Emm yes it did , Donovan, I had to go buy their 8mm reel to reel, to listen to the music, 8 tracks and cassette were not popluar yet. Mello, Yellow…also Bob Dylan, and Jo Cocker, great performers. Joan Baez was at all the concerts and festivals. Great real musicans
Must have been 1970. There was a grass fire started in the woods that was put out by hippies. I had been to Woodstock, Altamont, went to Minneapolis to start the New Riverside Cafe and went through Madison on my way to St Louis, Oklahoma, Placitas New Mexico where I lived on a commune briefly, sang with a rock band in Phoenix… The rest is history.
After doing some hunting on the internet I discovered what the bootleg LP I was asking about is.
It is Canned Heat’s bootleg performance from the Kickapoo Creek Festival that took place in Heyworth Illinois during Memorial weekend in 1970.
The festival apparently was filmed in part way back then and supposedly the person who is editing the old footage intends to release it in the near future. Further info can be found by searching Kickapoo Creek festival.
Ballerina7,
See my last post regarding Kickapoo Creek festival. Jimi Hendrix a “no name” in 1970? Apparently your memory is off a bit. Jimi Hendrix was huge in 1970. Hendrix actually broke the charts as early as 1967 and grew in popularity from that point onward. It was considered acid rock and that was not popular with hippies? Which hippies are you referring to? Hendrix was and in fact still is a legend not the least because of those hippies you were referring to. Remember it was Jimi Hendrix who was the last person to perform at Woodstock and from my recollections there were at least a few “hippies” that came to Woodstock.
“The Incident at Kickapoo Creek” featured Paul Butterfield, Delanie & Bonnie (Eric Clapton was not with them at this show), B.B. King, R.E.O. Speedwagon, Canned Heat, Ted Nugent w/ Amboy Dukes (one of the last actual Dukes shows), and others like Country Joe & the Fish (did he play?) and Genesis. Lots of rain, mud and bare…well, mud covered skin. The festival was outlawed, of course, but too big to stop, and the police stayed out and nabbed folks outside the grounds. There was a story they got the permit for the festival by labeling it a cow auction, or pig auction, and Sunday morning they actually brought up a cow or something ontage and auctioned it off, just to comply with the terms. Well, it was a good story, and I remember the auction wondering, “what the hell?” 24 hour music was killer, REO played at 3 AM. And mud, mud, mud, and salt tablets…
Two festivals in Wisconsin that year, Poynette and Iola, also listed as the Stevens Point Festival although closer to Amherst then Point. The Sound Storm at Poynette was awesome, a mini Woodstock for sure, lots of Wisconsin talent, lots of campfires (and the brush fire), lack of water for 75,000 until some big trucks showed up and everyone started passing any vessel in hand among the crowd. Took your chances on that drink, but it was water! Poynette music included lots of wonderful Grateful Dead w/ Jerry Garcia (they LOVED Wisconsin, especially Madtown). Go check out these pictures There are about 200 photos from that weekend on the Wisconsin Historical Society's site:
Iola was a blur, partly because of the heavy bikers with weapons and partly because of the disparity of acts, everything from Buddy Rich to Ravi Shankar to MC5 to Paul Butterfield to yoga/mantra demonstrations, etc. Didn’t have a cohesive audience. About 40,000 and more terrain than the other festivals. It didn’t have the wonderful vibe that Poynette did, that will always be a fond memory, but it was a historical festival, nonetheless.
Guess I got carried away, sorry, but I was at all three. (Were) Those (were) the days!?
Presumably this was the obscure American band called Genesis, not the soon-to-be-famous British one.
I worked at both Sound Storm (April 1970) and Iola (June 1970), doing a variety of (realy) odd jobs (electrical wiring, stage security, running stage lights, silk-screening t-shirts) in exchange for getting in and hanging out. Poynette was more enjoyable than Iola, but the biker-hippie violence (we were convinced it really happened, but we were in the “compound” behind the stage) and other “factors” influenced my perceptions. Contrary to one comment, Poynette had much more substantial festival grounds — the run of a 600-acre farm, versus what we were told was 25 or 50 acres at Iola.
Most of those commenting on the acts present at Iola were correct: Iggy and the Stooges, Nugent and the Dukes, Buffy, Ravi Shankar, Brownsville, Butterfield, Berry, etc. (I remembered Nugent doing the stage diving, but I was behind the stage for just about every act, and it may have been Iggy Pop.
My most vivid memory of Iola is the “head” of the “company” I worked for, TransAmerika, running through the compound swinging a machete and yelling, “The bikers are coming!” Poynette: Trying to keep the spotlights (those old-fashioned arc lights) running on Sunday, while the PA guy begged for donations to keep the rental generators on site and running. Oh, and the Bongos Incident — but that’s another story entirely …
Is it really coming up on 40 years?
In 1970 I attended both the Mt York Festival and the one in Iola, as well as a festival in Wadena, Iowa on 1-2-3 August. Mt York was by far the best. I’ll try to share some memories, but with nearly 40 years of livin’ gone by, details are hazy.
I remember a long line of traffic into Mt York after dark on Friday. Some people loaned me a tent, and I camped with some friends about half way up the hill. Tayles played that evening.
A band called Oz played early Sunday afternoon. They were from Madison. I knew the bass player, and was invited to sit on a catwalk that ran along the front of the stage. Oz was a pretty good band, and they really were hot on it that day. After their last set, the crowd called for an encore. Their lead player remarked, “You’d rather hear us than the Grateful Dead??”
The Dead came out next, and I got to sit on the catwalk through their first few songs. Then everyone on the catwalk was told they had to leave. So I moved down to a spot by a truck in front of the stage. There was a naked dude on top of the truck dancing like crazy.
The Dead played until well after dark. I ran into some friends who were heading back to Madison, and I took them up on their offer to ride back with them. I remember walking through the woods in the dark, back to the parking lot, hearing the Dead playing in the distance. I think they were playing “Dark Star.”
Iola was pretty much a biker scene. It was pretty wierd. During Ravi Shankar’s set there were people making lots of noise. I have a picture in my mind’s eye of a huge pile of trash in front of the stage. That about sums up the Iola festival.
Wadena was a mudhole at first. It had rained for several days before the event started. Some of the stage hands were worried that the whole stage was about to start sliding down the hillside it was built on. I wish I could remember more about what bands played there. I know the Everly Brothers played there because I got to meet them after their set. They seemed like pretty nice people, but they weren’t very happy because the promoter had run out of money and couldn’t pay them. The Flying Burrito Brothers also were there.
It would be interesting to read more from others who were at these festivals.
I’m reading some newspapers from the time and, contracted to appear at the festival(at least, a few days before it occurred) were The Evely Bros, as you said, Tim Hardin, Buffy St. Marie, Guess Who, Mason Profit, Ian and Sylvia, the Youngbloods and Little Richard. Flying Burrito Bros(as you said), the Oz, Chambers Bros., Rotary Connection,
The festival was held on the Clarence Schmitt farm of 200 acres, which had been purchased just before the festival for $47,500.
It was announced, prior to the festival, that all bands had been paid in advance, so problems wouldn’t arise(yeah, right :rolleyes:)
Who showed and actually played, I couldn’t find.
This is fascinating. All these Dopers who were there.
I only vaguely recall hearing about the Wisconsin festivals. I lived in Madison but was still in High School.
But the Sterling Hall bombing? I remember that like it was yesterday. Of course I headed off to the Univ of Wisc Madison the next year so seeing the building every day imprinted the whole incident into my brain. And I did not know that Karl Armstrong ran that restaurant. I’ve clearly been in Milwaukee too long.
Karl Armstrong didn’t take over Radical Rye until late 1999/early 2000 (cite), so he wouldn’t have been running the place at the time you were in college.
Maybe longer than you think. 
The State Street Radical Rye closed years ago, due to the whole Overture Center thing. They were in a different location for a while (I don’t remember where, but I had a friend who worked there in 2004 or 2005), but as far as I know Radical Rye is no longer in operation. Armstrong’s Loose Juice cart can still be seen downtown, though.
[Never mind.]
I was at the Iola Rock fest, even though I was only eight years old. My dad was on the stage crew, and we lived in Iola.
We were camped back stage next to the entertainers food tent. I remember several women being all in a tizzy, trying to get Ravi Shankar’s tea just right.
And I remember my mom taking me down to the stage to see Buffy Sainte Marie perform. Other than that, it was all just a big camping trip for me.
I and another kid my age followed an enterprising guy around as he picked the local wild hemp (useless), and sold it to gullible attendees. Even we knew better.
When the bikers came, all the other women and children in the backstage camp were hustled into the woods and told to be very quiet until someone came back for us. I never heard much of what happened then, except that my dad came home with a very large Bowie knife that he took off of some guy that jumped him. I always had the impression that the guy was just somebody messed up that my dad talked down.
I later found out that the local sheriff rounded up every “able-bodied” man in the area and mass deputized them in downtown Iola (town of about 700 or 800 at the time) and they all rode out the festival grounds to take out the bikers. A friend of mine’s dad carried that little deputy card with him at all times, just in case he was needed again.
We also were very close to the hospital tent, which seemed well attended.
When I got back to school that fall, of course everyone knew that I’d been there (small town!), and the number one question of my peers? “Did you see naked people?”
If anyone is interested, there’ll be a photo exhibit in nearby Amherst, Wisconsin, to mark the 40th anniversary of the festival, this summer, in June and July. It’s in a little gallery on Main Street, and the street is only four of five blocks long, so you can’t really miss it. Here’s a link to the gallery.
Great story!!! Thank you for posting that.
Wow, bonnie, thanks for posting that link. I grew up in that area and never heard of the rock fest before reading it here. I’ll definitely be checking out the exhibit.
Rabnmb was correct, I was there. A dude and his girlfriend were walking by the bikers and they started making very explicit comments to the dudes girlfriend. The dude, not to bright, called them assholes. The bikers proceeded to kick his ass and fondle the girl. A bunch of us helped and the word got to the stage and the announcer stated “There’s only fifty of them and thousands of us, lets help” Everybody got up and ran to help. That’s when a biker pulled a gun and shot into the crowd, We left. Short concert.
Kick a Poo was on a farm jusat outside of Hayworth, Il. I was there…it was not held in Wisconsin. BB King, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, and so many others I can’t name played. There was a haze of smoke from all the weed being smoked and it rained for 2 out of the 3 days, so everyone was slopping around in the mud. They had even made a mudslided going dowen a hill into the creek where people were playing and swimming completely naked. Everyone shared whatever they had with complete strangers (food, water and dope fo every kind), and I remember sleeping on huge pieces of cardboard in a station wagon with people we just met, listening to BB King play at 3:30 am in the pouring rain.
This festival was not as big as Woodstock, but shoiuld be remembered more so, because it was held the week after the Kent State Campus killings, and we all protested about the use of guns. There was also a “huge” attendance by various motorcycle groups and there was absolutely no fighting. It truely was a Hippie Fest which promoted ALL of the things we believed in back in the “good ole days”! Peace, Make Love Not War, Joints as big as cigars, Sharing, Helping, and Caring about perfect strangers, all brought together for the same reason. I am proud to have been a part of it, and “extremely lucky” to have lived in the era during my 20-30"s. 1968 though 1985 had to be the BEST !!! Wish the kids now could have experienced the things we did, instead of what they have to go through. People think the 50’s were good…the late 60’s blew them away !!!
Actually, three weeks after Kent State. Time plays tricks on your mind. 30,000 people were estimated to have attended, so it was big.
Seems to me that there used to be festivals in the Wisconsin Dells area in the late 70s…anyone familiar with that?
Thanks… I do enjoy living vicariously through people’s Hippie Exploits. Definitely worth resurrecting a thread for.