Film Chronicles '60's Rockers on Cross Canada Tour
Dr. Jeffrey Sartin, M.D.
“Festival Express” (2003) is a wild, careening trip across the North American landscape of 1970. It shows several iconic music performers from that era at their peak, and exposes an innocence that will probably never be seen again.
The film is a documentary directed by Bob Smeaton (“The Beatles Anthology”) and Frank Cvitanovich, chronicling the adventures of a number of pivotal 60’s-era bands as they participate in a continental train ride across the Canadian prairie. Footage was shot contemporaneously by Cvitanovich and stored away for decades, only to be resurrected some 30 years later after it was reedited and remastered by Smeaton, making “Festival Express” a real hidden treasure for aficionados of late 1960’s rock-n-roll.
The background is this: in 1970, rock promoter Ken Walker had the brilliant idea to hire a Canadian Pacific train, stock it with famous performers, including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Band and Buddy Guy, and send it from one large outdoor festival in Canada to another; hence, the film’s title.
Though that sounded good in theory, the economics of such an enterprise were disappointing, and Walker apparently lost his shirt. There are interesting, but somewhat distracting, scenes of mobs of fans storming the fences at the stadiums, demanding to be let in for free—such was the legacy of the Woodstock experience from the preceding year. (Tellingly, members of the Grateful Dead did not agree with laissez-faire admittance policies and expressed their hope to make a little money off their efforts.)
The movie focuses on two complementary aspects of the event: the music and the partying. The music is, in a word, great, with The Dead, the Band, Buddy Guy, Janis, Delaney and Bonnie, and Sha Na Na at the height of their powers. Jerry Garcia and company emphasized their folk side with material from the late 60’s masterpieces, “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty,” while the Band mixed their own work with early rock chestnuts like “Slippin’ and Slidin’.”
The performers may have been (as they admit) high as kites when out on stage, but they play with energy and feeling. Janis Joplin appears in some of her last recorded performances prior to her untimely death later that year. Her work is not her best on film, and she seems a little tired and hoarse, but nevertheless she shows why she was a riveting singer and absolutely compelling stage presence.
Then there was the partying. As the band members point out in later interviews, they were used to relaxing with pot and other hallucinogens, but this trip emphasized industrial-strength alcohol consumption. There is a particularly striking scene with the Band’s Rick Danko and Janis Joplin doing an impromptu drunken duet on the train, accompanied by Jerry Garcia. Of course, Joplin would soon die from an overdose, and Danko died of heart failure three decades later after years of alcohol and drug abuse, so this was certainly an ill omen (but what a fun time they were having!).
In hindsight, we know that the stalking forces of war and political unrest would unravel the legacy of these hippie minstrels, along with their own overindulgences, of course. By October, Janis would be dead, and the overwhelming innocence of that time would be gone as well. But “Festival Express” shows that, for a time on a train and on stages across Canada there was beauty and song and the joy of living and loving life.
