Festival Express

[ZMAN]

I was up late last night and the Bravo network had a cool documentary called the Festival Express. It was realeased in 2003 and is an account of a 1970 cross country tour through Canada by a bunch of musicians who went by train from city to city. It was billed as the longest party in history. They ran out of booze on the way to Calgary and made and unscheduled stop in Saskatoon, and bought out all the liquor at the local shop including the display items.
It is quite amazing footage of some really young, soon to be great acts.
Robbie Roberston and the Band
Delaney and Bonnies and friends
The fabulous Burrito brothers
The Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia
Buddy Guy
Ian and Sylvia Tyson
Janis Joplin and her band
Mashmakan
The sha Na Na
Lesley West.
And some others I didn't recognize. It includes some drunken jams on the train between cities and was pretty well done.
A sort of Woodstocky kind of vibe but pretty cool.

 

[Robert]

Wow, that sounds interesting!

I would like to see that documentary.

 

[R_of_G]

Robbie Roberston and the Band

Not trying to start anything, but I am curious as to why you would list The Band as Robbie Robertson and the Band? I know Martin Scorcese used The Last Waltz to put over the myth that Robbie was the band leader and front man for the unit but that was never the case. To my knowledge, the only time any member of that band had their own name in the name of the band was when they were still Levon & The Hawks.

On topic, I have seen Festival Express and much of it is quite enjoyable. One part which I wish would have been more watchable was the on-train impromptu version of "Ain't No More Cain" performed by Rick Danko, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia and others. It could have been a beautiful performance of a beautiful song but they were all far too wasted to remember the words. They sure looked like they had fun though.

 

[t_ross33]

my favorite part is when they stopped at the liquor store in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and stocked up on all the booze they polished off on the trip from Toronto - lol! I remember that train station... it was right downtown and apparently the liquor store was only a block or so away :AOK

 

[guitarhack]

I've seen that! Captures much of the spirit of the era.

 

[hubberjub]

I thought it was great. My favorite part was the impromptu train jams. To see all the different musicians from different bands mixing like that was just amazing. Yes, substances were involved (Danko was out of his gourd when singing with Jerry and Janice) but I loved how raw it was.

 

[msteeln]

the words?......

AAWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo.............

 

[ZMAN]

Not trying to start anything, but I am curious as to why you would list The Band as Robbie Robertson and the Band? I know Martin Scorcese used The Last Waltz to put over the myth that Robbie was the band leader and front man for the unit but that was never the case. To my knowledge, the only time any member of that band had their own name in the name of the band was when they were still Levon & The Hawks.

On topic, I have seen Festival Express and much of it is quite enjoyable. One part which I wish would have been more watchable was the on-train impromptu version of "Ain't No More Cain" performed by Rick Danko, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia and others. It could have been a beautiful performance of a beautiful song but they were all far too wasted to remember the words. They sure looked like they had fun though.

I used to see them at Port Dover Ontario, as Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks.
Then they left Ronnie and went to Robbie. LOL. I was going on the credits on the movie write up, which only listed Robertson.
Hey man I been around this sh*t a loooong time!

 

[R_of_G]

Interesting. I didn't see the way the credits listed the name of the band. That write-up does an even bigger disservice to Danko, Helm, Hudson, and Manuel than Scorcese did. :thwap