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Jun 08, 2017MICHAEL TAGGART MALONEY rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
FESTIVAL EXPRESS is a documentary about the train trip across Canada in 1970 with Janis Joplin, The Band, Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy, and others. Concert stops were in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary in early summer. The promoters lost money; they were dogged by protests intended to make the shows free to the public. This is an oft elided aspect of mega-festivals from of the Age of Aquarius -- hostility between scurrilous concert promoters and the idealistic audiences that they supposedly catered to. The resulting clashes between youth and security forces often masked the root causes of the violence -- ticket gouging and misrepresentation. Big-name bands like Led Zeppelin and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were often advertised but never actually booked. Janis Joplin, backed by the Full Tilt Boogie Band, is easily the best act featured in FESTIVAL EXPRESS. Her performances are on a whole different level. The Dead and The Band really don't even come close. After seeing her do "Tell Mama," I thought, "Jesus! She must have terrified white people." Janis has a rap about what a woman needs, and what the teenage boy wants, etc. J. Edgar Hoover probably had Special Agents thinking of ways to take her down. Too radical.