Before the Lollapaloozas, the Coachellas, and the Bonnaroos of today’s famous music festivals there were many successful music festivals in the 1960’s that had their own memorable moments. While the music festivals of today pale from yesteryear’s their message and energy remain today. Let’s look back at the events that made these music festivals so momentous.
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Concert Poster 1969 25th Anniversary Reprint
Let’s start with probably the most well known festival to date: Woodstock. The event was held at Max Yasgur dairy farm in New York in 1969. The festival drew over four hundred thousand music enthusiasts to watch 32 acts in the span of three days. Famous music acts like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who…
Did you know? During an era of complex psychedelic rock posters, the original Woodstock poster received negative feedback for its over the top, trippy design. In 1969, the organizers of Woodstock called in Arnold Skolnick, a New York graphic designer at the time, to create a replacement piece. He began designing with simplicity in mind. A white bird perched on a blue and green guitar was enough for him to get the point across. He wanted people who could only get a glimpse of the poster to know exactly what the festival was about. While he was just told to come up with a poster for a 3 day music festival, he added “3 Days of Peace and Music” Woodstock’s now famous mantra. This iconic piece has become a part of music history that represents everything Woodstock stood for.
Monterey Pop Festival
Ravi Shankar Concert Poster 1968 Fillmore
Two years before Woodstock in 1967, the Monterey Pop Festival took place at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. In late 1960s, “Counterculture” and “the Summer of Love” was coming to life, the festival’s vision was to embody the spirit of California during these shifting notions. Eighty-five hundred people showed at a venue that only had seven thousand capacity. The thousands came to see the first major American appearances of Jimi Hendrix and Ravi Shankar. Ravi Shankar was paid $3,000 dollars to play the afternoon-long performance on the sitar.
The Monterey Pop Festival is the festival that Jimi Hendrix burned his guitar on stage during his set.
San Francisco Pop Festival
October 26-27, 1968 these performers took to stage to wow the cold and awaiting fans:
- The Animals
- Canned Heat
- Chambers Brothers
- Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Deep Purple
- José Feliciano
- Fraternity of Man
- The Grass Roots
- Iron Butterfly
- The Loading Zone
- Buddy Miles
- Procol Harum
- Rejoice
- Johnny Rivers
Altamont Music Festival
The Rolling Stones had created this festival in the hopes that it would be the Woodstock for the West, but the audience was not like Woodstock’s it was more a counterculture gathering. In December 6, 1969, in North California at the Altamont Speedway, probably the most memorable and horrific music festival in the 1960s took place. The event is most notably known for the havoc that the Hell’s Angel’s, a California motorcycle gang, caused during their informal duty to secure the festival. Four deaths happened on that day, one was a murder that happened while the Rolling Stones were on stage.
