50th Anniversary: 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival: Performance-By-Performance

I was just thinking myself how well Fairport Convention would have gone down at Monterey myself

 

Bit early though. They'd only just started gigging in June 1967 and Sandy was a year away.

Joe Boyd wanted to take them to the USA in summer 1969, and you can see why, they'd have gone over superbly with that sort of audience. Tragically the van crash kiboshed that.

 

Gotta say as well I hear more Folk in the UK strand of Folk Rock than I do in the US strand - to me it seems more like the US variety is Folkies who started playing Rock whilst bringing a bit of their past with them

 

OK, I tracked down an audience recording of 'I Know My Rider', the 7th (and missing) song from the Byrds set. Be warned that it's pretty poor quality. I'm going looking for other audience recordings from Monterey that may help fill other gaps.........anyone have any?

Download link --> 07 I Know My Rider (I Know You Rider).mp3 (this link expires on 25th June )

 

Wow!!! Thanks. I had no hope these would exist!

 

This would have been wonderful, though my enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that it wouldn't have been the classic line-up with Sandy Denny as the lead vocalist.

I used to be down on the Who's set but revisiting it again, it's wonderful how they're just punks, before pretensions really began to set in with Tommy. The sound is much better than what I remembered - I wonder if Eddie Kramer's remix alleviated the issues with the amps?

And I forgot this was at the beginning of their first U.S. tour - they had only done a handful of shows at a few locations in America prior to this, so their set would have been quite the shock for most of the audience.

 

From this morning's airing of the CBS News Sunday Morning: Monterey at 50: When rock festivals were born.
Simon and Garfunkel helped launch the SUMMER OF LOVE at the Monterey International Pop Festival back in 1967. Its vibe is still being felt half a century later. Anthony Mason takes us to Monterey, then and now:
...

 

Well, I for one would love to hear the full Association set, along with anything from The Group With No Name...

 

I have absolutely no idea what might be out there. All I know is that I'd heard of "audience recordings" (plural) which were traded in the 90s and which included some/all of the Byrds set including the missing song. So far, I've drawn a blank apart from this one song but I always believe in patience.........one day!...... So, if anyone reading this thread has any or knows of any, I'd love to hear (please).

 

Some comments from the DVD box interview of John Phillips...I think the interview was much much later maybe in the 80's.

Joplin nervous before her 2nd set, then cried afterwards cause she was so happy at the reaction.

$10000 from each governor which was used to set up the offices.

Woodstock was more about the money so Phillips when asked declined to help.

Woodstock was about the $, but Monterey will have the legend

To get all the permits he promised to have people from Monterey help put on the festival giving them all kinds of jobs.

Kim Novak & Doris Day helped out backstage.

He thought his own band had the worst set of the night.

There was a Monterey purple pill around.

Denny Doherty arrived 10 min before from the Bahamas, also mentioned by Pennebaker.

Hells angels offered security services and were refused.

Otis had people standing on seats with his set, and in the aisles-cops said if you don’t get back in your seats we're pulling the plug on everything-Otis mentioned the love crowd-'love yourself and sit down!!!'


Oh and it was interesting hearing the ads using the late Otis Redding, Janis, Jimi, Mamas & Papas.

 

I love the Denny era Fairport Convention, Holidays through Liege and Lief are immaculate. Their initial line-up, however, would have gone down very well at Monterey because they were a less polished, psychedelic, rather extravagant band. Judy Dyble is not as good as Sandy but she was competent and with her own greatness. Just my theory...

 

Back home in Chicago, my wife is headed to the Music Box Theater to see this at 2 PM.

Monterey Pop | Music Box Theatre

 

Can't say if the performance was great (poor sound quality usually covers up a lot of flaws), but damn, is that a rocking track. The first/second Byrds line-up wasn't typically known as a great live band, and Buffalo Springfield without Neil isn't really the same, but for my money, they were the two best American bands at Monterey Pop, and it's a shame they couldn't deliver a set that would have rightfully immortalized them in the film.

 

I never understood that contention; didn't they have fans lining up to see them on the Sunset Strip in 1965?

 

Kim Novak helping to move Fender amps - that is a photo I would like to see.

 

it's unfortunately region A (1) locked …..

region free players / usb dongle hacks …. to me have been a godsend …. as i get a lot of blu's from the uk ….. ymmv though of course.

cheers

 

I had a wonderful vision. This was unlikely but it could have happened.

The organizers of the first Monterey Pop Festival anounce that the recently formed group Traffic will play the festival. Led by teenager Stevie Winwood of Spencer Davis Group fame, the band's first single, "Paper Sun", has just debuted in the British charts.

(Later in the press) U.K. group Traffic was a joy and the Monterey crowd loved their blend of psychedelia and pop sounds. Not only Winwood but also Dave Mason shone on stage, delivering one great song after another. Unusually, the band features a sax player who doubles on flute. The drummer also delivers lead and backing vocals. A very diverse group which will surely stay popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

This is wonderful!

 

Vickie saw it and loved it, especially Janis and the shot of an ecstatic Mickey Dolenz leaping to his feet at the conclusion of Ravi Shankar's set with a huge smile on his face.

 

This was filmed in April-May 1968 for a French TV series and is possibly the only clip of Fairport pre-crash there is.

You can understand why they replaced Judy Dyble from this clip - which was the last thing she did with the band IIRC.

But, holy cow, can Richard Thompson (aged 19) play. Astounding solo.

 

huge byrds fan here especially this era but compared to the other west coast bands they werent exactly powerful certainly not the american beatles in their performance prowess. still i love it, same with the BS. big brother, the dead followed by the airplane and the grape really hit it. to think that most of them collapsed in one way or another whether in loss of members, popularity or making more music within a year or two with exception of the dead is stunning. fifty years later it seems overall that only Hendrix and the WHO maybe JANIS can be recalled by a majority of rock fans let alone the public. a precious time capsule it is

 

There are two more early clips I know, here's one...

The other clip is of them doing the Tim Hardin song Morning Glory with just Ian on vocals and Judy on recorder, but I think they are all from the same French tv programme. Poor Martin Lamble (and Jeannie the Taylor).

 

Just catching up on this fantastic thread!

I wanted to throw a couple of tidbits in if I may...
-The drums that Eddie Hoh is playing during the Mamas & Papas set (he was their touring drummer) are the same ones he played when doing Monkees session work.
-Eddie remembered Hal B. coming out only during the last number.
-Eddie, Barry Goldberg and Peter Strazza (both of Electric Flag) had previously played together for a number of years in a Chicago nightclub band called Robby & The Troubadours. It's during this time that they got to know Bloomfield (a friend of Barry's).

I really like the keyboard figure that Knetchel plays at the end of 'Got A Feeling'.
Big Black (the conguero, not the band) is really giving his congas a workout on 'Healing Song' - I don't see any mics!

 

great thread....unless I missed it (I skimmed thru some pages so maybe i did) but has anyone posted who was there? love to get more first hand accounts