Cincinnati Summer Pop Festival, June 1970

It's hard to believe it really happened.  A year after Woodstock, moon landing and Manson.  Mere days after the Kent State massacre, with University of Cincinnati graduation ceremonies canceled and the campus on lockdown, just in case of sympathetic "unrest."  It was a major music festival held in the final days of Crosley Field, home of Cincinnati Reds baseball.  Better yet, the show was videotaped by WLWT-TV and the edited highlights aired later that summer as Midsummer Rock with simulcast audio on local FM rock radio stations.  This was of course before our once-great local media (with shows like Midwestern Hayride, 50/50 Club, etc.) deteriorated into generic corporate mush.  (I can't stand WEBN radio "personalities" and music programming, WLW is a haven for simpletons and blowhards, and local news is a shallow and uncritical repetition of corporate and government press releases spiced with sensationalism of murder, molestation and weather hysteria.  They should save the money they blow on weather radar and hire some real reporters.  Or for quality entertainment it would be great if Nick Lachey hosted a revived 50/50 Club broadcast live daily from the Aronoff Center, with Bootsy Collins leading the house band.  They both seem to care about the town.  How about it Nick & Bootsy, are you reading this?  Stan Aronoff, get the ball rolling!)

Marcy & I attended the screening of the video at the Main Public Library (which happens to stand on the site where her grandfather had the first-ever Cincinnati-style chili restaurant back in the 1920's, but that's another blog post).  I wore one of my special wild shirts as a magic charm to ensure the attendance of an old acquaintance of ours (Bevo) who also owned the same style shirt.  It worked:  he was there, but did not wear The Shirt.  The can be only one, and I am it.  In the meeting room where it was shown there were plenty of old hippies.  One nice chick moved her oxygen tank so we could have the end seat for the wheelchair.  She and her gal-pal had both been at the concert and it was a real kick to hear them reminisce.  Another nice hippy touch was the free slices of watermelon offered to all.

 

There were opening remarks from the organizer then video magic began.  There was a large lineup (Bob Seger, Mott the Hoople, Ten Years After, Zephyr, Savage Grace and more) at the all-day concert but the video included only 5 bands:  Grand Funk Railroad, Mountain, Alice Cooper, Iggy and The Stooges, and Traffic.

Grand Funk was first on screen.  My old band mates always liked them and we played a few of their songs even within the past year but after watching them flog away at "Inside Looking Out" for over 20 minutes I'm not sure if I can ever stand to see or hear them again so I won't bother you with any pics or video.  Mountain was up next.  They did some OK bluesy rock but the song "Theme For An Imaginary Western" stuck with me.  Enjoy.  I seem to have an aging hippy moment and goofed up my HTML code so click here for that video.

Next act on the vid was now-famous Alice Cooper but this was before he had any hit songs.  He goofed around with some unstructured sounds and silly theatrics and then started the old swinging-a-watch hypnosis bit on the audience until somebody flung a big hunk of cake that smacked him right in the face.  To his credit he smeared it around into his own face real good then flung it back into the crowd.  Move on.

The next act was what we had come to see:  Iggy and the Stooges!  They were not the most musically sophisticated band by any means but the simplicity and intensity of the performance earned Iggy the nickname "Godfather of Punk."  The Age of Aquarius is so over!  Iggy probably was the first to stage-dive and to crowd-surf, even crowd-walk as in this iconic still pic from the vid. So rock-n-roll!  They were long overdue for their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year.

Now watch this AWESOME vid and check out the square they got to host.  He doesn't know what to make of it!  Iggy got the best reaction from the crowd at the screening.

I would love to know what became of the sketch that one person in the crowd was doing, and I'd love to see snapshots taken by the kids that Iggy was diving amongst.  Are you out there kids, and can you share those with us?

Last act on the vid was Traffic, featuring Steve Winwood.  They were great musically, very eclectic.  I especially like this song "John Barleycorn" because it feels timeless and has some rather challenging harmony.

They say they pulled the plug on Traffic promptly at midnight.  The screening was over.  There was an intermission to be followed by a panel discussion of some people involved and then a book signing by Bob Seger's manager of his book of photos.  But we were ready to roll on out into the hot summer with songs of 40 years ago running through our heads.