The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was an event held June 10 and 11, 1967, at the 4,000-seat Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre high on the south face of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California . Although 20,000 tickets were reported to have been sold for the event, as many as 40,000 people may have actually attended the two-day concert, which was the first of a series of San Francisco–area cultural events known as the Summer of Love . The Fantasy Fair was influenced by the popular Renaissance Pleasure Faire and became a prototype for large scale multi-act outdoor rock music events now known as rock festivals .
33-574: Phun City was a rock festival held at Ecclesden Common near Worthing , England , from 24 July to 26 July 1970. Excluding the one-day free concerts in London's Hyde Park , Phun City became the first large-scale free festival in the UK. Organised by the UK Underground anarchist Mick Farren and financed by Ronan O'Rahilly , the festival was notable for having no fences and no admission fees. It
66-582: A diverse lineup to showcase a broad array of popular music trends. Initially, some of the earliest rock festivals were built on the foundation of pre-existing jazz and blues festivals, but quickly evolved to reflect the rapidly changing musical tastes of the time. For example, the United Kingdom's National Jazz Festival was launched in Richmond from 26 to 27 August 1961. The first three of these annual outdoor festivals featured only jazz music, but by
99-501: A large geodesic dome of pipes and fittings covered with black plastic that contained a light and sound show. The Magic Mountain Music Festival was favorably reviewed for safety in contemporary press accounts. Fights or disturbances were not an issue, and at the end of the day, trash was placed in or next to the garbage cans provided, and the crowd left Mount Tamalpais as they had found it. Reminiscent of their role at
132-409: A single day or evening, often indoors, and featuring only a handful of acts. Today, rock festivals are usually open-air concerts spread out over two or more days and many of the annual events are sponsored by the same organization. Production and financing Several of the early rock festival organizers of the 1960s such as Chet Helms , Tom Rounds , Alex Cooley and Michael Lang helped create
165-551: A solely jazz festival that was inaugurated in 1965 in the Belgian city of Bilzen. The 1966 festival still featured mostly jazz acts. However, by the time of the third festival from 25 to 27 August 1967, rock and pop acts had edged out most of the jazz bands and become the main attraction. In the United States, rock festivals seemed to spring up with a more self-defined musical identity. Preceded by several precursor events in
198-479: A specific genre and may in turn become known and large enough to be seen as festivals themselves, such as was The Glade at the famous Glastonbury Festival in England. Advances in sound reinforcement systems beginning in the 1960s enabled larger and larger rock festival audiences to hear the performers' music with much better clarity and volume. The best example was the pioneering work of Bill Hanley , known as
231-424: Is an open-air rock concert featuring many different performers, typically spread over two or three days and having a campsite and other amenities and forms of entertainment provided at the venue. Some festivals are singular events, while others recur annually in the same location. Occasionally, a festival will focus on a particular genre (e.g., folk , heavy metal , world music ), but many attempt to bring together
264-518: The Hells Angels and Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club . Gravy in particular called his security group the "Please Force," a reference to their non-intrusive tactics at keeping order, e.g., "Please don't do that, please do this instead". When asked by the press — who were the first to inform him that he and the rest of his commune were handling security — what kind of tools he intended to use to maintain order at Woodstock in 1969, his response
297-564: The Human Be-In the previous January in Golden Gate Park , members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club pitched in peacefully to help find lost children and to ferry musicians and others up and down the mountain's winding road. While they were not officially hired by organizers, the group also acted as de facto security for the event. While the highly documented Monterey International Pop Festival continues to be remembered as
330-519: The "father of festival sound", who provided the sound systems for numerous rock festivals including Woodstock. Other examples included the Wall of Sound invented in the 1970s to allow the Grateful Dead to play to larger audiences. Camping and crowd control Many festivals offer camping, either because lodging in the area is insufficient to support the crowd, or to allow easy multi-day access to
363-549: The 1960s]. It seems fitting… that one of the most enduring labels for the entire generation of that era was derived from a rock festival: the ' Woodstock Generation'." Reflecting their musical diversity and the then-common term ' pop music ', for the first few years, particularly in the US, many rock festivals were called 'pop festivals'. This also served to distinguish them among the ticket-buying public from other, pre-existing types of music festivals such as jazz and folk festivals. By
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#1732775920689396-473: The Night Tripper, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Steppenwolf A recent innovation is the traveling rock festival where many musical acts perform at multiple locations during a tour. Successful festivals are often held in subsequent years. The following is an incomplete list. The following is a list of festivals that predominantly feature rock genres that take place on a regular basis. Most are held at
429-659: The San Francisco area, the first two rock festivals in the US were staged in northern California on consecutive weekends in the summer of 1967: the KFRC Fantasy Fair & Magic Mountain Music Festival on Mount Tamalpais (10–11 June) and the Monterey International Pop Festival (16–17 June). The concept caught fire and spread quickly as rock festivals took on a unique identity and attracted significant media attention around
462-518: The San Francisco mid-sixties era music scene in 1991 in their magazine Cream Puff War #1 . Writing about the weeks surrounding the Fantasy Fair, Cost noted that "the dichotomy in Bay Area music was never so evident, as the self-proclaimed "adult" scene separated itself from the "teen/pop" scenes." Scram Magazine juxtaposed that view with pioneer rock magazine editor Greg Shaw's recollection that
495-431: The amphitheater. Transportation was provided by the tongue-in-cheek-named "Trans-Love Bus Lines", a variation of the line "Fly Trans Love Airways, get you there on time" from the lyrics to Donovan 's song "Fat Angel". Performances were on a main stage and a smaller second stage. Various art-fair type vendors sold posters, crafts and refreshments from booths scattered in the woods around the amphitheater. The festival included
528-477: The blueprint for large-scale rock festivals in the United States, as well promoters such as Wally Hope in the United Kingdom. In various countries, the organizers of rock festivals have faced legal action from authorities, in part because such festivals have attracted large counterculture elements. In 1972, Mar Y Sol Pop Festival in Manatí, Puerto Rico attracted an estimated 30–35,000 people, and an arrest warrant
561-399: The end of 1972, the term 'pop festival' had virtually disappeared as festival promoters adopted more creative, unique and location-specific names to identify and advertise their events. While it was still in vogue, however, over-zealous promoters eager to capitalize on the festival concept made the most of it, with some using the term "Pop Festival" or "Rock Festival" to advertise events held on
594-501: The festival was $ 2.00 and all proceeds were donated to the nearby Hunters Point Child Care Center in San Francisco. The Fantasy Fair was originally scheduled for June 3 and 4 as a benefit for the center, but was delayed one week by inclement weather. Several acts booked for the original dates were unable to perform. KFRC 610, the RKO Bill Drake " Boss Radio " Top 40 AM station in San Francisco, had significant influence in
627-407: The festival's features. Festival planning and logistics are frequently a focus of the media, some festivals such as the heavily commercialized Woodstock 1999 were crowd control disasters, with insufficient water and other resources provided to audiences. Many early rock festivals successfully relied on volunteers for crowd control , for example individuals like Wavy Gravy and biker groups such as
660-474: The festival, Worthing teenager Billy Idol saw MC5 play, saying later "I didn't realize it then but I had just seen the future of rock". Mick Jones another future punk pioneer was also enthusiastic "That was the first time MC5 had played. My overriding memory was falling into a ditch! That was a great festival". 50°50′17″N 0°27′55″W / 50.83814°N 0.46521°W / 50.83814; -0.46521 Rock festival A rock festival
693-403: The fourth "Jazz & Blues Festival" in 1964, a shift had begun that incorporated some blues and pop artists into the lineup. In 1965, for the first time the event included more blues, pop and rock acts than jazz, and by 1966, when the event moved to the town of Windsor, the rock and pop acts clearly dominated the jazz artists. A similar, though more rapid, evolution occurred with Jazz Bilzen ,
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#1732775920689726-404: The money often gathered through fundraising and angel investors . Stages and sound systems While rock concerts typically feature a small lineup of rock bands playing a single stage, rock festivals often grow large enough to require several stages or venues with live bands playing concurrently. As rock music has increasingly been fused with other genres, sometimes stages will be devoted to
759-474: The mountain." - Mel Lawrence (Fantasy Fair co-producer, later, Woodstock's operations manager) "There were school buses going up and down the mountainside. There's nothing like driving down the center line on a motorcycle with a bus going one way and a bus going the other way and a foot of clearance on either side." - Barry "The Fish" Melton ( Country Joe and the Fish ) "I had my guitar in my hand and there
792-639: The music industry among both counterculture and commercial acts. This enabled festival organizer Tom Rounds , KFRC's program director , to present a colorful and eclectic line-up of popular musicians from both in and outside the region. Canned Heat , Dionne Warwick , Every Mother's Son , The Merry-Go-Round , The Mojo Men , P. F. Sloan , The Seeds , Country Joe and the Fish , Captain Beefheart , The Byrds with Hugh Masekela on trumpet, Tim Buckley , The Sparrows , The Grass Roots , The Loading Zone , The 5th Dimension and Jefferson Airplane were among
825-631: The performers who appeared. The Fantasy Fair was also The Doors ' first large show and happened during the rise of the group's first major hit, " Light My Fire ", to the top of the charts. Among posters created for the event was one designed by artist Stanley Mouse , then gaining acclaim for poster-art created for Bill Graham , the Fillmore Auditorium and Grateful Dead . "we did this bus thing where we parked everybody down in Marin County in various parking lots and bussed them up
858-565: The same location on an annual basis. Some, like Farm Aid are held at different venues with each incarnation. Fantasy Fair %26 Magic Mountain Music Festival The organizers chartered school buses to shuttle attendees and musicians up the mountain from Mill Valley, as Panoramic Highway had been closed to traffic. Those who missed the bus could catch a ride on the back of one of the Hells Angels’ Harleys. Admission to
891-414: The security force, but Farren said, "It slowly dawned on us that although none of our original plans had come together, we were no longer in control." Instead, the audience themselves were now in charge, with the organizers just making sure the bands came and went – it was, if somewhat inadvertently, the first large-scale "people's festival" held in the UK. The poster art was by Edward Barker . Camping at
924-466: The seminal event of the 1967 Summer of Love, the KFRC Festival took place one week before Monterey and is considered to have been America's - if not the world's - first rock festival . To some commentators, the festival represented a sea change in musical preferences among young Bay Area radio listeners as the hippie culture fully arose in mid-1967. Alec Palao and Jud Cost chronicled
957-406: The world. By 1969, promoters were staging dozens of them. According to Bill Mankin, in their dawning age rock festivals were important socio-cultural milestones: "… it would not be an exaggeration to say that, over a few short years, rock festivals played a unique, significant – and underappreciated – role in fueling the countercultural shift that swept not only America but many other countries [during
990-465: Was "Cream pies and seltzer bottles ." Other rock festivals hire private security or local police departments for crowd control, with varying degrees of success. Saturday, 21 June - Eric Anderson, Al Kooper, The Band, Bonzo Dog Band, Johnny Winter, Velvet Underground and Sly & the Family Stone. Sunday, 22 June - Ronnie Hawkins, Chuck Berry, Kensington Market, Tiny Tim, Nucleus, Dr. John &
1023-469: Was issued for promoter Alex Cooley, who avoided arrest by leaving the island before the festival was over. British Free Festival organizers Ubi Dwyer and Sid Rawle were imprisoned for attempting to promote a 1975 Windsor Festival. The British police would later outright attack free festival attendees at the 1985 Battle of the Beanfield . Festivals may require millions of USD to be organized, with
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1056-517: Was no way to drive up to the stage. So I'm walking and walking and going, "If I planned on going on a hike, I probably would've worn different shoes." I walked all the way up." - Jorma Kaukonen ( Jefferson Airplane ) After waiting hours for a ride up the mountain from embarkation points at the Marin County Civic Center , Mill Valley and other locations, attendees were greeted by a giant Buddha balloon when they arrived at
1089-853: Was not intended to be a free concert, but funding was withdrawn a few days before the event. Rather than cancel it, the organisers told the scheduled bands who turned up that they would have to give their services for nothing. Remarkably, most of the acts stayed on. Free were billed to play, but withdrew – Farren later noted in his memoirs the irony of a band named Free refusing to play for free. Those who did appear included MC5 , The Pretty Things , Kevin Ayers , Steve Peregrin Took 's band Shagrat , Edgar Broughton Band , Mungo Jerry , Mighty Baby and Pink Fairies "who were taking all their clothes off as they played". The Beat generation poet William Burroughs also appeared. The Hells Angels – UK had been hired as
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