Eden Festival, Mosport Park 12,13 & 14, 1996 : 20 Years ago

[Jay Funk Dawg]

Crazy that this was 20 years ago. 

I think my top musical memories are:

 

The Tragically Hip

Ani DiFranco

Porno For Pyros

Screaming Chetah Willes

Gandarvas

SpaceHog

 

 

The Hip were on fire that night, Trouble at Hen House had just come out and they played a lot of that material.  Porno for Pyros were also great, Perry Ferrell was really in his element.  Ani DiFranco was very captivating as well.

I knew one of the Drost brothers, he ran a studio & rehearsal space for a few years after Eden Fest in Toronto.  He explained to me that he and his brothers produced the festival.  To get the final permits required for the noise they had to give the local city council 20,000 tickets for free to be given to people in the community.. instead those tickets were later sold by scalpers right outside of the venue posing as staff. He explained that since they were Americans the local area law-makers over-charged them and fought with them on everything including staging and fencing.  Security broke down and thousands snuck into the festival over fencing and through forest areas.  

 

I'd love to hear more stories from anyone else who went,  I'm trying to refresh my own memory of what really happened, it was really crazy out of control free-for all festival.  

 

Here's an Allan Cross article that goes into the wild stuff:

http://ajournalofmusicalthings.com/twenty-years-ago-week-edenfest-great-success-even-greater-disaster/

there's full line up list over here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenfest