Festival Express – The Trans-Continental Pop Festival
I wish I had a time machine. Like Marty McFly in Back To The Future. I would climb inside Doc Brown’s DeLorean DMC-12 and set the controls to 27th June 1970 and join Janis, Robbie, Levon and Jerry on the Trans-Continental Express, as they grooved their way across Canada by train.
The Trans-Continental Pop Festival (better known as the Festival Express) set off on a warm summer’s day in 1970. The now legendary tour was unique in that rather than flying to each city, most of the acts travelled on a chartered train. The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin (with her Full-Tilt Boogie Band), The Band, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Buddy Guy Blues Band all jammed, drank, slept and rode the train in between playing shows in Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Calgary.
The chartered Canadian National Railways train consisted of 14 cars, equipped with lounges and sleeping compartments, with electricity sockets so that musical instruments could be plugged in. Allegedly, during the trip, a coke-fuelled Jerry Garcia talked his way into sitting in the driver’s seat and was left at the controls, regularly sounding the train’s whistle.
The train journey between cities ultimately became a combination of non-stop jam sessions and partying, fueled by alcohol. One highlight of the documentary is a drunken jam session featuring The Band’s Rick Danko, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin.
trailer for the “loooong awaited” film, finally released in 2004, shot just before i was born in Saskatoon, Aug, 16 1970
In the summer of 1970, a train carrying Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, The Band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Buddy Guy and Janis Joplin rolled from Toronto to Calgary, stopping for scheduled concerts along the way.
Billed as the Canadian Woodstock, The Festival Express was a musician’s dream and a promoter’s nightmare. The train was loaded with musical instruments, food, liquor — and a film crew.
Three decades later, Bob Smeaton, director of the Beatles Anthology television miniseries and a film on Jimi Hendrix, worked with 75 hours of raw footage to make Festival Express.
“I thought that the best thing to do would be to make it the way that I feel they would have made it had they made it in 1970,” he tells
Here in Vancouver, (maybe you’ve noticed) we live in the midst of social/web/tech companies which are creating truly unique and powerful (in a global scale) tools.
We are not only witnessing or tacitly observing, but instead co-creating and culturally-curating something unique. Van isn’t exclusive to this – across Canada are pockets in the throes of this social/new/digital media renaissance like we’re pre-wired for it.
Dare I say – our countryfolk tend to be nuanced communicators with an understanding of bringing people together in compelling, inclusive ways.
Within these various enclaves exists the power to create world-changing art and technology, then bask in the resultant cultural-economic goodness. Indeed, sustainable, intelligence-based commercial models exist, and are eager to multiply.
The Next Station is…
So how to be spark this intellectual and cultural exchange? Hop aboard the Festival Express Redux – an interdisciplinary, cross-Canada train trip exploring the intersection of art, music, culture, media, business.
In the spirit of the 1970 music tour, The Festival Express, which brought Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band and more by rail to the fans from coast to coast – with hi-jinks, legends and mishaps along the way.
This train will be loaded-up with media makers, entrepreneurs, musicians, teachers, journalists, photographers and technologists, commonly aimed at barnstorming into cities and towns for hours to days – explore and exchange.
It’s a natural course for our kind – we’re travelers and traders, diplomats and teachers. Folks hop on and folks jump off as we pick up thinkers, builders and leaders along the course and inspire the future.
Interdisciplinarianism FTW
In each town, the riders will participate in both pre-arranged and spontaneous series of lectures, meet-ups, workshops and projects (see: Geeks on a Plane). Collaborators might include colleges, NPOs, service clubs, chambers of commerce, “Bar” campers, community groups – whoever raises a hand and says, “Let’s brew something up.”
Topics could include media making, start-up life, creative commons, funding sources, inspiring creativity, photo walks, web tools, poetry and paint, and anything else which interests 2 people. Everything is on the record and documented in a firehose of mixed-media narrative and published in almost-real-time.
Collectively contextualized and shared and open to conversation like a new-school farmer’s almanac of best tips and timing – with an aim to stimulate cultural exchange and spark economic activities.
The results (at minimum) with share the inspiring vital signs of Canada in general – and the communities specifically – as fertile ground in digital media business-sphere.
Who’s on-board? I’ll raise my hand. Also, we’ll need a train, wi-fi, beer and sandwiches.
A while back, I shared a dossier of ideas and backgrounders about a trip to refresh and respect the Festival Express, the freewheeling 1970 tour which failed miserably for the promoters but the bands loved the trek as they (tried to, at least) bring the music to the fans instead of bringing them all to Woodstock or Altamont.
The film footage survived in garaged boxes for decades before a recent release which shares mind-pleasing-chilling footage of Rick Danko, Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia in hammered late night jams with Buddy Guy stepping in, juxtaposed with live footage of their bands at the peak of their velocity – The Band with all healthy and alive, Grateful Dead with dual drummers and PigPen and Janis owning each note.
This chapter, almost lost all but the most crunchy Canadians, makes me wonder – what would happen if Janis in full wailing grandeur had auditioned for American Idol?
But this isn’t about recreating that rollicking, gonzo train, but instead taking a wee slice of inspiration from it onto the late night cars careening o’er prairie, and see what magic we can draw from the tracks and scapes in our own way.
Story Making
As the un-ordained minister of miscellania and anecdotes for the trip, I’ve set out a few quests to earn my train scout badges, ergo:
I’m toting my old-timey suitcase filled with recent paper point slides to share “Fck Stats, Make Art” a soliloquy for creativity in the ephemeral digital age (see TEDXCapU for a reasonable facsimile) and, “Vancouver Counter Culture Anecdotes” as I shared at Pecha Kucha All-Star night at the Vogue Theatre.Social kung-fu: As my rock n’ roll dreams are long over, I can help bands by sharing my knowledge of blowing stories up with the social webs. I’ve surveyed the bands and prepping cold ones to share tactics for building audience, selling merch, and booking tours using all that Twitters and stuff. Also, intro to Marshall McLuhan since we are Canadian.
Canadian documentation: I’ve made a list of topics to discuss with Grant Lawrence who, between building Canadian indie music into a global cult, he’s promo’ed his book of uniquely left-coast stories. I have topics to riff to complement his banter including: our literary history from Mowat, Berton, Coupland; bio-regional music scenes; goalies and poetry; and what really went down in West Vancouver high school elections.
