Festival Express

In the summer of 1970, a motley collection of musicians travelled by train through Canada. For five days, Janis Joplin, The Band, The Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy, The Flying Burrito Bros and many others travelled, lived and partied together and with a film crew in a rented train. On the way, they stopped for concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary. Entirely in agreement with the spirit of the era, the audiences were busy protesting, in this case at every whistle-stop against the high admission prices for the festival (14 dollars for two days with more than 20 bands). Music should be free, they thought. As a reaction, The Grateful Dead gave a free concert in a park. Recordings were made of this as well. The most unusual recordings were however made on board the train: partying musicians, psychedelics and spontaneous jam sessions were recorded in a cinema-verité style; sex & drugs & rock ‘n’ roll. Endless legal arguments meant the cans of film spent years lying on the shelf. It was 1995 before people found the original recordings in the National Film Archives of Canada. The last great rockumentary from this era, with historic recordings and perfect sound (mixed by Eddie Kramer, who was a producer for Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Santana), could finally be made.