Festival Express

This film spent a little time in theatres before coming out on DVD last week. I highly recommend it. The idea of Utopian communities has always fascinated me. On one of my first car trips from NY to CA, I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests. Ken Kesey was one of the first people to take acid, and, like Leary, was very adept at portraying it's benefits. He first recieved it from the US Gov't. who wanted to explore its potential as a weapon. When they realized the drug made people happy, insightful, fulfilled... of course they outlawed it and put out horror stories about it to scare the public.
Anyway, Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters rolled across the US in a psychedelically painted bus called Fuurther (which, I believe is now in the Smithsonian) and freaked out every small town from here (literally) to Akron.
The Festival Express train rolled across Canada taking the Dead, Janis and many other musicians to a series of fesivals in 1970. But, whereas Kesey and his group were too tripped out to ever get their morass of footage together, this other guy had great footage. Why he sat on it for 35 years I can't tell ya, but I sure enjoyed seeing Jerry and Janis jamming. In some ways it seemed like any one of a hundred jams I've been to, people sittin around, coming up with songs, singing, guitarists riffing off each other.
Jerry was never changed by the success he achieved, nor Bob, any of them. Multimillionaires, but still the same basic loving, open-minded, visionary, rebel-free-thinkers they always were. They epitomize, to me, everything a musician should be. When a bunch of fans couldn't get into the concert, they went to a local park and played for free, the Dead gave more free concerts than anyone, also made more money than anyone. They were a one hit wonder, never sold albums because they allowed their fans to tape their shows, there was always a sea of mikes at every show. Their archive will probably never be surpassed.
The unique type of dedication of the fans has never been duplicated. The band's relationship with its fans was open, organic and natural... very unusual for entertainers at that level. Actually, it was the Deadheads that most made the band extraordinary, it was a whole lifestyle, a community. The most loving scene you could imagine.
The scene on the train, as in Fuurther, as in some of the communes I lived on, was very utopian. It stands in stark contrast to many other scenes that I see around me today, where people seem so competitive, so much attention to image, posturing, placement. At work, it at least made sense, there were some 30 incoming associates going for one or two partnership possibilities. But then I saw it among housewives and thought, get me a jam session...something, this is ridiculous.
Jerry always stayed closest to the music. For a man as adored as he was, the lack of ego was astounding. In his mind, he was a musician, he wanted to play music for people, he wanted them happy and safe. If you looked at him two seconds too long, he would call you on it. He died when I was pregnant with my daughter, this after losing Bill Graham while pregnant with my son four years earlier. Thanks to bands like Dave Matthews & Phish, some of their ideals live on.
So, if anyone finds my "Utopian Dreamer" button at Foothills Club, give it back. I lost it at Ladies Poker Night, though, I did come away with the trophy for biggest winner of the night. Jeez, you couldn't make this stuff up. Was somebody trying to tell me something or what? I still have my "Romantic Idealist" button (two, actually), not taking that anywhere, and my "Hardened Cynical Bastard" button. I think, for me, the two are worn in tandem.