On The 50^th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967-“The Monterey Pops Festival” (1968) –A Documentary

DVD Review

By Associate Film Editor Alden Riley 

The Monterey Pops Festival-1967, starring Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Mamas and the Papas, Ravi Shankar, and the usual suspects from the 1960s acid rock circuit on the West Coast, produced by D.A. Pennebaker, 1968 

I don’t mean to grouse every time I get an assignment from my boss, from film editor Sandy Salmon, but I think I have grounds to do so here. I only mentioned in passing in reading a recent review Sandy did of a 2015 biopic of Janis Joplin, Janis Joplin: Little Girl Blue, one of the icons of the 1960s and of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he and his old-time film critic friend Sam Lowell have gone into overdrive over that I had never heard of her and was not familiar with her work. That faux pas on my part got me this netherworld assignment to watch and review the DVD under review, The Monterey Pops Festival of 1967, the very first one, the three day affair, which has also (back in mid-June) celebrated its 50^th anniversary. Sandy’s idea was, I think, that once I heard and saw her and the other top West Coast groups from his generation that I would go out and buy a tie-dye shirt or look for the nearest commune or something.     

Sandy mentioned that the guy who put the documentary together about the two day concert was the very same guy who trailed after Bob Dylan in his classic Don’t Look Back (which I also haven’t seen but I will charge an unfair labor practice if he attempts to get me to watch and review that one since one thing I do know is that Bob Dylan couldn’t and can’t now sing whatever merits he has as a songwriter and part-time “voice” of his generation or whatever it was that Time magazine dubbed him back in the ancient folk times). Whatever merits the subject matter of this documentary has it certainly is not in the almost amateurish production values here especially in light of the huge technological advances that have been made which makes this documentary seen like one of those old silent movie flicks in comparison. Grainy, swirly footage, seemingly random and inchoate views (or non-views) of the acts on stage and some odd-ball sound effects (or non-sound effects) which I am sure Sandy and his crowd will glower over as efforts to “go back to nature” from a simpler time when everybody was looking intently at their electronic devises of choice.      

I will pass over the performances some of which were very good including Ms. Joplin’s break-out performance with her band Big Brother and the Holding Company on the old blues classic Piece Of My Heart. If she had that much energy consumption on one song I don’t know how she would have gotten through a full set never mind a whole concert but maybe the drugs really did help keep her going. Same goes for Jefferson Airplane with demonic Grace Slick and Marty Balin on High Flying Bird and the great harmonics of the Mamas and Papas (someone said they were “spot on” meaning very in tune) that came through even in this primitive production. But what was that all about with the Who leader smashing and Jimi Hendrix burning up perfectly good electric guitars on stage. I don’t get it and I don’t want to ask Sandy, and definitely not Sam Lowell who was actually out in San Francisco in 1967 although I am not sure he attended the festival, because I don’t want a two hour lecture about creative rock and roll and stage presence-thank you very much.

Here is the funny thing though since this was a billed as a Pops Festival the guy who stole the show (the shown part since I understand that several big-time performers wound up on the cutting room floor (which are shown in a separate disc in the three disc collection as “outtakes”-the other disc Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding’s performances which I did not have time to view and in the case of Hendrix did want to after seeing that maniacal burning in the main frame) was Ravi Shankar who played the sitar hardly a new instrument and a did a rif that was probably about five hundred years old. The crowd loved it, hell, I loved it although it was perhaps a shade too long given the eighty minute length of the film. 

What really interested me and which Sandy will probably give me an earful about were the close-up shots of the attendees, of the audience, of the mostly young audience in their best “hippie” garb some of it which looked very cool even now. Porkpie hats, old-time Victorian dresses, World War II G.I. surplus stuff like that. Funny though and maybe Sandy will think the same thing when he watches the DVD or maybe re-watches most of the audience looked like they had done some serious weed or some drug before they got to the concert (or maybe at it although it didn’t seem like I saw a lot of smoke, weed smoke although a fair amount of cigarette smoke when that was cool. Some of the young women then, women who today would be my grandmother’s age certainly looked foxy. I wonder if anybody who watched the film today and who had been there then would be shocked by the footage of them in their “to be young was very heaven days”. I wonder if Sandy would think the same think thing or dismiss my observation and go back into his ecstatic dream world with Sam yakking about the days when men and women played rock and roll for keeps and everybody listened with baited breathe.