Summer has come to mean outdoor rock festivals, and as this summer draws to a close, perhaps it’s a good time to recall the three that all but defined the genre. At the risk of oversimplifying, Monterey, Woodstock, and Altamont have come to represent the birth, life, and death of a society that was to have been guided by the message of rock ‘n’ roll.
Monterey (June 1967) wasn’t just a concert, but a celebration with an urgent social agenda — to present music in the context of an emerging culture. The driving force was flower power, a distinctively West Coast movement of inclusive diversity that proclaimed the worth of any positive, life-affirming form of expression. Pluralism flowed through the huge crafts fair that surrounded the arena and the five sessions of eclectic music, which ranged from Simon & Garfunkel’s sweet New York harmonies through Canned Heat’s Laurel Canyon-infused Delta stomps, Big Brother’s searing Texas blues, Jimi Hendrix’s mad pyrotechnics, Otis Redding’s impassioned soul, the Who’s wild British rampage, Hugh Masakela’s African roots, and Ravi Shankar’s exhilarating freedom within the constraints of Indian classicism.
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