A rock concert is a performance of rock music .
29-441: A rock festival 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
58-495: A disk jockey and concert promoter who organized many of the first major rock concerts. Since then, the rock concert has become a staple of entertainment not only in the United States, but around the world. Bill Graham is widely credited with setting the format and standards for modern rock concerts. He introduced advance ticketing (and later computerized, online tickets), introduced modern security measures (a reaction to
87-785: A camping community without centralised control. The pioneering free festival movement started in the UK in the 1970s. David Bowie's song Memory of a Free Festival , recorded in September 1969 and included on the 1969 album David Bowie , mentions the free festival organised by the Beckenham Arts Lab and held on the Croydon Road Recreation Ground on 16 August 1969. The 1972 to 1974 Windsor Free Festival , held in Windsor Great Park , England,
116-581: 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
145-440: A playful atmosphere both for the band and the audience. Like rock music in general, rock concerts are emblematic of American culture's waning formality. Such concerts were crucial to the formation of youth identity in the U.S. during a time of social revolution, and have continued to represent elements of society frequently seen as "rebellious," especially against the strictures of mid-twentieth-century social normativities. One of
174-407: 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
203-487: 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
232-478: 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
261-516: 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
290-519: 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
319-548: 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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#1732780568585348-473: 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
377-720: 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
406-603: The best-known rock concerts was undoubtedly Woodstock , and millions of much smaller rock concerts go on every year. The largest rock concert in history was the one Rod Stewart gave on New Year's Eve 1993-94 on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro . It was estimated that 4.2 million people attended it, although this figure is believed to include those who turned up solely for the fireworks display at midnight. Rock concerts are often performed at very high decibel levels. Prolonged exposure to noise at these levels can permanently damage
435-477: 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
464-553: The bones of the middle ear and the nerves of the inner ear. Thus health officials recommend that concertgoers use earplugs . Since the 1960s, many musicians have worn earplugs at concerts, and some concert promoters actually give out free earplugs. For concerts that are held in venues not specifically designed for such events, the large amounts of electricity required for operating the amplifiers, lights, and other pieces of concert equipment are typically provided by portable diesel-powered generators , which are often located very close to
493-503: The deaths at the Altamont concert) and had clean toilets and safe conditions in large venues. Rock concerts are often associated with certain kinds of behavior . Dancing , shouting, singing along with the band, and ostentatious displays by the musicians are common, though some very successful rock bands have avoided gratuitous flash in favor of understated performances focusing on the music itself. Even so, rock concerts often have
522-399: 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
551-409: The event equipment directly to the power grid, or using solar panels (along with storage batteries), can enable the entire event to bypass the ambient air quality concerns. Free festival Free festivals are a combination of music, arts and cultural activities, for which often no admission is charged, but involvement is preferred. They are identifiable by being multi-day events connected by
580-428: The event. The widespread use of such generators is common both for indoor events (such as in a large arena or roofed stadium) or outdoor events (e.g. a stadium or an open area with a temporary stage). Regardless of exactly where the generators are placed, these units emit carcinogenic ultrafine particulates (UFPs) and other pollutants directly into the ambient air. Unless specific precautions are taken (such as placing
609-405: 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
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#1732780568585638-402: 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 ,
667-482: The gensets very far away and using extra-long connection cables or installing extremely long power-operated exhaust ducts, and/or using wet scrubbers, while also taking into account ambient air currents, winds, and other local factors), the genset emissions are likely to become mixed into the air that is inhaled by concert attendees as well as the musicians and staff and other individuals in the area. Using non-diesel-based alternative power provisions, for example connecting
696-401: 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
725-423: The same location on an annual basis. Some, like Farm Aid are held at different venues with each incarnation. Rock concert During the 1950s, several American musical groups experimented with new musical forms that fused country music , blues , and swing genre to produce the earliest examples of "rock and roll." The coining of the phrase, "rock and roll," is often attributed to American, Alan Freed ,
754-406: 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
783-463: 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 &
812-540: Was a free festival. The 'organisation' was mostly Ubi Dwyer distributing thousands of leaflets and asking people and bands to bring their own equipment and create their own environment – "bring what you expect to find." "Free festivals are practical demonstrations of what society could be like all the time: miniature utopias of joy and communal awareness rising for a few days from a grey morass of mundane, inhibited, paranoid and repressive everyday existence…The most lively [young people] escape geographically and physically to
841-466: 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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