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From Monterey to Bethel


Mike

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The first rock festival ever!

The Monterey Pop Festival - June 16-18th 1967 where a quarter a million people gathered for -

The Association, The Blues Project, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, The Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield, Booker T and the MG's with the Bar-Kays, Eric Burdon and the Animals, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Byrds, Country Joe and the fish, Grateful Dead, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jefferson Airplane, Al Kooper, The Mamas and The Papas, Hugh Masekela, The Steve Miller Band, Scott McKenzie, Moby Grape, Laura Nyro Ravi Shakar, Simon and Garfunkel and The Who

The most famous rock festival ever!

Woodstock - August 15-17th 1969 where nearly a half a million people gathered for -

Joan Baez Blood, Sweat and Tears, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Canned Heat, Country Joe McDonald & The Fish Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joe Cocker, Arlo Guthrie, Grateful Dead, Tim Hardin, Jimi Hendrix, Richie Havens, Keef Hartley The Incredible String Band, Janis Joplin, The Jefferson, Airplane, The Joshua Light Show, Melanie, Mountain, Quill, John Sebastian,Ravi Shankar, Sly and the Family Stone, Bert Sommer, Santana, Sweetwater, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter, and The Who.

Man, I would have love to see either one of these shows, I've seen Woodstock on film, and plan to see the Monterey show sometime soon, haven't seen it for rent and it a fortune to buy, but it does read like the best of the two shows. I was only 4 and 6 when these where performed, I've heard about them all my life from people who say this was an amazing time for music and music fans. It's where it all came together.

Discuss-

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I´ve seen both movies maybe a... million times???? :laughing: and I still think Monterey is far better than Woodstock. I was 13 when they released Woodstock and my dad, as a journalist, was a friend of the theater owners and distributors, so we always went to the movies for free... so me and my friends (five to ten people) went each and every saturday night at 1. A.M. to see any of those movies which were shown all night long. I have Woodstock in video but I haven´t seen Monterey for maybe twenty five years now... I loved that Janis/Airplane/Otis/Jimi/and the rest performance... I had also the records when they were released. I absolutelly plan to get me the Monterey DVD as soon as I see it somewhere, or just ask my twelve years old nephew to download it for me... nowadays kids!!! :bow:

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I was at perhaps the last, big gathering of the Monterey/Woodstock genre, the Atlanta Pop Festival in the summer of 1970. The crowd of close to half a million (at its largest) lived, unpoliced and totally free, for a weekend in a pecan grove on the ground around a huge raised stage. BB King, Jimi Hendrix, Allman Brothers, Johnny Winter, 10 Years After, musically stand out in my mind. But my mind was in an altered state from almost the first minute there. The free flow of drugs coupled with the lack of authority were the most pervasive attraction and while the large crowd was peaceful, the aura of paranoia and OD was always close at hand. I was a 20 year old sailor temporarily stationed at Brunswick, Georga for a Naval training school. I drove the 180 miles to Byron (just north of Atlanta) alone to be a part of this "love fest." Walking the mile and a half from the parking area, I was offered mescaline (which I had never done before.) Later that evening, during Jimi Hendrix' set, I threw my car keys into a field because I was convinced materialism was evil. I can laugh now, but I remember walking through that field for hours the next day. Eventually I had to hitch back to the base, get my spare key, hitch back to Byron and amazingly my car was the only one sitting in that field used for parking.

Later that summer I saw Steppenwolf in Savannah, but it was more controlled, like a Lollapolooza today. The weekend in Byron was never repeated in America with such rustic conditions again. Too much risk and liability for promoters, I would guess. Concert goers at Atlanta in 1970 were so stoned and so vulnerable to outside forces, I marvel now that no major catastrophy visited that July 4th weekend.

I love rock and roll. I really enjoy sex. But, I must say, drugs is a dead end street.

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