Monterey - A Year Before Woodstock
The Monterey International Pop Festival and the 1967 Summer of Love
Preparing the Way for Woodstock
Woodstock may be the one everyone remembers, but 2007 marks the 40th anniversary of the first real rock festival, the Monterey International Pop Festival. Unlike Woodstock, Monterey took place during the Summer of Love (being held 16-18 June 1967) in its home state of California. Again, unlike Woodstock where there were many arguments about payment, all the bands played free of charge, the only exception being Ravi Shankar, and the gate was donated to charity.
Many of the bands whose music defined the Summer of Love played at Monterey. The festival was filmed by D. A. Pennbaker and the film became the defining record of the point at which artists like Jimi Hendrix and Big Brother and the Holding Company came to the attention of the wider pop audience.
The Artists
Key moments in the festival included the consecutive appearances on stage of The Who and Hendrix. The Who were determined to secure their reputation as the ‘wild men of rock’, but Jimi Hendrix topped their guitar and drum-smashing set by paying homage to his guitar as it burnt from the lighter fluid he delicately sprayed onto it.
Janis Joplin’s performance with Big Brother oozed sensuality, while Grace Slick performed her usual knockout set with Jefferson Airplane. Booker T and the MGs (famous for the anthem that is ‘Green Onions’) backed Otis Redding and Country Joe and the Fish played a set that was so laid back it almost stopped the sun from rising.
Hugh Masekala, who had fled the apartheid regime in South Africa seven years earlier, played a jazz-based set, recalling the eclectic line-ups of the Newport Jazz Festivals that provided the pattern for Monterey in the same way as Monterey would provide the pattern for Woodstock.
Other bands appearing were Eric Burden and the Animals, who wrote a song about Monterey which lists some of the acts appearing, The Byrds, The Grateful Dead, Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, Canned Heat, The Paul Butterfield and the Steve Miller Blues Bands, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Blues Project and the Mamas and the Papas who had been the main organisers of the event.
The Event and 40 Years Later
The 1967 event attracted over 200,000 people and, unlike all other similar events since, there were no deaths, no violence and no drug overdoses. A good time, as they say, was had by all.
A 40th Anniversary Celebration was held over the weekend of 28-29 July 2007 with some of the original performers playing alongside a number of tribute bands. There have also been a number of other events. Details can be found here.
