“There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear.”
Those words from the classic 60s song, “For What It's Worth”, written by Stephen Stills and recorded by Buffalo Springfield describes the general feeling I experienced back in the summer of 1967. We were happily oblivious to the impending "Summer of Love".
I was barely 17 and just finishing my junior year of high school when my friend, Martha, asked if I wanted to go with her and her mother to some rock and roll concert in Monterey. Little did we know what a phenomenon that concert would turn out to be in years to come.
While searching online, I came across this description of the Monterey Pop Festival held June 16 – 18, 1967, “Two years before Woodstock, over 200,000 young people gathered in and around the Monterey County Fairgrounds for a three day celebration of MUSIC, PEACE, FLOWER-POWER AND LOVE.”
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| A poster advertising the pop festival. Lou has a copy of it in our hallway. |
When Martha asked me to go (or for that matter for years afterward), I had no clue whatsoever just how significant the Monterey Pop Festival’s place in rock and roll history would become. At the time it simply sounded like fun, my parents said okay and there were supposed to be all kinds of bands performing that I liked.
Unfortunately, I was thinking we would see the Jefferson Airplane or Janis Joplin or The Byrds or The Animals, but Martha’s mother wanted to see Ravi Shankar. RAVI SHANKAR????? Who the hell is Ravi Shankar, I asked myself.
My recollection of the experience is sketchy at best – and, no, I wasn’t on any kind of drugs – I just didn’t pay much attention to the details. Lou was amazed that I had attended the Monterey Pop Festival. To me it was just a disappointing event because although I had assumed we would at least see some of the groups I liked, the entire session that afternoon was ONLY Ravi Shankar.
No one else, just Ravi Shankar – for four hours – WTF? You see, although I never got into drugs, I could swear with the best of them and had to bite my tongue a lot to keep from sharing my displeasure with Martha’s mom. Of course, in hindsight, if I’d have bitched enough maybe she would have gotten pissed off and left me there to witness music history! When Lou asked my impression of the concert, my honest answer was it was boring as hell – it was FOUR hours of Ravi Shankar playing a sitar.
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| Ravi Shankar at the Monterey Pop Festival |
After parking the car, it seemed that we walked for miles to reach the venue. There were tents set up all over the grass under lots of trees where concert-goers lived for three days. As we trudged along an asphalt path through what seemed like a forest, an incident occurred that turned out to be the highlight of my day.
Walking on the same path toward us, completely alone, was Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane! Oh...My...God (and a few other choice phrases) came out of my mouth. Marty Balin! Trying to be as casual as my 17 year old self could be, I stopped him, said “hi”, told him I loved his music and shook his hand. It was not cool to ask for an autograph so the handshake had to do. Inside, I was bouncing up and down, waving my arms and shouting!
A couple years before the festival, Martha, another friend and I had taken the bus to Berkeley to spend the day on Telegraph Avenue playing hippie. While browsing in a record store (you remember those big black vinyl discs before CDs and downloads) we stumbled upon this brand new group, the Jefferson Airplane, setting up to sell albums and sign autographs. Hmmm, I guess this was before autographs became uncool. J
I was the only one of the three of us who had enough money, about $4, to buy one of their records and still have the bus fare back to Hayward. If I remember correctly that was about two weeks allowance.
That album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, signed by every one of the original band members is still upstairs in my closet. This was even before Grace Slick joined the Airplane. Signe Anderson sang on their first album then left the band to have a baby.
The reason for this trip down memory lane is because this past weekend, Lou and I took an overnight trip to Monterey and Carmel. Even though he was a mere 12 years old at the time, Lou is heavy into 60s music history and wanted to see the fairgrounds where the Pop Festival took place. He is a huge Jimi Hendrix fan and the Monterey Pop Festival is where Hendrix mesmerized the crowd with his incredible rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner climaxing with setting his guitar on fire! It is legendary in the world of rock and roll.
As luck would have it there was a big spa sale going on at the Monterey County Fairgrounds so the gates were open and we were able to wander around. There were lots of trees and grass among the buildings and horse barns – that part of my memory was intact but that was about the only part.
The concert venue was an old livestock arena that had a raised stage at one end and was open on the other end. There were about four rows of seating on each side of the dirt arena floor where folding chairs had been set up according to old photos we found online. I remembered sitting on the side but thought I was up higher in bleachers. This place was tiny and had definitely seen way better days.
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| This is the venue - not too impressive |
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| My guess is that I sat somewhere in these seats |
If I didn’t know for sure that was the place, I’d have sworn that it must have been somewhere else. Nothing was ringing a bell in my memory of the concert. Lou suggested that it must be like returning to a place you remembered as a kid to be really big, only to have it be half the size and totally unimpressive. My guess was that the 200,000 people in the description must have listened from their tents and surrounding areas because this place couldn’t have held more than a few thousand people if they were crammed in.
There were no plaques or signs or any indication that a magical, monumental event in rock and roll history took place almost 45 years ago in this rundown arena. It was just a typical old county fairgrounds that comes alive once a year and hosts things like spa sales and car shows on the weekends.
Sunday while standing on a folding chair so I could see over the fence for a close up look at the stage, I tried to imagine Janis belting out “Piece of My Heart” or Eric Burdon screaming the words to “House of the Rising Sun”, but it just didn't seem possible. Truthfully, I couldn’t even recall seeing Ravi Shankar playing on this crappy stage. No offense, Ravi, I know you are great at what you do, but this rocker wanted to see The Who or The Grateful Dead or even The Mamas and The Papas – so close, yet so far away.
At least I can say, “I was there!”
