This past June, thousands of people streamed into the Monterey fairgrounds, just on the right side of the railroad tracks in the small oceanfront town, ready to experience a musical revelation.
While the fairgrounds were too far away to see the Pacific, you could feel the water in the rhythmic waves as one band crashed into another from all over the musical spectrum.
The sun was relentless, immediately bleaching out each performance in our minds before the final chords had faded into that distant sound of the ocean.
The crowd was as eclectic as the lineup. For some people, the festival was just a pitstop on the way to yet another show; people constantly chasing the euphoric high you can only experience in the wailing cry of an electric guitar. And for others, the Monterey Pop Festival was the highlight of their year. A break from the monotony of their mundane lives. It was the kind of experience that gave each person who experienced it something different — something new — and won’t be so easily forgotten. What we experienced in Monterey will stick with us if we let it.
If you were there, I promise you one day someone will ask you to think about moments that changed your life. Moments that blanketed you in the good vibrations of the best music, the sun beating down on your forehead, and that sure moment when you had the opportunity to make a real connection with another person, and you took it.
Moments that offered you the chance to take the first step into becoming whoever you think you were meant to be.
And for so many of us, that moment occurred at the Monterey Fairgrounds.
“The Monterey Pop Festival: Music and Magic on an Unforgettable Weekend”
by Alonzo Reid
Staff Reporter
Village Voice, August 1967