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Fest a California 'Dream-In'

Phillip Elwood, Billboard, 8 July 1967

MONTEREY, Calif. — Last act on the Monterey International Pops Festival (June 16-18) was the Mamas and the Papas, and in Mama Cass’ introduction of “California Dreaming” she probably captured the spirit of the whole event: “the weekend is like a dream come true." she said. And the whistles and cheers of 7.500 fans emphasized their concurrence.

It was 12:30 a.m. Monday: the fading minutes of nearly 22 hours of stage performance spread over an exhausting three-night, two-afternoon schedule. Over 30,000 seats had been sold for the Monterey weekend and another 30,000 young people (by police estimates) had taken advantage of the Festival’s extra-arena events and strolled under the oaks, through the booths and displays and gotten out to the Monterey Peninsula College athletic field where, most of the nights until dawn, various rock bands performed for the fog-chilled kids in their bed rolls and sleeping bags.

Significantly, it was not the performances on stage which made the greatest impression on most of the veteran observers of the concert and pop music scene: it was the festival concept itself, and the total capturing of the very best in today’s younger generation and those willing to accept its philosophies as an alternative to extinction.

It was this spirit which made the Monterey Pop Festival a success and because of this feeling of gentleness, restraint and love the audience behavior inside the crowded arena (and their enthusiasms) were strikingly significant.

When standing ovations occurred they had been earned; none of the automatic huzzahs from bcered-up and demonstrative egocentrics.

More than 30 acts performed on stage, including an exquisite three-hour presentation by Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar, who had all Sunday afternoon to himself.

It matters not what many people think about Indian palace music as part of a pop music program; what does matter is that over 5,000 young people sat in awe and spent those three hours contemplating the artistic contribution of Shankar.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, from Britain, making its American debut (altho Hendrix is from Seattle) proved to be more experience than music, pop or otherwise. Accompanied by overmodulated electronic feedback squeals and bombastic drumming, the Hendrix performance is quite a crowd rouser but its sensationalism is not music, and unlike Chuck Berry (who was doing some of this stuff 15 years ago), when Hendrix sings he has trouble with phrasing, and his modal-turned chicken choke handling of the guitar doesn’t indicate a strong talent, either.

The only other sensational performance at Monterey came from the Who, an excellent quartet with an out-ofsight drummer in Keith Mooh. Their lyrics are fascinating, and clear; they ran through a noisy set (including a roaring “Summertime Blues”) and ended with a guitar-smashing sequence of their own, quite similar to the Yardbird’s bit in Blow Up.

The strongest performance by any of the relatively unheralded groups was that of singer Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, a San Francisco hard-rock blues group. She squeals, and groans, rocks and moans… and utterly tore Monterey apart. She was queen of the Festival.

Saturday afternoorf was devoted to various blues and hard-rock bands. Other than Big Brother, et al., Mike Bloomfield's’ new Electric Flag, Paul Butterfield’s band and the Steve Miller Blues Band were the strongest, with Country Joe and the Fish (one of the few local groups to have kept an informal sense of humor in their presentations) and the Quicksilver Messenger Service also (at least occasionally) driving their stuff home.

Eric Burdon and the new Animals played on the opening Friday night show.

Most important part of the Festival was the style of instrumental work used by the blues-rock groups. Individualists are emerging, with imaginative creations. Their music is just as much for listening as dancing, and under many circumstances would be called jazz, not rock. For instance, when Al Kooper’s group, with Al on Hammond Organ got into the blues, and the Grateful Dead (Pigpen McKernan on Hammond) went off into 20-minute blues medley variations, there was nothing, aurally, to indicate that this was part of a rock-and-roll, or pop concert at all. It was experimental music based on the blues, and that’s jazz.

The Blues Project has long worked in that area, using amplified flute and a jazz line on many tunes, and they were interesting in their short Monterey appearance.

On the other hand, when the Jefferson Airplane brought down the house on Saturday night it was because of their creative work within the field of rock. The Airplane were the most finished and consistent group that played during the whole Festival.

Simon and Garfunkel ended the first evening’s show with a delicate and immaculate set, "At the Zoo,” a beautiful "Emily” (by Art Garfunkel), “Sounds of Silence,” a few others, and then a 16th century Benedictus, done a capella, and finally a sensitive "Punky’s Dilemma.”

For absolute contrast, Otis Redding ended the next night’s show, well after I a.m. with a few minutes of his classic stuff. His appearance had been delayed by the long show, in which the least effective group of the whole Festival (Hugh Masekela) played the weekend’s longest set (55 minutes).

But when Redding came on, it took him exactly four beats in two seconds to get 7,500 voices screaming and chanting with him. Booker T and the MG’s supplied strong accompaniment.

Unfortunately Redding was the only representative of the Negro blues tradition and the only R&B entertainer in the Festival.

True, Lou Rawls put on a superb demonstration of his road show technique during the first evening’s concert but Rawls isn’t r&b. Significantly, however, Rawls was the only performer to include what many Americans would call "popular music”; i.e., "Shadow of Your Smile," "Autumn Leaves,” and his now dully stylized medley based on "It Was a Very Good Year."

Balancing the slick Rawls performance was that of Johnny Rivers, who presented virtually a vocal history of the earlier days of rock, from rockabilly through plain folk rock. Rivers did a fine job but the Festival and crowd were too immediately hip, too sophisticated, to give him much response.

Because of this predominately hard-blues-rock feeling in the crowd, some performers which would normally do quite well didn’t seem in the right place.

The Association, Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield, and even the Mamas and Papas were, if anything, too popular in style for this Festival. And the Byrds, although they played well, felt it necessary for David Crosby to deliver a sophomoric political commentary prior to their playing of "He Was a Friend of Mine."

The Byrds were not nearly as close-knit as the Buffalo Spring-field, who roamed along through a fine tight set, including "Pretty Baby Why” and “Bluebird.”

The Grape was unstrung, it seemed; big smiles, lots of stage-hip, but nothing in the way of powerful and imaginative performance to compare with many of their San Francisco colleagues.

Another recent big-label San Francisco recording group, the Grateful Dead, had ideal program billing (midway Sunday night) but partially blew it by playing too long. The Dead are among the most musically intriguing of any rock groups, but they seem to be straying from the typical dance format more quickly than any of the others.

The performances of the Paupers, Canned Heat, the British singer Beverly, and Laura Nyro, didn’t measure up, for one reason or another, and Hugh Masekela was a disappointment.

The Festival could have been better handled, but, in retrospect, it seems irrelevant. The important thing is that a "warm, groovy and beautiful festival” (as Ralph Gleason had it in The San Francisco Chronicle) was held with all kinds of exciting stage incidents and no kinds of problems elsewhere. The San Francisco Examiner said of the Festival, “An unqualified success, speaking well not only of the musicians but of the beautifully behaved and attentive audience.”

Co-directors John Phillips and Lou Adler and their fleet of aides and assistants somehow got it all done.