Festival Express (DVD) Review
Festival express is a spellbinding documentary that nostalgically chronicles five days in the summer of 1970 when a train full of now- legendary rock performers jammed its way across Canada. The tour was the brainchild of 22-year-old business student Ken Walker and Thor Eaton (whose family owned one of Canada’s largest department store chains).
Instead of flying to each city, the artists would travel in a string of 14 cars outfitted by CN with sleeping compartments, lounges and power sockets for musical instruments. The idea was to create a movable musical feast and take advantage of the fact that Canada had rail lines running east to west.
The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin (with her Full-Tilt Boogie Band), The Band, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, Flying Burrito Brothers and Buddy Guy Blues Band all took part in the trip. It was a truly special event, and it’s easy to see why the musicians loved it.
What made this tour so special was that the musicians weren’t just doing a job, they were making a living. That meant they put their egos aside and poured their hearts into the music. The concerts on the train were truly incredible, and it was an unforgettable experience for all of the participants.
Bob Smeaton, who has been responsible for a slew of high quality musical documentaries over the years, is tasked with editing this material into something that could easily have been an overwrought montage of concerts and snippets of interviews, but he manages to create a compelling narrative and a feel for the time that’s both familiar and exciting at the same time. It’s also a resonant reminder of the strange moral paradox that has always been present in rock ‘n’ roll.
While the musicians were anti-establishment, the music was also a highly competitive business that required them to be well paid to keep their acts going. This was especially true with the Grateful Dead, as they were constantly negotiating with record labels over their contracts and paying top dollar for their performances.
It’s a wonder, then, that Festival Express got made at all. Originally a project that was meant to be produced by a different company, Walker and Eaton eventually feuded with the intended producer, and the footage simply disappeared with the various organizers and crew members. It wound up at the Canadian National Archives for decades, becoming an object of lore until documentary filmmaker Garth Douglas tracked it down and worked on it over another near decade, gathering, editing and acquiring rights and contemporary interviews to make a product that should rightfully be considered one of the great performance films of all time.
It’s a film that should be enjoyed by anyone who loves music, whether they were there in the heyday of this great era or not. It’s a must-have for Baby Boomers who want to relive their youth or for the rest of us just to get a taste of what it was like to be young and alive then.
