Fifty years ago the Monterey Pop Festival was held south of San Francisco.
“Three days of understanding. Even the cops grooved with us,” sang Eric Burdon of the Animals later.
Many regarded the gathering of 60,000 counter-culture music fans to be the opening act of the famed Summer of Love.
Check out the line-up.
Friday Night
The Association
The Paupers
Lou Rawls
Beverley
Johnny Rivers
Eric Burdon and The Animals
Simon & Garfunkel
Saturday
Canned Heat
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Country Joe and the Fish
Al Kooper
The Butterfield Blues Band
The Electric Flag
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Steve Miller Band
Moby Grape
Hugh Masekela
The Byrds
Laura Nyro
Jefferson Airplane
Booker T. & the M.G.’s
Otis Redding
Sunday
Ravi Shankar
The Blues Project
Big Brother and the Holding Company
The Group With No Name
Buffalo Springfield (played w/ David Crosby)
The Who
Grateful Dead
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Scott McKenzie
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mar-Keys
Only Ravi Shankar played longer than the allotted forty-minute set.
I was 15.
I loved the Airplane.
I traveled in the summer of 1971 to the Haight.
Four years too late.
But a hippie to the core.
Then and now.
To view THE MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL pease go to the following URL on Youtube