DJTees Blog — Festivals

If you wanted a venue for a rock show, where better than a zoo in Dudley, in the west midlands? This was a fundraiser for the World Wildlife Fund. Edgar Broughton Band, Faces, Jeff Dexter, Quintessence, Sam Apple Pie, and T. Rex played. The compere was Jeff Dexter who had popularised The Twist in the early 60s and was the resident DJ at the Middle Earth club in Covent Garden and compered the first Glastonbury.T.Rex were still a duo, hippy acoustic outfit. Sam Apple Pie had a big live following as a blues-rock band which had originally featured Malcolm Morely,...

Wild Wednesday Wed Jun 21, 1972 Sherwood Forest, Davison, Michigan Wild Wednesday jams happened for years, from 1969 - 1974. By 1972 they were indeed pretty wild and were an excuse for local Michigan bands to strut their stuff. This year the bands were Bob Seger, Dennis Coffey, Frijid Pink, Johnny and the Hurricanes, Julia, King Biscuit Boy,SRC, Teegarden and Van Winkle, The Früt, The Rumour, Whiz Kids, Wylie, Mike Quatro Jam Band.The first of those, Bob Seger, was just starting to break in Michigan, though nationwide success was still some years away and was persuaded to play ‘Turn The Page’...

This one day event’s line-up was Boz Scaggs, Cold Blood, Elvin Bishop, Joy of Cooking, Stoneground, The Doobie Brothers, The Chambers Brothers.It was held at the T-Car Speedway which opened in 1964 and closed in 2005. Also known as Tahoe-Carson Speedway, Champion Motor Speedway and Silver State Raceway.Carson City is quite high above sea-level and this show came after a period of drought, so the audience could count themselves unlucky. The show was supposed to start at 12 noon and run until midnight, but with heavy rain mid-day the acts didn't get started until 4 pm.The Chambers Brothers are reported...

Progressive Festival D'Aix En Provence, Sat Aug 01, 1970 - Mon Aug 03, 1970, Saint-Pons, Aix-en-Provence, France. The festival, which took place on the Saint-Pons estate, located ten kilometres west of Aix-en-Provence on the banks of the Arc, brought together approximately 40,000 young people whose average age was around twenty. This French-style "Woodstock", held despite the ban issued by the Bouches-du-Rhône préfecture, had raised many concerns and its initiator, General Clément, himself secretary general of the International Music Festival. He was strongly criticised, starting with the president of the Festival, the CEO of the Casino, who was to castigate "the...

Schaefer Music Festival Thu Jun 15, 1972 - Sat Sep 02, 1972, Wollman Rink, 63 Center Drive, New York City New York 10065The Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park was a recurring music festival held in the summer between 1967 and 1976 at Wollman Rink in New York City's Central Park. It featured a number of notable performances. The sponsorship was taken over by Dr.Pepper in 1977 and the name changed to the Dr.Pepper Central Park Music Festival until the location of the festival was moved to Pier 84 in 1981 and the Wollman Skating Rink ceased being used as...

New York Rock Festival - Fri Aug 02, 1968 - Fri Aug 30, 1968Singer Bowl, Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, Queens, New YorkOrganised by Shelly Finkel and Gary Kurfirst. The Singer Bowl was a multipurpose stadium built for the 1964 New York World's Fair and demolished in 2016. Originally named for the Singer Sewing Company. This was the bill, Big Brother and The Holding Company, Soft Machine, The Chambers Brothers, The Doors, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Rascals, The Vagrants, The Who. A pretty major line-up. 18,000 turned up.The kickoff show included the likes of The Doors and The Who, the...

The Crater was the location of several concerts in the 1960s and 1970s. First held on New Year's Day 1969, and often known as Hawaiian Woodstock, Diamond Head Crater Festivals, sometimes called Sunshine Festivals, were all-day music celebrations attracting up to 75,000 attendees for performances by various local acts and the Grateful Dead, Santana, America, Styx, Journey, War, and Tower of Power.Men and women often walked around naked, some smoking marijuana at noon.And given Hawaii's usual tolerance, only a handful were arrested. What was odd, however, was that the Diamond Head Crater Festivals went on for so many years before...

There were two festivals at the racecourse in 1970. This was the first, less famous one. The festival has largely been forgotten and when remembered at all, has usually been confused with the National Jazz and Blues festival that was held in August the same year. As usual with British festivals, this was less counterculture revolution than hairy weekend pish-up. Reports about headliners Ginger Baker’s Airforce performance varied. Some feeling that they were on top form, others that it was a bunch of average musicians with a mad beat pounder who wouldn’t stop and had to be literally carried away.The...

These days it's more famous for hosting tennis but in the 1961 - 1971 it was the centre of some severely groovy gigs. In 1923, Forest Hills Stadium was constructed on open farmland. As the city rose around it, the venue became one of the cathedrals of tennis. It is the original home of the U.S. Open and Davis Cup, and was graced by champions. In the 1960s, a new inspiration took centre court as the Stadium hosted a series of iconic concerts. The Beatles were helicoptered onto the grass courts for two consecutive sold-out shows in 1964. Barbra Streisand...

Held in the hills of West Yorkshire, 4 miles from Halifax, it was, even by England’s low standards of festivals, an absolute disaster. If you know this area of Yorkshire, the hills are cold and wet at all times of the year and rain is never far away.  International Times, the UK’s hippie bible wrote of the event "It was the worst organized festival ever. It was a piece of moorland. About 25,000 kids turned up, but the weather turned almost immediately from a mild grey to rain, hail, sleet and rain, blue rain and thunderstorms. This went on for...

With so many students making up much of the regular festival crowds, it was inevitable that college’s would seek to put on their own gigs too, organised by students. Of course, many college principals were against the kids getting their groove on and this led to stand-offs between student entertainment committees and the squares. Inevitably though, there were always some staff who felt the kids should be allowed to celebrate their new and groovy culture and thus one way or another, a show was put on. The fear of a massive drugs freak-out and that there’d be people getting it...

Slap bang in the middle of the summer of love came this gathering which in so many ways was a quintessential hippie happening. It was advertised thus: “During the Sunrise Ceremony spiritual leaders of the community will lead in chanting, and ancient religious ceremonies will be performed. Between 8:00 and 10:00 AM, a pilgrimage will be made into Golden Gate Park, and the day-long festivities will begin throughout the park.  There will be a barbecue picnic celebration East of Polo Fields at noon. The day will be a reaffirmation of our desire to live and share together peacefully and harmoniously...

Held in the Garden Auditorium of the Pacific National Exhibition grounds from July 29-31, 1966, the Trips Festival was a multimedia event spearheaded by artist Sam Perry, a pioneer of psychedelic light shows — which may explain why the event was promoted as a multimedia sensorium of music, film, slides, and moving liquid utilizing over fifty projectors and 25,000 square feet of screen. Performers included Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Daily Flash, and poet Michael McClure.  Perry was interested in the ability of such a psychedelic gig to transform...