The Very First Music Festival- 40 Years Ago

I have been a concert goer for the last 30 years. My first show was at the Spectrum in Philadelphia that featured Ted Nugent and Areosmith. It was a great show and I was hooked! A few years later I was traveling out to college in Vegas and stopped into Red Rocks outside Denver and caught the Grateful Dead. That was a show and the people we met were wonderful. Just this week I took several friends to see Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) perform "Darkside of the Moon" note for note in Oakland. That was one excellent show!! Before my time there was a music festaval that started it all, called the Monterey Pop Festival. Many of the top acts from San Francisco (the Dead, Janis, Quicksilver and the Jefferson Airplane) were there along with The Who, Jimi Hendrix and the Mamas and the Papas to name but a few. The cost of the show was $1 and all the profits went to charity. The bands even played for free. It was an amazing time and place where it all came together with music, people and freedom of expression. If you get a chance, VH1 is running a show on the festival that has some great footage and interviews with several of the artists and concert attendees. There is also a movie out there about the festival. On July 28th there will be a 40 year anniversay party in Monterey to celebrate this seminal event with some of those performers coming back to do it all over again. Read a story of a gal from London who came to SF to experience the Summer of Love and ended up at the show. Take a trip here.