I was there, so very long ago. I hitch hiked with 2 buddies, then WALKED, because cars were parked all over the place a LONG way from the concert site, just off the road in fields and stuff. Then lost one of our buddies in the crowd, and found him 3 days later on the way out.
I don’t know if they just released this album or what, but it’s got a very cool improvisational quality, great vocals, and melodies and a spirit you just don’t hear anymore. Nice version of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” Wow!
Definitely worth a listen. Was it early 70s? A bit before “70s music” happened.
This was the kind of music festival they say: If you remember it, you probably weren’t there.
It’s one of those experiences that shaped me. I chose experiences to shape me. But [God Forbid] if you had spent 3 days at Watkins Glen with this music, you might be someone else. Can you imagine?
Got a memorable music festival? Who played there? What made it memorable?
I was there on a family trip to the gorge. My family saw some hippies swimming in the gorge. They were naked. My mom covered my eyes. One of the hippie chicks called up to us “you people are so hung up about your bodies!”
I was probably 7 or 8, so it would have been 1972 or 1973. Does that sound right?
Damnit your lucky! The band is one of my favorite bands. It probally runs a close second on my list.
I went to BTO and steppen wolf two years ago and one 5000 bucks to go shopping at a new mall.
And those naked hippie chicks! Yeah, that was spillover from the festival! IT was another Woodstock, but only Ginger Baker, The Band, and The Grateful Dead, I think. Each played over and over for 3 days, esp good for long rock jams.
I have fond memories of many festivals and concerts, many of which happened at SPAC. My first visit there was on July 4, 1976 to see Oscar Peterson and McCoy Tyner. The Bicentennial Buzz. It was a very formative experience, and my memory of it today is still clear, as if viewed through the cleanest of windowpanes.
Every summer from age 16 to 26, I made it to SPAC for their summer jazz festival. Two days, noon to midnight each day, featuring the best artists in the business. We always paid close attention to when the tickets went on sale, so usually ended up with reserved seats in one of the first 10 rows inside. One year we scored huge and ended up with front row seats in the orchestra pit, looking up Dizzy’s nostrils. You always laid down blanket space out on the grass bowl, but it was nice to have the great indoor seats once the sets started.
Once I moved west, it became harder and harder to make it back there, but I consider myself fortunate to have been able to catch so many of the jazz legends no longer with us. Perhaps one of these days I’ll try to make a list of everyone I’ve seen there.
It was also a great place to see the up and comers, and I remember one festival in the early 80s where these two young brothers, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, came out to join the “All Star Jam” featuring George Benson, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and a bunch of other vets. Nobody had heard of these kids and they didn’t yet have a recording contract, but they blew the roof off the place. Same deal that year with Bobby McFerrin. We’re waiting for the jam to start, and this skinny kid with a knit cap comes walking out on stage with no instrument. Everyone thinks he’s the MC coming to introduce the line-up, but instead he opens his mouth and launches into Donna Lee by Charlie Parker, scats his way through an extended vocal-sax improv, and finishes to a stunned audience that took a minute to figure out that what they just witnessed deserved a standing ovation.
