Music

Published on March 17th, 2015 | by Ron Spizziri

The Monterey Pop Festival

The Monterey Pop Festival was a defining moment in pop culture; we post some photos and Ron lists some of the acts that were there.

The Monterey Pop Festival was the third major rock festival to occur in the 60s, following San Francisco’s Human Be-in and the Fantasy Faire & Magic Mountain Music Festival held just outside of San Francisco. Thanks mainly to the film, Monterey Pop, Monterey provided many of the performers with their first taste of worldwide exposure. The three-day concert, which took place on the weekend of June 16^th, 1967 was attended by 50,000 music fans and presented 32 acts. The resulting movie and reviews of the event, however, only highlighted a small percentage of the participating musicians. Here, then, is a complete chronological list of the performers at the Monterey Pop Festival, many of whom went on to alter the course of rock music in the latter half of the 20^th century.

The Mamas & The Papas

Otis Redding

Friday Night

The Association

The Paupers

Lou Rawls

Beverly

Johnny Rivers

The Animals

Simon & Garfunkel

The Who

Janice Joplin (she played with Big Brother and The Holding Company)

Saturday Afternoon

Canned Heat

Big Brother & The Holding Company

Country Joe & The Fish

Al Kooper

Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Quicksilver Messenger Service

Steve Miller Blues Band

The Electric Flag

Country Joe & The Fish

The iconic Jimi Hendrix moment you’ve seen ad nauseum.

Saturday Night

Moby Grape

Hugh Masekela

The Byrds

Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Laura Nyro

Jefferson Airplane

Booker T

The Mar Keys

Otis Redding

Peter Tork from The Monkees with Janice Joplin

Ravi Shankar

Sunday Afternoon

Ravi Shankar

Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones backstage with Hendrix

Buffalo Springfield

Sunday Night

Grateful Dead

The Blues Project

The Who

Jimi Hendrix

Buffalo Springfield

The Group With No Name

The Mamas & Papas

Scott McKenzie

Editor’s Note: The film itself is available from Criterion.

Tags: line up, monterey pop festival, music festivals

About the Author

Ron Spizziri grew up in Toronto in the 50s and 60s, building up a record library (which became an addiction early on and continues to this day). After moving to Saskatoon in 1979, he got into the “music biz” in a big way – running a record store (Records on Wheels), producing and hosting radio and TV shows, promoting concerts, doing some freelance writing, and starting up a record label (Rockin’ Rod records). Luddite that he is, Ron still favours vinyl analogue recordings over all other forms of recorded music.