bONES Posted December 11, 2003 Report Share Posted December 11, 2003 I had a great time that night @ The Bloor Cinema when The Deads "Closing of Winterland" was shown KevO, DownTown & I were talkin' about this film (festival express) last night and I figure it would be another good time if it could be shown at the Bloor Cinema It was just screened (September) at the TO filmfest, so it may not be available yet... Production Company: Apollo Films Executive Producer: Ann Carli, Garth Douglas, Willem Poolman Producer: Gavin Poolman, John Trapman Cinematography: Peter Biziou, Bob Fiore Editor: Eamonn Power Sound: Eddie Kramer Music: The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Eric Andersen, Buddy Guy, Great Speckled Bird In the summer of 1970, a series of music festivals were held across Canada. After the first concert in Toronto, the musicians, roadies and a film crew boarded a private train to travel to the remaining events in Winnipeg and Calgary. The Festival Express was the brainchild of two brash, young promoters named Ken Walker and Thor Eaton. Not satisfied with assembling one of the most incredible travelling concert bills in history (performers included Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, The Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Eric Andersen, Buddy Guy, Great Speckled Bird, and many more) Walker and Eaton decided that “packaging” the tour in the form of a CN railcar moving across the vast landscape would make for good times and good music. How right they were. At the crest of the musical and social explosion that was the sixties, this contrast between the greatest musicians of their day (and, arguably, any day) and a leisurely mode of travel made for a combustible bell jar that vibrated with artistic camaraderie. They rocked, they rolled, they jammed – all part of a bacchanal that chugged its way across the Canadian Shield and all documented on film. The performers were confronted at every concert stop by protesters angry about the $14 ticket price (“Free the music – the music should be free!”) but this did not prevent them giving their all for the thousands who flocked to see them. This never-before-seen footage (in which Willem Poolman, father of producer Gavin Poolman, captured performances both on stage and onboard the train) reminds us of the sheer electricity performers like Joplin were capable of creating. The footage was lost in legal proceedings for years, but ninety hours of raw negative and forty hours of uncut sound recording fortuitously found their way to the Budge Crawley vault in the National Archives of Canada. With music mixed by Eddie Kramer (producer of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Santana), Bob Smeaton’s documentary immortalizes performances that – in comparison to those found in the controlled set-ups of most concert films – are unmistakably raw and immediate. Festival Express is more than the sum of its extraordinary parts; it captures a uniquely Canadian experience and the spirit of an age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basher Posted December 11, 2003 Report Share Posted December 11, 2003 I was lucky enough to see this at the filmfest - it was awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooly Posted December 11, 2003 Report Share Posted December 11, 2003 id love to see this... make it so please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bONES Posted December 11, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2003 festival excess, 1970 style The middle-aged men greet each other warmly. Hugs and sly, diffident laughter fill a Toronto studio on a bitterly cold day last December. Four members of Janis Joplin's group, the Full Tilt Boogie Band, meet for the first time in 30 years. Richard Bell, John Till, Brad Campbell and Ken Pearson accompanied Joplin on the Festival Express in the summer of 1970. And on this day 33 years later, they're about to be interviewed for a film that will finally document their exploits. That summer of 1970 witnessed one of the greatest, yet largely unheralded chapters in popular music. It was the summer the Festival Express train travelled from Toronto to Calgary carrying a crazed load of musicians, promoters, groupies, filmmakers and journalists. The Festival Express was a trip that forever marked and transformed lives. Festival Express, a documentary film about that wild ride, premieres this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Festival Express was the brainchild of Ken Walker and his well-heeled associate Thor Eaton, a scion of the retail colossus. The descendant of Russian immigrants who had been jewellers to the czars, Walker was 24 years old in 1970, a recent commerce graduate. Walker had gained fame in 1969 when he surprised the world by convincing John Lennon to play at the Toronto Rock 'n' Roll Revival. In the winter of 1970, Walker conceived a plan that would wed Canada's mythic railway origins with all the locomotive lore of rock 'n' roll. He envisioned a train that would convey the world's greatest rock performers to a series of concerts between Montreal and Vancouver. When Janis Joplin signed on, enthusiastic about touring Canada in style with her hot new Canadian group, Walker's dream gained inexorable momentum. By the spring, the Festival Express was ready to roll with a dream lineup: Joplin, the Band, the Grateful Dead, Ian and Sylvia (along with their influential country-rock band, the Great Speckled Bird), Buddy Guy, Traffic, Ten Years After, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Tom Rush and Eric Andersen were all aboard. In addition, a crack team of filmmakers and audio engineers was ready to document the proceedings on stage and aboard the Festival Express itself for a proposed film. Little did Walker and company know that politics and commerce were about to bedevil their plans and unleash a pattern of loss, bitterness and litigation that would result in immediate financial disaster for the promoters and ultimately delay completion of the proposed film for three decades. Director Bob Smeaton and cameraman Stephen Hall stand around Ken Walker, enthralled as the now fiftysomething Walker parts his thinning hair. He exposes a bullet exit wound. It's the remnant of a failed suicide attempt that followed a series of business and personal setbacks in the 1980s and 90s. The British filmmakers step back in a blend of horror and laughter. Despite it all, Walker, the rock 'n' roll legend behind the Festival Express, remains a captivating presence, recalling those events of more than 30 years ago with a sardonic sense of humour. In the spring of 1970, the Festival Express ran afoul of the politics surrounding Quebec separatism. Then Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau was appalled that the first Festival Express show was scheduled for June 24 -- the festival of St. Jean Baptiste, the calendar day of Quebec nationalism. Supposedly worried about street fights between anglo hippies and independentistes, Drapeau cancelled the show. Walker and Eaton were then told the city fathers would not approve a show in Vancouver. So the bands settled on a three-city tour: Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary. The Festival Express concerts finally began in Toronto on June 27 and 28. Much to the dismay of Walker and Eaton, a riot was brewing. Vietnam war protesters, enraged by the killing of four students by National Guardsmen at Kent Sate University in Ohio the previous month, targeted the Festival Express as a "corporate rip-off." Tickets for two days of premier bands were $14. The May 4th Movement, named for the date of the Kent State shootings, led a charge for "free music." Its adherents battled police and their horses outside Exhibition Stadium. The Grateful Dead eventually placated the protesters by playing for free on the back of a flatbed truck in a nearby park. Inside the stadium, a crowd of about 20,000 gathered on the football field and grooved. The dissonance between the hassle outside the gates and the good times and great music inside also prevailed in Winnipeg and Calgary. In Winnipeg, angry musicians denounced the media for trumpeting the protests. Backstage at the Calgary show, Walker punched out then mayor Ken Sykes when the latter jumped on the "free-music" bandwagon. But while the promoters and filmmakers lost their shirts, the musicians and many fans had a ball. The party never stopped. Sylvia Tyson looks at a photo album proffered by Walker. There's a stunning black-and-white close-up of her and Ian, her former husband, singing at a single microphone, their eyes locked together. In that image from Festival Express, they look like the most beautiful couple on Earth. Sylvia Tyson declines Walker's offer to continue studying the album he's prepared with one of his children. She readies her hair and makeup for an interview with the film crew. In 1970, aboard the Festival Express itself, musicians played, drank and got high all the way to Calgary. The promoters set up rolling studios in a couple of cars. The film footage of Buddy Guy, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, Rick Danko of the Band, Joplin and the Tysons reveals skilled musicians deeply imbued with traditional American music. Danko and Joplin were ringleaders of a bacchanal driven by booze and a plethora of psychedelics obtained in ever-rockin' Winnipeg. Festival Express is in part a cautionary tale. Joplin foreshadowed her doom from the stage in Calgary when she bellowed, "Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same fucking thing." A scant three months after that Calgary concert, she was found dead, having overdosed on heroin in a Hollywood motel room at age 26. Her demise is hinted at in Festival Express footage that sometimes reveals an exhausted, vacant look as she gathers her strength during otherwise incendiary performances. The Festival Express was perhaps the last gasp of a naive, hippie approach to the business of music. As the decade went on, rock 'n' roll became another branch of a popular-entertainment industry dominated by suits. The whole experience so soured Walker that he hung up his rock 'n' roll shoes forever after the Calgary show. Following the concerts, the original film producers sued each other, leading to the abandonment of the documentary project. Then in 1994, the film work print was unearthed in a Rosedale garage by some Toronto filmmakers. A few years later, the film negative and state-of-the-art audiotapes were mysteriously recovered at the National Archives of Canada. The just-completed documentary was largely financed in Europe. It was a once in a lifetime party. It was the kind of party you'll never forget, the kind of party you'll tell your grandkids about.Documentary filmmaker James Cullingham is a professor at the School of Communication Arts, Seneca College. He was the story consultant on Festival Express and is featured briefly in the film. In 1970, he attended the Toronto shows. Cullingham bought his ticket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pootie Tang Posted December 11, 2003 Report Share Posted December 11, 2003 Some additional info on it: http://theband.hiof.no/films/festival_express.html I'd love to see some of this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bONES Posted December 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 i checked deadbase for the setlists of those 4 Canadian shows the Dead played; June 27, 28 Toronto July 1 Winnipeg July 3 Calgary ...but all of them said incomplete, order uncertain anyone here have recordings from any of these dates? or know what they played? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esau Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 Loved the film,favourite part was Danko,Janis,Jerry,Bob, singing "ain't no cane",Danko completely ripped,and I have a rare VCD of some of the Calgary footage and train footage with Jerry & Sylvia,etc even has the film ID mumber center screen......I offered up copies not long after the film on this site,no takers so they went to the USA for the folks who requested em. Maybe after xmas I will make a few more copies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberHippie Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 Man since I heard about this movie I've been wishing for a Bloor showing... If they are going to show it anywhere in town (post film festival) the Bloor is where it would happen. I've seen some great music flicks there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bouche Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 Jaimoe's take on the Festival Express. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bONES Posted December 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 quote: Maybe after xmas I will make a few more copies hell ya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooly Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 yeah esau me thinks you should do dat. im gettin a zappa vcd soon ill trade ya for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevO Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 I'd love to see this film on the big screen. Bones --- too bad you guys couldn't get in last night!!! Downey and I were looking everywhere for ya. It was packed inside and the Hearts were pretty rockin. At least they play every week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esau Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 quote:Originally posted by KevO: I'd love to see this film on the big screen. It freakin kicked ass bro.Best film I have seen in years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewRider Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 i agree with Esau, it was one helluva magical film to see in the theatres... especially the Elgin! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AD Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 quote:Originally posted by bones: festival excess, 1970 style Four members of Janis Joplin's group, the Full Tilt Boogie Band, meet for the first time in 30 years. Richard Bell, John Till, John Till is my friend Sean's Dad... He's a crazy acid case, still doses today. Wicked musician though... Lives in Stratford on Hibernia Street if anyone is interested... Another one of Janis' musicians (Drummer named Ken Kalmusky) lives in Stratford too... Cheers AD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paisley Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 bumped into John Till in Hamilton last year he stopped and smiled at me an' told me he knew me... news to me but I smiled back as he had a familiar look in his eye... and ya, he was playing wicked Stratford huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AD Posted December 12, 2003 Report Share Posted December 12, 2003 I didn't know he was still playing... Sean is playing quite a bit, used to be the best bass player around (think Claypool on steroids), but lately he's been playing guitar. Lots of really good musicians in Stratford... Keep an eye out for Sean Till and Dan Mullock. In high school they were offered a record deal for their band Terpic Stick (sounded like old-school Primus) but they declined because they wanted to finish school or something... They were headlining at the 360 in TO in grade 10... That was 8 or 9 years ago too... ad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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