On December 28-30, 1968, Gulfstream Park outside Miami hosted the Miami Pop Festival, post-Monterey and pre-Woodstock. Alex Cooley happened to attend and decided he wanted to put on a similar festival in Atlanta. The Miami Pop Festival drew 100,000 fans over three beautiful winter days, and featured many seminal acts of the time:
The Grateful Dead (Free download http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-12-29.sbd.cotsman.5425.sbeok.shnf), Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Steppenwolf, Procol Harum, Country Joe and the Fish, Canned Heat, the Turtles, and Three Dog Night were among the fourteen daily acts that appeared on two stages — one at the grandstand and the other near the south end of the park — for the price of seven dollars per day.
According to Rolling Stone (February 1, 1969), the festival was “a monumental success in almost every aspect, the first significant — and truly festive — international pop festival held on the East Coast.” Woodstock, of course, took place in 1969, and Hallandale city officials, horrified by visions of stoned hippies dancing naked at Gulfstream, nixed plans for a second Miami Pop Festival.
(There is a book currently in the works after interviews with members or representatives of most performers as well as many of the attendees .)
2018 Exhibit about earlier Miami festival plus my poster for the REAL Miami Pop Festival on display.
Wikipedia says: The second Miami Pop Festival was held December 28–30, 1968, and was the first major rock festival on America’s east coast.[1][2] It was produced by a team led by Tom Rounds and Mel Lawrence, who had previously produced the seminal KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. The crowd size for the three days was estimated to be around 100,000.[3]
Performers covered a wide range of music genres,[4] and included:
- The Amboy Dukes
- Chuck Berry
- Blues Image
- The Box Tops
- Paul Butterfield Blues Band
- Canned Heat
- Wayne Cochran
- Cosmic Drum
- James Cotton Blues Band
- Country Joe and the Fish
- José Feliciano
- Fish Ray
- Flatt and Scruggs
- Fleetwood Mac
- Marvin Gaye
- The Grass Roots
- Grateful Dead
- Richie Havens
- Ian & Sylvia
- Iron Butterfly
- Junior Junkanoos
- Jr. Walker & The Allstars
- The Charles Lloyd Quartet
- Hugh Masekela
- Joni Mitchell
- Pacific Gas & Electric
- Procol Harum
- Terry Reid
- Buffy Sainte-Marie
- Steppenwolf
- The Sweet Inspirations
- Sweetwater
- Joe Tex
- Three Dog Night
- The Turtles
Many of these musicians were cast as superheroes in a commemorative comic book distributed at the event. Interesting moments during the festival included: Joni Mitchell inviting former Hollies member and new love interest Graham Nash, as well as Richie Havens to join her onstage to sing Dino Valenti’s “Get Together”; Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady playing bass guitar with Country Joe & the Fish; and folksinger/songwriter icon and Coconut Grove resident Fred Neil stopping in at the festival one day to hang out and enjoy the music.[4] Several acts advertised in early promotional materials did not appear, and their names were removed from subsequent promotions, including John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Dino Valenti and H.P. Lovecraft. Two bands who were expected to appear were unable to perform due to last-minute problems: The McCoys got snowbound in Canada and Booker T. Jones ofBooker T. & the M.G.’s got the flu.[5]
This festival was unique in that it was the first rock festival to have two entirely separate ‘main’ stages several hundred yards apart (the Flower Stage and the Flying Stage), both operating simultaneously and offering performers of equal calibre.[4][6][7]
Did you attend? Share your experience below if you wish.
Read my personal experience from the Miami Pop Festival.
Did you attend? Share your experience below.
Three Dog Night was opening act…..Nobody had heard of them…..But They are still around and I just recently saw them at a South Fl Fair…Who could have guessed they would outlast almost all the other groups…..
“Try a Little Tenderness” blew me away!
that’s what I remember too, but I don’t see them listed on the longish, black & white band list thingie above to the right of the “Big-A’ photo. Did they play first every day? I was there Monday.
the lead singer of three dog knight walked right into me in the middle of the crowd
I attended this festival on Monday, December 30th. We had seats up in the grandstand for the evening performances on the main stage, which started out with The Grassroots. My favorite song of theirs was Let’s Live for Today, which they played, and it was wonderful. The next two bands were Canned Heat and Iron Butterfly. Both were spectacular. Canned Heat’s set was primarily made up of their Boogie, which they played for a long time. I loved it. Iron Butterfly’s set was long, half of which was In a Gadda Da Vida, complete with drum solo and lots of feedback guitars. It ended with the guitars leaning up against their amplifiers feeding back. Great stuff! The final act of the night was Jose Feliciano. The Turtles were on the second stage at the time, and I wanted to see them, but we were tired so we just stayed for Feliciano, who I remember played his hit Light My Fire. All in all, a really fun time with lots of great memories.
The MIAMI POP FESTIVAL at Gulfstream Park Racetrack in Hallandale Florida on a Saturday, Sunday and Monday December 28 – 29 – 30, 1968. Woodstock happen when! Well. At this festival there was IRON BUTTERFLY, STEPPENWOLF, SWEETWATER, CANNED HEAT, RICHIE HAVENS, THE GRATEFUL DEAD, THREE DOG NIGHT, CREEDENCE CLEARWATER, JOSE FELICIANO PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC , THE GRASS ROOTS . Then at 17 years old I never even heard of most of these bands at that time, the only reason I remember these and the ones at the May 18 – 19 festival is that I went out and bout there albums and my pix. Some of the things that do still stand out in my mind is Iron Butterfly doing In A Gadda Da Vida with Erik Brann on lead guitar with the same shirt on as the one inside there album BALL. Steppenwolf with John Kay coming on stage with a cops motorcycle helmet and jacket in his hands then throwing them down. How can I forget them doing that and playing Magic Carpet Ride. Canned Heat with there boogie style music like Fried Hockey Boogie ” THE BEAR ” Rob Hite the unforgettable voice of ” BLIND OWL ” Alan Wilson just fab. Richie Havens with his mannerism that makes you fill like he knows all of you personally. When he plays and sings he just sweats with his sole and hart.
http://goodstuffhere.webs.com/68pop.htm
My buddies and I drove 16 hours from New Orleans and attended all three days of this festival. We arrived at 3 a.m. and found a beautiful sandy beach to sleep on for a few hours before the festival opened. We had no sleeping bags and didn’t need them; we just slept in our T-shirts and blue jeans. The weather was fab. It was about 75 degrees at night, not very humid, and there was a light breeze. The next night we heard on the radio that we could sleep at the nearby Seminole Indian campground for a small fee. One friend bathed by swimming in the ocean each morning.
The festival was very well organized and run. The sound was fine, and the way they broke up the crowd with two stages a couple hundred yards apart, one in front of the grandstand, the other in a nearby meadow, was great. You drifted back and forth, and in between they had these large wooden sculptures you could play in and on. Someone told me they had seen some elephants that people were painting. I saw them from a distance but did not go paint one. I remember crawling into one sculpture of a half-pint milk carton. Seven or eight kids could fit inside, and I remember smoking some grass in there. One night while listening to Procol Harum on the meadow stage, we bemoaned the fact that we were out of weed, only to find a baggie containing some lying on the ground right where we sat. Procol Harum turned in a fine set, and were either followed or preceded by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, who also put on a good performance.
I remember Chuck Berry performing on the first afternoon playing his trademark guitar licks and doing his famous duck walk. Joe Tex followed and was dynamic. They both performed on the meadow stage, as did the Amboy Dukes. (We didn’t know then that Ted Nugent would turn out to be such a right-wing radical!) Other outstanding acts that I caught were Richie Havens, the Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, Steppenwolf and Buffy St. Marie, those all on the grandstand stage. Country Joe closed the grandstand show on the night they performed, and afterward we found their organist, David Cohen, wandering around in the parking lot trying to find his rental car. We spoke to him and he seemed pretty stoned. I missed some good performances, too, because both stages were going at once. Three Dog Night performed multiple times (the only band that did, due no doubt to a strong push by their record company, as the band was being introduced to the world). Personally I did not become a fan, as they were too “poppy” for me, though their three lead singers all had good voices. They certainly blew up big on AM radio later. I remember that during the Dead’s set that featured music from their current second album, “Anthem of the Sun”, a guy sitting nearby complained that their music was just too far out. I was a budding Deadhead and loved them.
All in all, it was the best of several festivals that I attended in the late Sixties. A big “Thank you” to the people who put it on. And it was over in time for us to return to New Orleans to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
Ted Nugent a right wing radical. What?
PS Since posting my comment a couple of minutes ago, I listened to the audio clip where the guy said that the security was like a Nazi concentration camp. That wasn’t my impression at all! Quite the opposite. The police presence was just large enough to remind people not to go crazy (the crowd was very mellow anyway) but not too large, and they seemed totally chill to me. Weed could be smoked fairly freely with discretion. An employee manning a poster and button table told me that an outfit out of L.A. called Athena Productions put the festival on, and that the cops had been “taken care of” to make things mellow.
I was 16, visiting my Floridian grandparents, when I came upon the ad for this show.
I connected with a friend from home (Connecticut) who was in Florida for the same reason, and spur of the moment off we went. Have no recollection of how we got there or back, but we had a full day of the most eye-opening, consciousness-expanding experiences we had ever encountered to date. I gave many vivid memories, esp of Dead, Joni (who appeared to be the queen for a day if not for all three), PGE (why them?), 3-Dog, Butterfield. Lots of bands I didn’t know at the time.
I saved my comic book, but now it’s long gone.
Does anyone know how can get one, 50+ years later?
There’s one for sale on Ebay right now.
My friends and I camped on the Seminole Reservation each night and it was a trip with lots of campfires and singing and psychedelic experience and talking about the bands and the music. We came from Houston Texas and most of the people we met were from the northeast. My favorite musical acts were Procol Harum, original Fleetwood Mac, Jose Feliciano, Richie Havens, the Grateful Dead (Pigpen was great), PG&E, Canned Heat, Iron Butterfly, and Butterfield Band (unfortunately post Bloomfield). There was a hippie face-painter and I got me a third eye and walked around with it wide open. There were a lot of great acts I missed because you had to choose between the stages and sometimes it was HARD!
Hi I think I had that same face painter paint a flower on me! Lol I was 13 1/2
My first major outdoor concert – not my last! As the youngest DJ at WQXI, Atlanta, and the only staff member with long hair, I was selected as the perfect one to accompany two contest winners to the festival. I wonder if they made it back to Atlanta!
Hey, I remember listening to you on Quixie. Good Luck in all.
Hi my name is Robert (Tony) I live in Portland Oregon now and 69 years old. I was there for the concert and met John Lennon and Yoko and smoked hash with them ! I enjoyed this concert so much and never will forget my experience. The bands that played were great my favorite one was Iron Butterfly! My experience with being at this concert was awesome! I got to see some of these groups later in my years but nothing will ever top this concert. Sincerely, Robert Acosta February 2020.
I was 14 then and visiting my grandmother for the Holidays. A friend of mine told me about the festival and we bought tickets for the last two days. I remember tant Iron Butterfly started late because it took so long to setup the drum kit, but it was worth it with in-a-gadda-da-vida. Also remember John Kay coming in the dark dressed as a highway patrol and since it was late, we all thought that the police was shutting the place down. He finally took his helmet off and the band started playing Born to be Wild, if I rember right. Magical moment. Didn’t know at that time that I was witnessing the early days of great rock music. hope music would come back like that.
I was 14 then and visiting my grandmother for the Holidays. A friend of mine told me about the festival and we bought tickets for the last two days. I remember tant Iron Butterfly started late because it took so long to setup the drum kit, but it was worth it with in-a-gadda-da-vida. Also remember John Kay coming in the dark dressed as a highway patrol and since it was late, we all thought that the police was shutting the place down. He finally took his helmet off and the band started playing Born to be Wild, if I rember right. Magical moment. Didn’t know at that time that I was witnessing the early days of great rock music. hope music would come back like that.
Anybody know what Fish Ray, Junior Junkanoos or the Cosmic Drum Played at this concert? Or if they have any recordings?
The day I went Three Dog Night opened. Nobody knew who they were. About 30 or 40 people stood with me in front of the stage slack jawed as we watched one of the most phenomenal sets I’ve ever seen. They were Electrifying! Truly. Later I ruined my hearing forever by lying on the concrete apron feet touching the huge speakers as Iron Butterfly blasted out a 20 minute Inna Gadda Da Vida. Jose Feliciano ended the nite with a wonderful charming masterful set . We forgot he was blind completely until a guy came to lead him off the stage. Great day. Perfect!
I was 14,my mom had no idea what she was dropping me off to. This was my first festival and it was the experience of my life. I change my name to Suey for the 3 days. The two stages were crazy, trying to get to one and then the other, bands were playing at both at the same time. In between the stages was a slide and large milk carton you could crawl into, you would get into on and a couple hours would pass, just hanging out with every crawl in. I was to young to really appreciate the bands but I do remember Country Joe and the fish. Does anyone remember if Hendrix flew in on a helicopter? Wow that seems a other life time.
Hendrix was not at the Miami Pop Festival.
I wasnt born until 1965 but I was there in spirit, just up the road in Kissimme FL near Orlando. Was there an lp for this or bootleg
Out of seemingly nowhere, the thought to Google that amazing “Love In” I called it, that I attended just before leaving my home in Ft. Lauderdale to LA, mind you WITH the road crew of PG&E, acoustic amplifiers. I googled & up came this, it was SO EMOTIONAL, I CRIED !!
It was one of the most pivotal events of my life, almost surreal music happening in different locations. Lots of LSD, etc. So for a short time I traveled with amplifiers from LA to the Fillmore West in San Francisco………life continued.
Above all aspects of my life I treasure my hippy days, Sunset Strip, Griffith Park love-ins, etc the most…….AHHHH the music !! .WE BROKE THE MOLD AND CHANGED THE WORLD……..trailblazers, and now coming 5D !
starting IN MALIBU ON THE WATER