the start of the festival, despite his earlier anti-hippy stance. He made calls to get sleeping and camping facilities arranged. 

The previous May future Woodstock guru Michael Lang had put on a small festival at Gulfstream Park, headlined by Jimi Hendrix, but this was to be a bigger, more ambitious affair with a wide range of bands and musicians, from folk, to blues, to jazz, to soul and rock from people as diverse as the Grateful Dead, Paul Butterfield, Iron Butterfly, Marvin Gaye, Jose Feliciano, Joni Mitchell, Procul Harum, Terry Reid (whose second album cover features a photo of him shot at this festival) and up to 30 others.

 

It was also the first to set up 2 stages - The Flower Stage and The Flying Stage - to keep the music flowing. Each act had 45 a minute set.

The stages were created and overseen by the legendary Chip Monck, whose name you'll see in a lot of my pieces on festivals. One of those largely unsung men of the rock n roll movement, he was the go-to man for stage crafting. A key part of Bill Graham's Fillmore set-up, a year later he'd do Woodstock. Over 100,000 turned up across the 3 days, all largely drawn from the surrounding area. Looking at photos of the crowd, it looks a lot like Monterey, with people sitting in nice, neat rows, all grooving to the music. 

The good organisation was partly down to the fact that holding it in a defined space such as a racetrack, meant it could all be well contained. Also the routes in and out of Hallandale were good enough to cope with the influx of people, so the whole region didn't descend into gridlock.

With 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Via' riding high in the album charts, Iron Butterfly were a major draw for this festival, but according to many, it was Pacific Gas and Electric who stole the show, performing a total of 4 times across the weekend.

After it was over Rolling Stone called it 'The Most Festive Festival of 1968' and Tom Rounds became a kind of guru for how to put on a profitable festival.

All that being said when he tried to organise one in 1969, as festival culture was really getting up a head of steam, the local officials panicked and, worried half a million kids would turn up this time, refused Rounds permission to stage a second festival, even despite the fact that these shows generated a lot of money for the local economy.

The thing was Rounds was no stoned-out hippy, he knew what he was doing and had figured out early on what needed to be in place to make things good smoothly. If anyone could have put on a show for half a million people in 1969, it was him. But The Man just didn't dig that, the good folk had got The Fear, were scared the revolution was here and smelling of patchouli oil. 

 

 

 

The First Isle Of Wight Festival 

There were three Isle of Wight festivals before it was revived in recent years. 1969 was famous for Bob Dylan's appearance, and 1970 for Jimi Hendrix, et al, but the first one in 1968 is largely forgotten.

It was on a far smaller scale, with only around 15,000 at most, in attendance. Held on 31 August and 1 September 1968 on Ford Farm, near Godshill, it was nonetheless an important staging post in the development of the rock scene in Britain.

It cost £1.25 to get in and was promoted and organised by the Foulk brothers (Ron, Ray and Bill Foulk) under the banner of their company Fiery Creations Limited.

Famously, it was a badly organised affair. In fact, some people would say it wasn't organised at all. The 40 acres of barley growing in the field it was due to be held in wasn't even mowed a few days before it was due to start.

The stage wasn't so much a stage as two trailers shoved together and covered with a canvas, an entirely typical arrangement in the UK at the time. The PA wasn't any good and The Move (who were notoriously loud) managed to blow out 9 speakers during their set. 

The bands who played across the two days were Jefferson Airplane, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, The Move, Smile, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Plastic Penny, Fairport Convention, and The Pretty Things.

Getting Airplane to play on their first tour of the UK and Europe was a major coup. Less than 2 years into their current incarnation, the Airplane were nonetheless a huge band and brought an entourage of 30 lighting technicians and sound experts and 5 tons of electrical equipment. 

Early on Saturday, 114 members of groups arrived on the Isle of Wight in three specially chartered hovercraft to avoid them being mobbed by fans on the ferries.
But at least the local Man didn't get a court injunction to stop it. Farmers Union people were worried about the land being polluted and local magistrates got uppity about a bar being advertised before a licence had been applied for. But none of this was enough to stop the rock n roll.

There was a big wait between bands because of poor organisation. Fairport played at 4am and everyone was freezing cold. Airplane, despite all their gear, were too quiet. Hit of the weekend was apparently Arthur Brown who, inevitably, set his head on fire. Brown had considered flying to the festival site in a balloon. Of course, Arthur. In a balloon, Arthur. Put the LSD down, Arthur.

The whole thing passed off without much fuss. But Isle of Wight Festival 1968 led the way for the much bigger festivals in the following two years and it seems, cold aside, to have been enjoyed by everyone. 

 

 

 

San Francisco Pop Festival, Alameda Fairgrounds, Pleasanton

By 1968 the whole world knew that San Francisco was Freak Central. Bus tours would patrol the streets, treating the long-haired weirdoes like some sort of zoo exhibit. Long time residents will tell you that the age of hippy idealism had already peaked, probably in early '66, to early '67. However, while this may be culturally true, the fact was a lot of SF bands were just getting their wings and creating wonderful music.

So this festival in Alameda Fairgrounds in Pleasanton brought together some great bands for a superb 2 days of music on 26th and 27th October 1968. As far as I can tell, no pop music was played. I love how these early events are so often called 'pop' festivals, mostly because the word 'rock' was only just getting embedded into popular culture and still not in wide use. Seems hard to believe now.

This was actually a rescheduled event which had originally been due to be played on at  Searsville Lake, near Standford University in San Mateo County, October 5-6, on Stanfords land.  2,000 $5 tickets had already been sold for that gig and contracts with local services signed. It would've included Cream and Traffic as well as Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer, Country Joe and The Fish and the Steve Miller Band.

Ads for the show also claimed the whole two days would be recorded for a live album - which would've been quite radical thing to do in 1968 and would've been a great historical document.

The usual hassles ensued as the university took fright at a hippie invasion. and nixed the event. Locals suggest that original venue could've been a nightmare, however, with limited roads in and out and the potential for a massive audience with the students on the doorstep. 

As ever with such events, recollections are a little hazy due to recreational activities of a herbal kind, but it seems as though these are the bands that played, give or take a few local outfits. Lee Michaels, Buddy Miles Express, Eric Burdon & the Animals, Canned Heat, The Grass Roots, Deep Purple, Procol Harum, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Iron Butterfly, Jose Feliciano, The Chambers Brothers, Rejoice, Mad River, Johnny Rivers, Aum, Fraternity Of Man, Loading Zone, Womb. Some say Janis, The Who, Moby Grape and Jimi also played, but the pre-festival posters don't list them.

That's an outstandingly good line-up and reports suggest the standard of music was high throughout. Many parents even brought their kids and sat in the fairgrounds grandstand chatting, while the kids got their groove on in front of the stage. 

"Many reports say how great Jose Feliciano was. I've noticed that from '68 to '70, this is a recurring report about the blind acoustic noodler. Many times he seems to have enthralled his audience with virtuoso guitar playing, but with a mellow vibe. Perhaps when you've had your mind fried by Iron Butterfly playing In-A-Gadda-Da-Via for an hour, a bit of Jose brings you down softly.

Over 40,000 turned up across the two days and it seems to have been a very easy-going, laid back event with none of the aggression and politics of later festivals. In fact, in general, the festivals held in the San Francisco area, down as far as Monterey, seem to have all had a good vibe to them up until the dark days of Altamont. But that was still over a year away, and the San Francisco International Pop Festival 1968 maybe showed what the future could have been if everyone had kept their love hat on.

 

 

 

Catacombs Pop Festival, Houston, Texas

This was advertised as a Trips Festival.

The Catacombs was one of Houston’s most important rock-and-roll clubs of the late 1960s. It opened in April 1966 at 3003 South Post Oak Road in Houston’s west side. The club was owned by Ames Productions, which was owned by brothers Richard and Steve Ames, and Bob Cope served as the general manager. When it first opened in 1966 it was aimed at teenagers, so much so that for a while you had to wear school clothing to get in and only 15 - 20 year-olds were allowed! 

Bands popular at the time, such as Houston’s own Neal Ford & the Fanatics, Dallas-based band The Five Americans, The McCoys, The Cyrkle, as well as B. B. King, Jethro Tull, the Shadows of Knight, Ten Years After, and the Grateful Dead regularly performed at the Catacombs. It was certainly an early regular rock gig.

Local Texas garage bands often played as openers for the national acts. Moving Sidewalks (with Billy Gibbons) were to be 4th on the bill but they went to California instead and didn’t make the show. This was Houston’s first festival with a line-up of Canned Heat, Country Joe & The Fish, Match Box, Neal Ford and the Fanatics and The Mothers of Invention topped the bill. 

The club consisted of two large divided rooms with a main stage and a second stage. The second stage at the club served to showcase local new talent, and the Catacombs held auditions on Saturdays for local bands. They moved to a new location soon after and closed in 1970, ending an important early chapter in Houston’s rock n roll history.

 

 

 

Northern California Folk-Rock Festival 

This was held at Family Park in the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, 344 Tully Road, San Jose, California, on May 18–19, 1968. This was the first of two festivals here promoted by a dude called Bob Blodgett.

 

The festival featured Country Joe and the Fish, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Big Brother and the Holding Company feat. Janis Joplin, The Youngbloods, The Electric Flag, Kaleidoscope, Taj Mahal, and Ravi Shankar and the Grateful Dead. Some played, some didn't and there was a lot of unlisted local bands that also strummed some tunes. In other words, it was the usual semi-chaotic festival situation.

It was an usual 2-day show because it was held during the day, not in the evening and finished at 5.30pm. 

The Airplane headlined the first day, The Doors closing the event on the second. There is footage of Jim - with a new short haircut - and the band arriving and playing on what looks like a small improvised stage, with the audience just right by them. Some of this was used in Feast of Friends. There were some local bands to open proceedings each day such as Morning Reign, Indian Headband, Transatlantic Railroad, Mint Tattoo and People.

Saturday’s meaty part of the show featuring the Youngbloods, Steve Miller Band, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and Jefferson Airplane. That is quite some run of bands. However, there were some bad vibes going around. Hells Angels, as they often were at this time, were ‘security’ and as per usual, this involved some breaking of heads. It didn’t help that the ground was cold and wet after some chilly damp weather, and unpleasant to sit on. Then the sun came out and was so hot it fried people.

 

As the medical tents got packed out with freaks who had gone to the wrong side of gonzo, the press picked up on the story, gleefully running another 'kids gone wild on drugs' story about the corrupting nature of all things long-haired and groovy, as opposed to the corrupting nature of fighting a nice war. The City Fathers shook their heads ruefully and promised this would never happen in their sweet little town again. Or at least, not for a year, as it turned out.   

The second day was apparently just as tonto. The Doors headline performance was reported as not being one of their best. The feeling being that the crowd preferred SF bands and The Doors also liked the drama playing in the dark to conjur the magic. Indeed, they were often unhappy with their festival performances. Leather pants are also gonna be sweaty on a hot May afternoon!

There were a couple of reviews of Steve MIller's set saying how tight and hard they were in contrast to the SF bands more typical rambling style. Some didn't like this and preferred the more Dead-style extemporisations. I remember Steve saying later in an interview that they were so well rehearsed and all such good players that they really stood out at the time as being professional and a reliably excellent band. 

This two-dayer went down in local freak Northern California folklore for it’s stellar bill but also because it scored high on the ‘out of our box’ scale of freakoutedness.

 

 

 

Quaker City Rock Festival, Philadelphia 

This was a significant early one-day rock show, taking place on Fri Dec 06, 1968 at what became the legendary venue, Spectrum, 3601 S Broad St, Philadelphia Pennsylvania 19148. It was put on by a company called Electric Factory.

Electric Factory Concerts was and indeed still is a Philadelphia-based concert promotion firm, affiliated with the former Electric Factory venue in the city. This was an important gig venue because there was no such place in Philly for rock gigs until they set it up. It was founded by Herbert Spivak, who ran the business with his brothers Jerry and Allen. They later hired Larry Magid to become General Manager, and he also became a co-owner of the company and a major dude in concert promotion in the region. So big that in 1985 they promoted the American Live Aid show. But all of that was well ahead of them in 1968.

 

The Electric Factory had been putting on gigs all year so they knew the demand for a big one-dayer was there. The first Quaker City rock show had been held on October 19th at The Spectrum because the event was too large for the Electric Factory.

 

The gig featured several artists such as Big Brother with Janis, Moby Grape, Vanilla Fudge, Buddy Guy, and The Chambers Brothers.

 

Because the club was successful, like many promoters in 1968 and 1969, they started to realise that there was gold in them thar rock n roll hills. From our position now, in the 21st century, this seems obvious, but back in 1968 it really wasn’t until later in the year. Loud, highly amplified rock n roll played by long hairs and freaks was new. Very new. Even to clued up heads it was only about 18 months old, the general music fan was only just waking up to it all with hits by the likes of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and Blue Cheer’s Summertime Blues playing on the radio.

 

But in 1968, things were moving quickly. By the end of the year dozens of important rock and hippie records had been released and gone to the top of the charts, so it was more obvious that you could make serious bread by putting on shows. Hence the second show in December.

 

The full line up for this was Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly, Sly and the Family Stone and Steppenwolf. All for $3.50. That is a really strong line-up. All those bands had hit albums and singles that year. CCR pulled out and were replaced by a band called American Dream, who would go on to release just one record in 1970, produced by Todd Rundgren, as it happens.

 

The great Al Kooper acted as the MC and played with American Dream too. The fact that news reports of the day only mentioned it in passing, and didn’t have any naked-hippies-freak-out-drug-fest headlines, illustrates that it passed without incident and everyone had a good time.

 

Larry Magid in recent years has said they basically “created the concert business” which is quite a claim in a country as big as America. They were certainly innovative promoters and had a significant role in birthing the touring scene for bands. So much so that even by 1970, the Electric Factory and The Spectrum were must-plays for every touring band of any size or reputation.

 

 

 

National Jazz & Blues Festival , Sunbury

An important festival as the UK got its groove on. Held between August 9-11th, 1968. After the disaster at Windsor in 1967, the festival moved in 1968 to Kempton Park Racecourse in Surrey. 

It didn’t always go smoothly. Arthur Brown set his hair on fire, playing ‘Fire’ as you would imagine. He did this a lot, so it didn’t perturb the crowd unduly.  Then there was the little fact that a walkway collapsed under the weight of those sitting on it. 

This actually injured 74 people, some of whom had to be taken to hospital. 

But these were minor concerns for a crowd of up to 50,000 keen to hear the latest bands of the day who were tearing up places like the Marquee. However, the organization of the festival went through some difficulties before getting off the ground, when the Windsor Borough Council refused to grant a dancing licence. As expressed by the secretary of the Marquee John Gee on the programme of the club published in February 1868, on January 8th the NJF appealed at the Windsor Court. 

Witnesses called on behalf of the Festival organisers included Mr. Robin Scott, controller of BBC's Radio One and Two, Mr. George Melly, pop music critic of The Observer, and Mr. Frederick Woods, critic of The Gramophone. 

Windsor's police chief, Supt. John Snowley said that the police had no objection to the festival and that last year they had received full co-operation from the Festival Organisers. 

So despite the locals' attempt to nix the grooving, it went ahead anyway. Harold Pendleton described the decision of the Windsor Magistrates as "an enormous, staggering relief".

The full line-up was Time Box, Marmalade, Mike Westbrook Band, Ronnie Scott Quintet, Jon Hendricks, Don Rendell, Ian Carr Quintet, Alan Haven Trio, Joe Cocker and the Grease Band, Deep Purple, Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Jeff Beck Group, The Nice, Ginger Baker, Arthur Brown, Eclection, The Johnstons, Sonya, Nite People, Al Stewart, Fairport Convention, Tramline, John Mayall, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, Chicken Shack, Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Dynaflow Blues, John Peel, Savoy Brown, Duster Bennett, The Herd, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Taste, Incredible String Band.

This was the cream of UK blues, rock and folk and it’d cost you 15 shillings to get in on the Saturday 

After the event, the Daily Record was quoted as saying “Plagued by disaster and countless setbacks The Sunbury Festival presented some of the best musical entertainment ever seen”.

 

 

 

 

San Francisco Holiday Rock Festival 

Held on Boxing Day 26th December 1969 in the famous Cow Palace, in Daly City, California, it was a one-day show but one which showed just how strong and popular the San Francisco/Bay Area counterculture rock scene had become in the previous 18 months, evolving from literally a handful of bands who were not signed to any labels, to a mini-industry in itself, with everyone recording albums and singles. 

This show was put on by local radio station KYA 1260. They had organised the San Francisco Pop Festival in late October at the Alameda Fairgrounds. KYA was home to Tom Donahue, an important DJ in the area who basically created the FM radio format which allowed stations to play songs longer than 3-minutes long. 

Sadly, he was to die in the mid-70s, just 46 years old, but at this time, he's a real mover and shaker on the scene. He also managed Leigh Stephens from Blue Cheer, Mickey Waller and Pete Sears who would later be in Jefferson Starship and others. However, as Tom had been very critical of AM radio in Rolling Stone in 1967 saying "AM Radio Is Dead and Its Rotting Corpse Is Stinking Up the Airwaves", he may not have been still at KYA a year later. But the fact they put on two shows with freaky bands suggests his influence was still present and the Cow Palace was very much his stomping ground.

The main bands who played were Canned Heat, Blue Cheer, Buffalo Springfield, Flamin' Groovies, Santana, Steppenwolf, The Electric Prunes, Spencer Davis and Three Dog Night.

The Wolf and Canned Heat were notionally the headliners, both had already had chart success, as had Blue Cheer, Buffalo Springfield (here in a much reduced incarnation, without Stills and Young) Only Santana would’ve been without a recording contract at this time, though that was soon to change in 1969 under the guidance of Bill Graham.

The Cow Palace’s capacity was 16,500 and even though it was the day after Xmas, it was sold out. 

These one-day shows with up to nine or ten bands would soon become the preferred way of putting on a show, as opposed to the 3-days in the country let’s-bring-the-revolution freak-out. But this must’ve been one of the first to hit the scene. It’s not hard to see why so many would’ve wanted to go to a show like this for $4.50 is it?!

 

 

 

 

The Tijuana Pop Festival 

A lot of festivals, especially in the early days, were some shade of chaotic but by hook and usually by crook, the freaks managed to put something on for the assembled crowd. But at Mexico’s first rock festival of the era, this was very much not the case.

It had all seemed fine until a few days before it was due to be held in the Bullring on 13 October 1968. 

The festival was slated to feature the Animals, Iron Butterfly, Patchwork Security Blanket (great name!), the Collectors, the Chicago Transit Authority and the Yellow Payges; however, the Animals and Iron Butterfly never played. 

The gig was being promoted by someone called Professor Blum, a one-time symphony musician. I presume he was one of those straight classical music guys who dropped acid in 1967 and decided rock and roll was the way forward.

Three days before the show, the police tried to cancel the gig and put out vibes that it was all off. This was sneaky because there was no reason to call it off and they were simply tried to suppress the number that would attend. It worked. The stadium had a 27,000 capacity and only 4,000 tickets had sold at $3.50 and $4.50. So on the day, the place looked all but empty. No vibe. 

Then the cops started hassling people at the border - Tijuana being just across from California - and that slowed down the arrival of equipment and bands.  

It all started at 11am, with the promoters giving press - many had made the trek from Los Angeles - champagne and orange juice. Patchwork Security Blanket and the Collectors played but then everything stopped for what seemed like hours. Iron Butterfly arrived but there was no money to pay them, so they left. Chicago managed to play a set in the middle of the afternoon. But the police arrived batons drawn and began wandering around being generally menacing. Clearly, intent on making the whole thing such a drag that everyone would split.

After Chicago had parped their splendid jazz-rock there followed another long wait. With no Iron Butterfly, a band called Yellow Payges played covers of Beatles tunes to dwindling interest. While they performed The Animals equipment arrived, having been held up at the border. But the band was absent, also held up on the road.

By 7.30pm after over two hours without music, everyone was fed up. Finally Eric Burdon arrived with a couple of Animals and management, rather comically, by then their equipment had been taken away again on the presumption the whole gig was a bust. According to Eric’s autobiography, he got on stage to tell the crowd that Mexico was famous for beautiful women and great pot, and this did not go over well with the local police who presumably liked neither.  

No-one could face sitting through more Yellow Payges cover versions, so the remaining audience went home and, after an extended wait, the press got back on the bus that had brought them from LA.

It was later called "one of the biggest fiascos in pop festival history that left enough of a black mark that any future pop festival in Mexico is unlikely."

 

 

 

Los Angeles Pop Festival 

The Los Angeles Pop Festival was held at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on December 22 and 23, 1968. It was also called a Christmas Happening, which sounds far more groovy. It hadn't been a busy year in Southern California for festivals really. The Newport Pop Fest had been held in Costa Mesa in August to an audience of over 200,000 but this was a much smaller, low profile affair. 

It was one of the earliest to be held in a sports stadium, which was later to become the norm. The Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena was a multi-purpose arena at Exposition Park, in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The arena was closed in April 2016, and was demolished in September of that same year. It was replaced with BMO Stadium, home of Major League Soccer's Los Angeles FC, which opened in 2018.

This meant people went home at the end of the first day. So it's really not a festival in the way we think about it now with 3 days worth of bands, with everyone camping and raging around naked, high on PCP.

The bands that played were all festival regulars. Weird addition of the Righteous Brothers. The Love Exchange were a short-lived but interesting folk-psyche band from LA whose only album came out in 1968.

Jose Feliciano was a popular act on the festival scene as he provided a cooling acoustic come-down off the peak acid rock. The Steve Miller Band had released their debut album 'Children Of The Future' in June and 'Sailor', their second in October which got to #24 around this time. Blue Cheer's first album had been released in January 1968 and had got to #11, 'Outsideinside' their second had come out in August but made just #90. The Box Tops were having hit singles and The Chambers Brothers had a growing live following for their psychedelic funk show. 

Blue Cheer
The Box Tops
Canned Heat
The Chambers Brothers
Jose Feliciano
The Grass Roots
The Love Exchange
Buddy Miles
Steve Miller Band
The Righteous Brothers
Three Dog Night
The Turtles

 

 

Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair, Washington 

It's 1968 and we're on Betty Nelson's organic raspberry farm just outside of Sultan, Washington, about an hour's drive from Seattle. The fact that it was an organic raspberry farm, should give you a clue that it was run by someone sympathetic to the burgeoning counterculture revolution.

An organisation called The New American Community was a liberal sort of aggregation headed up by a local college professor. He was John Chambless, he got a lease off Betty and set about convincing Mr and Mrs Straight that Freaksville being visited upon their nice community would be a positive thing, it would and not in any way an orgy of hardcore drugs, exposed genitals and sun-burned nipples.

He promised it wouldn't be that big and wouldn't be advertised widely and it would raise money for American Indian human-rights groups. Sky River is an important festival, not for its size, but in the fact that it was America's only really successful festival in the summer of 1968 at which major league acts actually performed. Success being defined as passing off peacefully, everyone having a good time and no-one getting hurt, poisoned, or shot by a half-naked biker woman.

It wasn't about making money. These people did not define success in terms of bread. And that's beautiful. 

Sky River was music and and arts fair, which basically meant, along with the music, there were stalls where hippy types could sell their tie-dyed candles and trousers made out of hemp and sesame seeds, to people who were so stoned they couldn't tell blue from cheese. 

The San Francisco Mime Troupe also found a home here because nothing said hippy fest in 68 more than someone trying to get out of an invisible box. One of the most endearing aspects of the counterculture was how it produced theatre and mime groups who would pass hippie, or later yippie, comment on the politics of the day in a funny, anarchic sort of way. The Firesign Theatre were good at that.

A Labour day weekend festival, held August 28 through September 3, 1968, the music began early on Saturday morning and went on until midnight on Monday. So who played? The Grateful Dead, who were already one of the biggest acts in the Bay drove up from San Francisco.

There was Country Joe and the Fish, Peanut Butter Conspiracy, Buffy Saint Marie and It's A Beautiful Day. Muddy Waters, James Cotton Blues Band, Dino Valenti, the Youngbloods and Big Mamma Willie Mae Thornton, to name a few, along with lots of local bands and also an early incarnation of Santana.

This was one of those beautiful events where the bands and the groovers all mixed together and egos where checked at the door. This was the kind of festival that people talked about being an expression of the new Aquarian spirit of peace and love. It was the kind of event which inspired legions of others to want to put a festival on and to attend one. It felt new and revolutionary, it was also a place to meet people who were searching for a new American Dream. 

With only 3,000 - 4,000 there at any one time, 15,000 in total, things didn't get heavy. Organisation was good. There was water, food and sanitation and, this being 68, the heavy drugs had yet to take hold, so mostly people smoked weed and everything was very cool. The kind of drugs that were consumed really did gear how the gig went down. Back when it was just dope, everything seems to have been laid back..

Big Mamma Willie Mae Thornton played using James Cotton's band, people danced naked and she was to go on to play a lot of festivals, her raw, original rock 'n' blues spirit being very much of the moment.

The festival grossed over $55,000 and a lot of that was handed over to Native American organisations. The organisers said they lost $6,000 but everyone else made money.  As it turned out, the uptight locals loved the hippie kids and how it all played out. Local merchants had made more profit over the weekend than at any time in the year. Uniquely, a festival under the Sky River name happened for three years consecutively. 1969's incarnation was on a larger site in Tenino, headlined by Steve Miller, but it was the 68 fest that went down in history as being the first successful festival outside of California and the first to take place in a back-to-nature, rural setting and on a not-for-profit basis. All in all, Sky River Rock Festival 1968 was pretty cool.

 

 

The First International Pop Festival, Rome 

This was held in Rome and was intended to rival the USA's 1967 Monterey Pop, Miami Pop and Newport Pop festivals of 1968. It was arranged amidst campus occupation by students at the University of Rome and riots as students were stopped from storming the US Embassy in an anti-war protest.

Many artists took part, including Pink Floyd. the Byrds, Captain Beefheart and Donovan. However, when The Move set fire to the stage with their pyrotechnics at the end of their set, they were arrested by the police for doing so. The festival had been scheduled to last a week, but after The Move were busted, the venue was shut by the authorities and the festival was over. 

The four days of concerts that should have taken place at the Palazzo dello Sport dell´Eur, were organized by two young Americans, Jerry and Patricia Fife who, returning from the experience of the Monterey Pop Festival were inspired to try and recreate the Monterey vibe in Rome. 

Bands didn’t often get as far as Rome. The travelling costs made it prohibitive for many, who frankly didn’t feel much like hauling ass halfway across Europe just to play a show or two. So everyone wanted a lot more bread to play. 

They got Hendrix on board though, initially at least. Trouble was, the promoters had to keep moving the date. Initially, it was supposed to take place in February, then they moved it to April, and then to May and Jimi couldn’t make the revised dates. He did play two shows at the Brancaccio Theater, on May 25th though. 

On top of this, the scene was only just getting going in Rome and the amount of freaks, rockers and hippies wasn’t as big in number as many had assumed. You’ve got to remember it was all a new thing and not everyone got on board right away. A lot were frightened by this new youth movement, the drugs and everything that went with it, and that included far out music from the likes of Captain Beefheart and Pink Floyd.  

All of which meant when they did open for business, the crowd that turned up was quite small. It was a financial disaster of considerable proportions. Melody Maker called it "The pop-flop of ´68". Everyone had expected a large crowd to turn up and the authorities had feared it would be an army of left-wing revolutionaries all hell bent on kicking some capitalist ass. But in the end, a few hundred turned up, enjoyed the music, The Move set the stage on fire and everyone had to go home.

The poster was designed by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, an influential British graphic design and avant-garde musical partnership of Michael English and Nigel Waymouth. They made a lot of psychedelic posters and two albums too, the first of which was basically a Spooky Tooth album.

 

 

Palm Springs Pop Festival 

An early example of what was actually merely a rock gig, attracting the ‘festival’ tag. Uniquely, at least as far as I know, in that it was held in a Drive-In Movie Theatre. Advertised as ‘An Out-Door Concert Under The Stars' at Sun Air Drive-In (movie theater), 68050 Highway 111, Cathedral City, outside Palm Springs, Riverside County, California 

For a mere $2.50 in advance, or $3 on the gate you got to see Eric Burdon and The Animals headline a bill that also included Blue Cheer, Sweetwater, The Collectors, and Dirty Blues Band. Lights were by the Picadilly Light Show. The festival, which was promoted by 'Gary Berwin Presents', started at 8:00pm.

There was a bigger, proper Palm Springs festival a year later, which was more controversial. This just slipped on through as another gig in the early rock firmament. 

About 40 years later Eric Burden moved to Palm Springs, finding that dry desert air to be good for his asthma.