ROCK
FESTIVALS

     

A creation of the 1960s, rock festivals began as the ultimate expression of the counter culture. They set out to show that rebellious youth could organise huge events without the help of the older generation or its institutions. With the huge amounts of money these festivals generated, however, it did not stay that way for long. But rock festivals have never entirely lost their idealism.

The first major rock festival was the Monterey International Pop Festival. It took place in 1967 from June 16 to 18, in Monterey, California. Monterey was the site of a well-known jazz festival, and promoter Alan Pariser decided that rock deserved a similar showcase. The festival drew around 90,000 people, many of whom did not have tickets. Performers included the Grateful Dead, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Booker T and the MGs, Big Brother and the Holding Company (featuring Janis Joplin), the Steve Miller Band, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi HENDRIX, the Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, Lou Rawls, and THE WHO. But it was soul singer Otis REDDING who stole the show, and the festival launched Redding’s career nationally, as it did for Joplin, Hendrix, and The Who.

THE FIRST WOODSTOCK

The most famous of all music festivals was Woodstock, held between August 15 and 17 in 1969, on a farm in Bethel, New York. It is estimated that as many as 500,000 people attended. Woodstock is remembered as much for the rain and mud, lack of food, drug overdoses, births, deaths, miscarriages, sex, and nudity as it is for the music. It was understaffed and poorly planned. Every road within a 20-mile radius, including the New York State Thruway, was blocked, and opening act Richie Havens had to play for three hours because the other performers were stuck in traffic. Still, Woodstock is remembered as the high point of the “flower power” movement of the late 1960s. Among those who performed there were Joan BAEZ, The Who, Country Joe and the Fish, Sly and the Family Stone, SANTANA, Janis Joplin, The Band, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bob DYLAN, Ten Years After, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who were formed especially for the festival. But it was not as idealistic a venture as it appears in memory. The organisers had sold the movie rights to Warner Bros. even before they staged the event.

The “good vibrations” spread by Woodstock died four months later at Altamont, a music festival held on December 6, 1969, at Altamont Speedway, in California. The free event featured the ROLLING STONES, Santana and Jefferson Airplane, but is best remembered for bloody fights spawned by the Hells Angels. The Rolling Stones had hired the Hells Angels as marshals, but the motorcycle gang stabbed a young man to death and the incident was caught on camera.

BRITISH FESTIVALS

Rock festivals were by no means a purely American phenomenon. The late 1960s saw a series of large-scale, open-air concerts in London’s Hyde Park, featuring bands such as PINK FLOYD, T. Rex and Traffic. The largest and most significant of these events took place on July 5, 1969, when the Rolling Stones performed before an estimated audience of 250,000. The concert turned into a wake for former Stones guitarist Brian Jones, who had died two days earlier.

The definitive British rock festival of the era took place on the Isle of Wight between August 28–30, 1970. The bill assembled for the event was one of the most impressive ever seen, with artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, and the MC5 all appearing before a crowd of 500,000. The event was dogged by controversy, however. Angry that the organisers were charging admission fees, anarchists within the crowd attempted to tear down the perimeter fences, actions which led to violent confrontations with security. The ensuing bad publicity ensured that the 1970 Isle of Wight festival was also the last. However, the year was to see the birth of another festival which was to prove far more enduring.

The first Glastonbury festival took place on September 19, 1970, the day after the death of Jimi Hendrix. Organised by West Country farmer Michael Eavis, it featured Marc Bolan and Al Stewart and was attended by a mere 1,500 people. Each paid £1 to get in, a price that included free milk from the farm. Over the next three decades, the event was to grow enormously. By the mid-1990s Glastonbury had established itself as the major event in the British rock calendar, attracting crowds of 80,000 and featuring bands such as OASIS, Primal Scream, Pulp and Blur. However, Glastonbury is as much a political event as a musical one. By the late 1990s, the festival had raised over £2 million for political pressure groups and charities such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Greenpeace. Despite the fact that the event is now a multi-million pound business, it is still run by original organiser Eavis.

LIVE AID

However, the money generated by Glastonbury is dwarfed by the amount raised by just one concert in 1985. The largest fundraising event ever held, Live Aid took place simultaneously at Wembley Stadium \ in London and J.F.K. Stadium in Philadelphia, “ Pennsylvania, on July 13, 1985. Live Aid was organised in just ten weeks by Bob Geldof of the Irish group the Boomtown Rats. It ran for 16 hours and was televised live, reaching an audience of an estimated 1.5 billion people in 160 countries.

The London show, which drew 72,000, included performances by QUEEN, STING, Simple Minds, David BOWIE, The Who, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, and U2. Joan Baez opened the Philadelphia show, which drew a crowd of 100,000 and featured Tina TURNER, Mick Jagger, MADONNA, the BEACH BOYS, LED ZEPPELIN, and Bob Dylan. Phil Collins played at both events, performing in London and then flying to the U.S. to drum with Led Zeppelin. These concerts raised over £50 million for famine relief in Africa.

INTO THE 1990S

Rock festivals have continued to flourish in the 1990s. In the U.S., one of the most conspicuous successes has been Lollapalooza. The festival was the brainchild of Perry Farrell of the band Jane’s Addiction. Farrell wanted to create an event similar to Britain’s Reading Festival, which features alternative rock bands. Since its inception in 1991, Lollapalooza has featured a host of big-name, alternative artists, including Sonic Youth, Beck, the Beastie Boys and the Butthole Surfers.

In the U.K., Glastonbury has been joined by the likes of Phoenix, T in the Park and V98, while the long-running WOMAD festival, which features world music, continues to thrive. The rise of dance music, meanwhile, has added an extra dimension to the U.K.’s music festival scene, with all-night, open-air events such as Creamfields and Tribal Gathering catering for house, techno and jungle fans.

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Shannon Hoon of the band Blind Melon at Woodstock ′94, which was an attempt to re-create the highs of 1969.

Back in the U.S., Woodstock ′94, a festival to mark the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock, was held in August 1994 in Saugerties, New York. Stars from the first Woodstock were joined by several 1990s performers. The event was criticised for its high prices and commercialism, and protesting musicians held a small counter-festival at the site of the first Woodstock.

Daria Labinsky

SEE ALSO:
FOLK MUSIC; POP MUSIC; ROCK MUSIC; ROCK’N’ROLL.

FURTHER READING

Makower, Joel. Woodstock: The Oral History (New York: Doubleday, 1989);

Selvin, Joel. Monterey Pop (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1992).

SUGGESTED LISTENING

The Concert for Bangladesh; No Nukes; Woodstock:: Three Days of Peace and Music.