Muddy stenchy sex!
Almost.
Got it backwards…again.
I chose Monterey Pop because I saw the movie for the first time a few months ago, and until then I’d had no idea how awesome it was. I’d seen bits and pieces but not the whole thing. And the movie was just a small part of it.
To especially see this Ravi Shankar (RIP) performance, oh my. it starts out slow and then gets faster and faster and more and more complex. It’s mesmerizing on film. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to hear it in person. Well, I can a little bit because of the faces of the audiences.
So far in that Shankar clip I’ve identified Jimi Hendrix, Shelly Duvall and Mickey Dolenz (who jumps up in ecstasy at the end). I know there’s more.
I had a ride arranged for Woodstock . . . but then my mother wouldn’t let me go!
I made up for it by going to the Toronto Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival a few weeks later. And you know what, it was a fine day. We even were able to sneak into the ‘behind stage’ area where I bummed a Kool off Chuck Berry and managed to insult Tony Joe White by asking him, “so, you’re Billy Joe who?”. Later, we made into in Alice Cooper’s dressing room. I hadn’t seen so much make-up since my sister’s wedding. The highlight for me, of course, was being right at the stage, I mean elbows up, when Jim Morrison closed the show and ad-libbed lyrics to The End. A highlight of my youth, actually.
Oh, and John Lennon returned my ‘peace’ sign.
Peace.
I will say, though, that each offered definitive Hendrix Moments: setting his guitar on fire during Wild Thing at MP; playing the Star-Spangled Banner at sunrise at WS…
…man knew how to rise to an occasion.
That last sentence. You’ve just raised the bar for Cool about 12000 meters.
:eek:
at 7pm PST my future wife and I went on our first date. Didn’t even know about Woodstock, but no regrets- the date seems to have gone well. We’re still married.
Cass Elliott saying “Wow” at the end of Janis’ Ball And Chain (?).
Seen footage of both, heard some of the available recordings of both and understanding the royal fuckups in the organization of Woodstock combined with the craptastic weather I would have preferred to go to Monteray Pop. Well, I would have rather been along on the Festival Express railroad tour in Canada…
IIRC, it’s “Oh My God.” (but I could be wrong)
What was the last live music event to enter the pop culture lexicon?
So could I. I’m not even sure it was after Janis-- might have been Jimi.
Well, any event after, oh, Live Aid - and maybe a bit prior - is more of a good cause than a new event. Maybe Rock Hall 25th or Zep’s O2/Celebration Day?
I am sure there are influential music events all the time - but with music so Balkanized by the Internet, few events grab a big share of the public. Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction?
Just watched on youtube. It was after Janis. “Oh My God” vs “Wow” – looks to me like it could be either. You call it, I’ll agree.
Live Aid?
Coachella?
Seriously though - Lollapalooza certainly has some pop culture cache, enough for it to get a whole episode satirizing it on “the Simpsons.”
As to the original OP question, I’ll add that Grace Slick (performer at both events) had once opined that Monterey was the ideal type of festival in her opinion, because “you could get there, see a whole lot of great bands, and at the end of the day you just got in your car and drove home.” As opposed to WS, in which you pretty much had to be committed to camping out in the rain for three days.
During it you could see her mouthing “Fuck!” repeatedly. A appropriate reaction when a goddess exposes her heart to the world for the first time.
Oh, and Monterey twice: Once knowing what I know now and once as a 13-yr-old hearing it for the first time.
Monterrey hands down. Better overall line-up, performances, weather, setup, sound, and Butterfield!
A lot of woodstock was simply wasted time.
To be fair, it appears a lot of Monterey Pop was not exactly golden either, unless you really wanted an extended Lou Rawls set and having to sit through a bunch of Hugh Masekela.
But I’d have picked Monterey too - the Who without the Stench.