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FESTIVAL EXPRESS DEPARTS AUGUST
THE LAST GREAT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL RIDE
Bob Smeaton, winner of two Grammy
Awards for “The
Beatles Anthology” and “Hendrix: Band of Gypsies” directs
Festival Express, the full “backstage pass”,
which provides today’s audiences with a unique insight
into what may have just been the last great rock ‘n’ roll
ride. Festival Express will open in the UK on 3rd August.
Although its existence was rumoured,
it wasn’t until
1994 that the film materials were actually unearthed, amazingly
in pristine condition. The live performances were captured
professionally with a multi-camera crew, and the lead cinematographer
was Academy Award winner Peter Biziou (Mississippi Burning,
The Truman Show) The sound quality is just as impressive,
having been recorded by Hanley Sound, the mobile unit responsible
for Woodstock. The songs have been mixed by legendary rock
music producer Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepellin,
Santana).
In 1970, a train journeyed across Canada carrying some of
the greatest rock bands of the time. Janis Joplin, The Band,
The Grateful Dead, Delaney and Bonnie, Buddy Guy, Ian and
Sylvia and others lived (and partied) together for five days,
giving free concerts when and where they stopped. The train
was called the Festival Express.
Festival Express might just have
been the greatest and certainly the longest, non-stop rock ‘n’ roll party ever.
Nicknamed “The Million Dollar Bash” by Rolling
Stone magazine, Festival Express was the party to end all
parties. The five day train provided a unique vehicle for
artists as disparate as Rick Dando of The Band, Jerry Garcia,
Janis Joplin, Delaney and Bonnie, and Buddy Guy to relax
with one another in a setting unlikely ever to be repeated.
Wholly unsupervised, these famous musicians indulged in copious
amounts of drugs and alcohol consumption, musical jamming
that has to be seen to be believed, and heavily psychedelic
conversation.
Like Woodstock, however, Festival Express was caught up
in the counter-culture of the day. The opening two days in
Toronto set the tone for much of the craziness that would
follow and scenes of the resulting chaos at the Toronto concert
open a window on the politics of the era.
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