My Uncle Hugh MacGregor (since passed) was
one of the original promoters out of
Toronto of the Festival Express. He had
lived in Winnipeg for a long time before
moving to Toronto. He Worked for the
Industrial Trade show division of McLean
Hunter at the time. Some how with all of
the protesting and logistics this festival
train lost a ton of money but he didn't
lose his job. He said to me, "They got so
caught up in the loss of the money that
they forgot to fire me!"
I was too young to attend the event but my
oldest brother and sister did and it was
an eye opening event for them. People
making love in large cardboard boxes in
the middle of the field. Lots of "sixties
stuff" going on around them. I was so
excited when the movie came out as I have
always had a personal family connection to
the festival express. Yes the promoters
lost a ton of money but the performers
loved the train. It is history with some
very solid Winnipeg connections.
Dave Firby
As posted on the
Manitoba Music Museum Facebook page
January 27, 2012 |
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On Tuesday, June 30, 1970 the infamous
Festival Express train pulled into Union
Station (now Via Rail) on Main Street
south. The 14-coach private CNR train was
a sort of rolling thunder revue crossing
Canada with stops for concerts at several
key cities. Onboard was the cream of the
rock ‘n’ roll scene at that point
including Janis Joplin, The Band, Grateful
Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Mountain, Ian
& Sylvia and more. As Grateful Dead
drummer Mickey Hart later explained,
“Woodstock was a treat for the audience
but the train was a treat for the
performers.” Indeed, it was.
Dubbed the Million Dollar Bash, the tour
was the brainchild of promoter Ken Walker
and partner Thor Eaton of the wealthy
department store family. Costs were pegged
at roughly $500,000 with tickets priced
around $10. In the end, the tour lost big
money, partly due to poor attendance at
the Winnipeg concert as well as cost
overruns keeping the performers well
lubricated on the journey (the train had
to make 2 unscheduled stops on the trip to
restock the bar).
“One lounge car was for blues and rock and
the other was country and folk,” recalls
Sylvia Tyson. “There were jam sessions
nonstop. The Grateful Dead ran out of
other substances around Winnipeg and
started drinking and it was not a pretty
sight,” she laughs. According to Ian
Tyson’s recollections, “I recall getting
into a drinking contest with Janis Joplin
and I was seriously outmatched. She drank
me under the table. I remember me and
Jerry Garcia crawling onto the roof of one
of these train cars and howling like
coyotes.”
Initially conceived with concerts held in
Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and
concluding in Vancouver, the opening and
closing dates were ultimately scuttled due
to scheduling problems. Some 37,000
attended the inaugural Toronto event,
expanded to 2 days with buses chartered to
bring in Montreal ticket-holders, buoying
hopes for a financially successful tour.
However protests outside the CNE
Grandstand by a group calling itself The
May 4th Movement (after the Kent State
massacre) disrupted festivities forcing an
increased police presence and reports of
violence. The protesters urged those who
could not afford the high prices to storm
the gates outside the concert to try to
get in for free. Fears of similar violence
kept many from attending in Winnipeg as
protesters outside the Manisphere (Red
River Exhibition) site decried the
excessive ticket price. Only 4600 tickets
were sold here (20,000 tickets needed to
be sold for our show to break even).
“It was ridiculous because it was a cheap
ticket price for the top acts in music at
that point,” states Sylvia. “The
presenters in each city were terrified
there was going to be some kind of riot
from this May 4th Movement. That had such
an adverse affect on the whole thing. The
mayor of Calgary got in on the act
declaring, ‘Let the children of Calgary in
for free’ and Ken Walker said ‘Screw you’
and punching him. Then the manager of the
stadium said, ‘I have a solution. We’ll
let them in for free but they have to pay
to get out!’”
Nonetheless, the Winnipeg stopover proved
memorable for performers and attendees.
Having spent two days partying non-stop on
the two lounge cars commandeered for jam
sessions, several performers went in
search of some local colour. The Grateful
Dead and their crew headed to the Pan Am
Pool on Grant Avenue where Jerry Garcia
organized a relay race between various
stoned musicians.
Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett chose to
disembark and take a room at the downtown
Sheraton Carlton Hotel. Front desk man
Brian Levin and fellow Expedition To Earth
bandmate Dan Norton took the two
performers on a tour of the city. “We
spent the day driving around showing them
highlights of our Winnipeg,” recalls Dan.
“We stopped at the A&W Drive Inn on
Portage Avenue across from Polo Park and
confused the patrons as we got out and
walked around, had our burgers and fries
and continued on back to the train to
check out what was doing. One of the
reasons they were at the Sheraton was
Bonnie wanted to protect Delaney from
Janis Joplin. Delaney and Bonnie were two
of the nicest, most down to earth people
that you could ever hope to meet. No
pretensions.”
Joplin herself determined to take in the
sights. “A few of us got a cab and said,
‘Take us where the freaks are,’” she told
Winnipeg Free Press reporter Ken Ingle.
“We went to this park and there was an
entire beautiful crew of people just lying
around and playin’ the guitar.” The
carefree ambiance surprised the
hard-living singer. “There’s hippies in
the fountain and nobody’s bustin’ them. I
mean, if you walked into a fountain in New
York City, you’d be in jail in five
minutes. But there’s forty hippies
floundering around in the fountain and
standing under the spray.” Festooned in
feathers, scarves, garish costume jewelry,
and pink sunglasses, Joplin waded into the
warm waters under the watchful gaze of the
Golden Boy. Few hippies took notice of
her.
That same casual air was also present on
the train. “There was no security, no
bodyguards, nothing,” recalls Jerry
Dykman. “I just walked through the
coaches. Nobody stopped me. I was able to
chat with everyone. Janis Joplin was there
drunk as a skunk, a bottle of tequila in
her hand. It was all peace and love.”
Local music journalist Andy Mellen also
boarded the train and encountered the
queen of the hippies. “I sat down with
Janis in this empty coach and she poured
me a finger of Southern Comfort. I had my
tour program with me and I asked Janis to
sign the photo of her in it,” he recalls.
“She signed it ‘Love, non-professionally,
Janis Joplin’. I have that framed on my
wall. I was this 20 year old kid and here
was this legend. She was so courteous to
me.” Three months later Joplin would be
dead.
Another visitor to the train was Randy
Bachman, recently departed from the Guess
Who. “I was sitting there with Jerry
Garcia and other members of the Grateful
Dead, Janis Joplin, Delaney & Bonnie
and their band, guys from The Band, Leslie
West from Mountain. Players would wander
in and out, pull up a chair, plug into one
of the little amps they had and just pick
up on the flow of the ongoing blues jams.”
An abstainer, Randy had to deal with the
various substances passed around. “I sat
by an open window because the smoke was so
thick. As the joints were passed around
someone would nudge me and offer one. ‘No
thanks’ and it would get passed along to
the next player. I just wanted to play
with anybody.”
The following afternoon, Canada Day, the
performers decamped for the Stadium
concert. Ticket-holders began queuing up
hours before the 11:00 gate opening then
made a dash for a prime spot of the turf
to spread out blankets. The concert
commenced at 1:00 with local acts Walrus
(featuring Joey Gregorash) and Justin Tyme
before the headliners took to the stage
beginning with Montreal’s Mashmakhan who
were enjoying hit status with “As The
Years Go By”. Folksingers Tom Rush and
Eric Andersen had a tough time soothing
the crowd looking to rock. Bluegrass trio
James & the Good Brothers had not been
together long but managed to earn
applause. James was ex-Winnipegger Jim
Ackroyd formerly of The Galaxies.
Quebecois singer Robert Charlebois tried
vainly to stir up the crowd but his set of
mainly francophone songs went
unappreciated.
Blues guitarist Buddy Guy brought the
audience to their feet for a rousing set
that included wading into the audience
playing his guitar. An enormous roadie in
a jumpsuit followed behind letting out
what must have been a 100 ft cord. Ian
& Sylvia were backed by their recently
formed country rock band The Great
Speckled Bird featuring guitar virtuosos
Amos Garret and Buddy Cage. Throughout
their set, Jerry Garcia stood right
onstage oblivious to the audience to watch
Buddy play his steel guitar. “In Winnipeg
some drug-crazed hippie climbed up on the
stage and tried to grab N.D. Smart’s drum
sticks,” laughs Sylvia. “Big mistake. N.D.
put down his sticks, punched him, and went
back to playing without missing a beat. By
the time we turned around it was all
over.”
Mountain, led by massive guitarist Leslie
West playing a tiny Gibson Les Paul junior
guitar, blew the audience away with their
powerhouse sound (and earned an ovation
introducing Canadian drummer Corky Laing),
ending with “Mississippi Queen”. Between
changeovers, Randy Bachman wandered out
onstage unannounced armed with an acoustic
guitar. “I was so nervous that I ended up
spelling ‘American Woman’ wrong,” he
recalls.” I was doing the ‘I say A, M, E’
intro and I missed a letter. I was going
to do a whole mini set but I got so
flustered I walked off halfway through.
People thought I must be stoned but I was
just out of my element.” He later returned
to jam with Delaney & Bonnie whose
raucous R ‘n’ B set was punctuated by the
singing of Happy Birthday to Delaney.
Some of The Grateful Dead were not in a
friendly mood and at one point uttered a
profanity-laced invective aimed at an
audience member. But as Chris Doole
recalls, “When the Dead performed
‘Alligator’ it got into this groove where
it started to sound like 25 perfectly
synchronized locomotives with Garcia’s
tasty little trills on top of it all.
Everyone's attention was just nailed to
it.”
It was past midnight by the time The Band
and Joplin each mounted the stage and some
concert goers had already left. Looking
like rustic mountain men, The Band played
an exceptional set drawing from their
first two albums along with a few old
chestnuts including Little Richard’s
“Slippin’ & Slidin’”. Garth Hudson’s
elongated organ intro to “Chest Fever”
drew on several old hymns and was
mesmerizing. Backed by The Full Tilt
Boogie Band (consisting of mostly
Canadians), Joplin rocked hard and won
over the weary crowd. “I remember she
said, ‘You guys certainly know how to
throw a ... train’” recalls Chris Doole.
A brazen young man managed to amble
onstage near the end of her set. “How
about a kiss for the boys from Manitoba?”
he queried. Smiling, Joplin consented. As
he turned to leave, the young man thanked
the stagehands. “Why are you thanking
them, honey?” sassed Joplin, “They didn’t
do nothing for you!”
“Everyone on that train was at their
peak,” notes Sylvia Tyson. “The Band was
at their best and Janis, too. She was just
coming into her own as the singer she
really was just before she died.”
The following morning, after another night
of partying and jamming, the train slowly
pulled out of Union Station bound for
Calgary and the final concert. “I knew a
girl who was at the Winnipeg concert,”
remembers Hilary Chase, “who ran up to the
stage at some point, was noticed by guys
in Janis Joplin’s band and ended up
travelling to Calgary with them on the
train.”
“It's amazing,” concludes one local
observer ruefully, “that anyone can
remember anything about that event by the
amount of drugs and alcohol that was
digested both by fans and performers.”
John Einarson
Winnipeg Boomer Magazine August 2012
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