DJTees Blog

Although there were no big bands playing at this festival it was an important one in the history of North American festivals as it’s widely regarded as the first Maple Leaf big outdoor hippie fest. Held just over the US-Canada border in British Columbia, not far from the Trans-Canada highway, it was located in a lovely rural setting at Aldergrove Lake Park - the beach being an artificial sandy area near a man-made lake. It’s a long way from the sea! Aldergrove entrepreneur Brent Joliffe and a couple of DJs from Vancouver radio station CKLG73 promoted the festival, which turned...

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.  Despite extensive research I can't find out much about the gig. It was one of the earliest to be held in a sports stadium, which was later to become the...

This was scheduled to be held on a 680-acre tract over the Labor Day weekend at Bastrop, TX but it was canceled because of "severe pressure from local people and bad publicity in national magazines." Yes, it was the usual issue with the good folk of straight society fearing an influx of naked freaks waving their private parts at them and doing the nasty in their gardens.  Some 25 rock bands were expected to take part over the Labor Day weekend. A local district judge also issued a temporary restraining order to keep the festival from being held.  The line-up had...

Not so much a festival as a series of concerts held at the Singer Bowl in Queens. The stadium opened in 1964 and as well as holding sporting events, it hosted several gigs in the late 60s, including Jimi Hendrix,  Janis Joplin and The Who. It was eventually pulled down in 2016. The July 13th gig is documented in the Led Zeppelin archives because Jimmy Page, Robert Plant & John Bonham jammed with the Jeff Group, which does sound tremendous. Zep were back the following month to headline their own show. The full list of acts at this series of gigs is. Buddy Guy, Buffy...

Popanalia Festival, held on August 5, 1970, was one of the first French pop festivals. The event was created by Jean-François Bizot, Jean Bizot and Jean-Luc Young and took place at Autoroute De L'Esteral, in the city of Biot.Planned to last 36 hours, the event was abandoned soon after it started. Unfortunately, the organizers only managed to get 4,000 to pay while 30,000 just crashed the site. As a result, there was not enough money to pay the artists. The only acts that actually got to play were Joan Baez, Country Joe and Rare Bird. When Soft Machine were told they...

Canada Jam was held at Mosport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada, about 100 kilometres east of Toronto, on August 26, 1978. The festival was produced by Sandy Feldman and Leonard Stogel, who produced California Jam and California Jam II in 1974 and 1978, down in, confusingly, Ontario, San Bernardino County, Southern California. Those two shows were massive sell-out successes and were filmed for TV too. They’re often cited as the two most lucrative shows of the era. So understandably, they thought they could repeat the trick north of the border. It was sponsored by brewers, Carling O'Keefe, marking just how...

Held on Saturday May 16, 1970 and Sun May 17, 1970 off Lougheed Highway - Mission, Vancouver, British Columbia.  There is some footage of this event on YouTube - the usual shaky 8mm footage of long hairs and groovers and rain.  The line-up was Country Joe and The Fish, Seals & Croft, Small Faces (actually The Faces - these things got confused in 1970) , Albert Collins, Redbone, Hosannah, Ball 'N Jack, and Elijah. It wasn't a high profile festival and there's little info about it online. A weekend pass cost $7.50. Not to be confused with The Strawberry Fields...

If you’re going to hold an outdoor festival in England, the Lake District is certainly a lovely place to do it. But there’s one problem, it is the wettest region of England. But that didn’t stop it from happening for three years from 1971-73. As you can see the stage looks like a glorified shed and in 1973, it was at least dry, unlike previous iterations which were held in the pouring rain.  The bands that played were The Groundhogs, Greenslade, Gallagher and Lyle, Steamhammer, Solution, Bitch, Brewers Droop, Hackensack, Stars, England, Necromandus, Cosy Mole (!) , Aqua Vibra, Lol...

The organisers of this one-dayer had done it the year earlier, booked loads of good bands  all which had terrible sound because it was held in what was basically a gymnasium. The sound would just bounce around the walls.  Undeterred, they did it again in 1970 and again booked a good bill. Keef Hartley Big Band, Taste (replaced by Brinsley Schwartz) Yes (replaced by the Idle Race) Atomic Rooster, Writing On The Wall (a fantastic Scottish band that made one very collectable album) , Gypsy, Skin Alley, Hawkwind, Groundhogs, Meic Stevens (the Welsh Bob Dylan) Hawkwind played one song for half an...

After the first decade of solely classical music at Crystal Palace Bowl from ‘61 onwards, the Greater London Council were persuaded by young promoters Harvey Goldsmith and Michael Alfondary, to allow large scale rock and pop events to be staged at the venue.  Goldsmith and Alfondary partnered with father and son promoters John and Tony Smith – who managed many of the major touring acts at the time - together launching ‘Crystal Palace Garden Party’ with an inaugural event in May 1971. Arriving hot on the heels of the new large multi-day pop festivals in mostly rural locations; like The...

Though not as widely celebrated as other music festivals of its era, the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival is hailed by many blues purists, acolytes and ardent fans as being just as significant as Woodstock. Held on Fri Aug 01, 1969 - Sun Aug 03, 1969 at the University of Michigan It was the first North American blues festival, where blues was the main attraction, particularly modern electric blues. Musicians at the festival included Clifton Chenier, Son House, J. B. Hutto, B.B. King, Freddie King, Magic Sam, Sam Lay, Jimmy "Fast Fingers" Dawkins, Otis Rush, Charlie Musselwhite, Roosevelt Sykes, Muddy...

If you’ve ever been to Big Sur, California, it is a very far-out place up in the woods overlooking the Pacific Ocean. So cool is it that me and Dawn once walked past David Crosby coming out of a diner on Pacific Coast Highway, just before the turn off for Big Sur, as he was going in. I didn't want to hassle him, but I wanted to say something, in my dithering, the moment was lost.  It has long since been a bit of a hippie central and this was certainly the case back in 1969 when the Celebration at...