In 1970, The Band, Janis Joplin, the Buddy Guy Blues Band, the Grateful Dead, the Flying Burrito Brothers and a mess of other sixties counterculture favorites loaded up a train with their instruments, loaded up their bodies with booze and hallucinogenics, and embarked upon a cross-Canadian tour dubbed \The Festival Express."" The tour bombed commercially, largely due to massive protests that met the tour at most of its stops: Canadian hippie teenagers were not pleased with the then unheard of price of sixteen dollars a ticket and showed their displeasure by ruining the tour. The often violent demonstrations cost the tour so much bad publicity that even the imposing star power of its lineup couldn't draw in enough people to prevent the tour from losing money.
This controversy is likely the reason that a tour featuring some of the most renowned (and popular) performers in rock history has been long forgotten, but Bob Smeaton's documentary ""Festival Express"" has come to the rescue. He's got plenty of footage of these famous artists performing and drinking in addition to contemporary interviews with surviving musicians from the tour. Smeaton's film is out to make the case that The Festival Express was one of the most unique tours in rock history.
It doesn't. Most of his interviewees attempt to paint the tour as something special that could only happen once, but the reasoning behind this claim essentially revolves around the fact that while most bands used planes to tour, they used a train. Not a very mind-blowing deviation. And the interviews with one of the festival's co-planners, Ken Walker, are downright creepy. As he hunches like a businessman about to let you in on a crooked proposition, he talks about how a Canadian mayor called him a ""greedy capitalist pig"" and how he responded by putting ""his teeth in my knuckles."" The look of perverse pleasure that then crosses his face is bound to send more than a few viewers running.
Are there reasons to see this film? Yes, and they're the first four names in this article. A review of ""The Festival Express"" will undoubtedly turn into a concert review, albeit a positive one. The Band's performance of ""The Weight"" is nothing short of a religious experience: They harmonize their vocals with an unfailing precision while being bathed in a soft red glow from above, and when an organ comes in to take the place of the piano in the studio version the song practically out-churches the Sistine Chapel. The Buddy Guy Blues Band, a less known but equally impressive live outfit, deliver a scorching rendition of ""Money"" while their lead vocalist-guitarist Buddy Guy tears through a manic guitar solo, refusing to even face the audience. He wanders offstage, behind stage, even pausing play in front of three stoners on the non-paying-customer side of the fence that surrounds the festival. He plays some of the fiercest blues imaginable while completely ignoring thousands who paid to see him do so. It's a pleasure to watch.
And watching the first Janis Joplin performance will leave you aching to slap Pearl on the record player at the next possible juncture or strangle whatever cameraman was responsible for the footage. While she roars through a blaring version of ""Cry baby,"" the camera alternates between lurching to the expanses of black to her right and left. But when Janis begins a hilarious ad-lib during this song, the camera for no clear reason is zoomed in on her left hand. Though annoying, this scene perhaps best represents the film's historical context. The cameraman was likely on acid.
Another historically relevant moment occurs when Phil Lesh of The Grateful Dead is ranting about the protesting that plagued the tour. ""Festival Express"" contains the first documented case of a hippie taking the cop's side. Pointing out that the demonstrations turned violent, the culmination of which was the busting open of a cop's head, Lesh reprimands the disgruntled teenagers and angrily asks the camera, ""Was that worth sixteen bucks?"" He even goes so far as to point out that the injured cop was ""like a person,"" a statement that unintentionally makes it clear his true colors are still tie-dye.
Still, all these brilliant performances and memorable lines occur within a rather frail film frame, which essentially means that unless you like two or more of the aforementioned artists, you will not likely leave the theater with much of an impression. But for the previously converted, the electricity of these performances is not to be missed.
