... ... ... A long time ago ... I went with my sister and her boyfriend Chuck to both days of this festival ... ...

I saw many amazing groups that week-end ... on Saturday, the sun was shining and we were sitting festival-style ... ... literally 40-50 feet from the stage. Electric Flag ... theYoungbloods ... Big Brother and the Holding Company ... the Grateful Dead ... Jefferson Airplane ... Red Crayola ... the Steve Miller Blues Band ... ohers that I cannot recollect at this blogging ... on Sunday, we were sitting even closer to the stage ... and it was overcast ... with an interminent light rain ... Country Joe and the Fish ... the Doors ... When the Doors started playing ... (Light My Fire) ... the intro was maybe 3-5 minutes long ... as the light rain was falling ... and as real as I am visualizing it at this moment in time ... Jim Morrison ran out onto the stage ... with alot of his hair cut off ... and as he started to sing ... for some reason ... odd or not ... the rain stopped. I remember that I really enjoyed the Youngbloods and the Steve Miller Blues Band ... and it was the first time that I heard "Greasy Heart" by Jefferson Airplane. I remember Janis Joplin in a blue tank-top with some beads around her neck. A photograph from this event is on the cover of one of her compilation albums in 1978-1979. Now, I question quite alot of the reverence that is given to some of these musical groups ... for the times, it was occuring with my maturing into a 16 year old ... right at the time-frame of all of these ... in retrospect ...so called revolutions ... the sexual revolution ... the mind-expansion revolution ... political revolutionary theories ... the Democratic Convention in Chicago. The music from this festival ... from this period in time ... for me, does not represent what ... to me ... was actually occuring. In fact, today ... I feel that both Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin are somewhat over-rated. I feel that Jimi Hendrix was quite apparent ... the long distance runner ... even today ... some 41 years later ... there has not been anything that comes close to his interpretations at guitar ... and some of his words date the song from this era of ... grooviness ... but the music ... incredible ... although I barely listen to any music nowadays ... or watch television. I would rather live my reality ... rather than watching reality ... as the prescious time that we have ... slides by. I wittnessed the "Fall of the Hippie Empire" crash and burn ...at the end of the year... as it all fell hard to the ground ... at Altamont in 1969. With festival seating ... as the Rolling Stones tried to pull of a West Coast Woodstock ... and film the entire proceedings ... and with a location that changed many times over ... just hours before the Altamont site was settled on ... I was person number 265,882 to the left side. It was hideous ... Myself and Vicki ,,, a girlfriend of mine at the time ... left in the middle of Santana's opening set to wait in the back of an old 'black mariah' type of truck for the others ... my sister ... Chuck ... and half a dozen more... to return; and they did ... but not after 'seeing the Stones'. Santana was the first group to take the stage. I remember that I really wanted to see the Flying Burrito Brothers ... but no way was I able to endure the 'voo-doo' so apparent ... everywhere. Right and left ... people were blowing it ... None more than the Rolling Stones. And the coffin nail in all of the hype and exploitation ... the death knell ... happened  at Cielo Drive ... in the summer months beforehand. More on that follows this posting ... and I feel that ...  the incongruous mixture of peace, love and happiness ... and the surreal and abstract hardcore violence ... is within the photographs that follow ...

They are all from the Internet.