In your opinion, which rock festival had more star-power?
This is a tough one. I go back-and-forth. (I don't think there's a "true" answer.) Interested in your thoughts.
Monterey Pop Festival
Al Kooper
Beverley
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Booker T. & the M.G.'s
Buffalo Springfield
Eric Burdon and The Animals
Hugh Masekela
Johnny Rivers
Laura Nyro
Lou Rawls[30]
Moby Grape
Otis Redding[30]
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Ravi Shankar[30]
Scott McKenzie
Simon & Garfunkel[30]
Steve Miller Band
The Association
The Blues Project
The Butterfield Blues Band
The Byrds[30]
The Electric Flag
The Group With No Name
The Mamas & the Papas[3
The Mar-Keys
The Paupers
Woodstock
Arlo Guthrie
Bert Sommer
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Country Joe McDonald
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Janis Joplin with The Kozmic Blues Band[47]
Joan Baez
Joe Cocker and The Grease Band
John Sebastian
Johnny Winter
Keef Hartley Band
Melanie
Mountain
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Quill
Ravi Shankar
Richie Havens
Santana
Satchidananda Saraswati
Sha Na Na
Sly and the Family Stone
Sweetwater
Ten Years After
The Band
The Incredible String Band
Tim Hardin
Artists/Groups at Both
Canned Heat
Country Joe and the Fish
Grateful Dead
Jimi Hendrix
The Who
Jefferson Airplane
Wasn't Sweetwater the name of the band in Almost Famous? Didn't realize there was a real one.
To me, if I could choose one concert to have ever gone to, Monterey is it.
Woodstock definitely was a much bigger deal as a cultural event, but in hindsight it was a bunch of greedy fekkers cashing in on a movement that had already lost most of it's steam.
That movement was buried for good at Altamont.
I did manage to go to the Laurel Pop Festival at the Laurel Raceway in MD 3 months before Woodstock. Here's their lineup:
Day 1
Led Zeppelin
Johnny Winters
Jethro Tull
Al Kooper
Edwin Hawkins Singers
Buddy Guy
Day 2
Sly and the Family Stone
10 Years After
Mothers of Invention
Jeff Beck w/ Rod Stewart
Guess Who
Savory Brown Blues Band
To me, if I could choose one concert to have ever gone to, Monterey is it.
Woodstock definitely was a much bigger deal as a cultural event, but in hindsight it was a bunch of greedy fekkers cashing in on a movement that had already lost most of it's steam.
That movement was buried for good at Altamont.
I definitely lean Monterey. You're right about Woodstock being a greater cultural event. Incidentally, older brother of mine had a few friends who went up to Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel. I begged them to take me. Their response: shut the fuck up you snot-nosed little brat. And so it goes...
If you wanted a crazy youthful adventure, then Woodstock.
I did attend another three day concert with High School buddies, a few weeks before Woodstock, called Atlantic City Pop Festival. It was held at a horse race track, and you could sit in the grandstand and listen or go down on the lawn. We stayed at a campsite nearby and drove to the track, just parked and walked in. Not a crazy throng like Woodstock.
I remember Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, The Chambers Brothers, Iron Butterfly ... Not much else, but a Wikipedia article shows there were a lot of great bands, which I somehow don't recall. Ha ha. (I know more about music now than I did then.)
I do remember Joni Mitchell, who came on around 1:00 in the afternoon to a sparse crowd, complaining, saying something like "You know you guys should try to listen to me, I'm really pretty good." End of story.
Monterey was the US coming out party for the Who, Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, no doubt... big moment for the Airplane and Otis, too (who sadly died not too long after).
As great as the lineup at Monterey was, it was nearly greater. The Beach Boys bailed due to Brian Wilson's declining mental health... Neil Young had quit Buffalo Springfield a short time prior, so they were not at full strength... Al Kooper and the Blues Project had similarly fallen out a few weeks earlier and did not play together... and Arthur Lee basically refused to leave Southern California, so Love weren't there, despite having been invited.
I think, along with Sgt Pepper, which came out the same month, Monterey marked the point at which people started taking rock music seriously.
Woodstock, as was hinted at above, was probably when *businessmen* started taking rock music seriously.... if it had acquired sufficient gravity to draw that many people to an event in the middle of nowhere, then the sky was the limit as to how much money could be made off it.
I did manage to go to the Laurel Pop Festival at the Laurel Raceway in MD 3 months before Woodstock. Here's their lineup:
Day 1
Led Zeppelin
Johnny Winter
Jethro Tull
Al Kooper
Edwin Hawkins Singers
Buddy Guy
Day 2
Sly and the Family Stone
10 Years After
Mothers of Invention
Jeff Beck w/ Rod Stewart
Guess Who
Savory Brown Blues Band
man... would've loved to have seen the Jeff Beck Group w/ Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood.