Starring: Janis Joplin, Janis Joplin & The Full Tilt Boogie Band, The Grateful Dead, The Band, Buddy Guy Directed By: Bob Smeaton Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Compilation, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: New Line Home Video Number of Items: 2 Region Code: 1 Release Date: November 02, 2004 Running Time: 90 minutes Theatrical Release Date: November 02, 2004
Product Description: Festival Express is a rousing record of a little-known but monumental moment in rock n' roll history starring such music legends as Janis Joplin The Band and the Grateful Dead. Set in 1970 Festival Express was a multi-band multi-day extravaganza that captured the spirit and imagination of a generation and a nation. What made it unique was that it was portable; for five days the bands and performers lived slept rehearsed and did countless unmentionable things aboard a customized train that traveled from Toronto to Calgary to Winnipeg with each stop culminating in a mega-concert. The entire experience both off-stage and on was filmed but the extensive footage remained locked away -- until now.A momentous achievement in rock film archeology Festival Express combines this long-lost material with contemporary interviews nearly 35 years after it was first filmed.Running Time: 89 min. Genre: MUSIC DVD/CONCERTS UPC: 794043757327 Manufacturer No: N7573
Amazon.com: The vintage concert footage alone makes Festival Express a memorable and worthwhile endeavor, offering scintillating performances by Janis Joplin, the Band (their rollicking version of "Slippin' and Slidin'" is particularly mind-blowing), the Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy, and others (remember Mashmakhan?). In 1970, during the heyday of the rock festival, promoter Ken Walker decided to organize a traveling musical revue, bringing the mountain to Mohammed, as it were. In five days' time, the festival played in three Canadian cities with the entire conglomeration traveling, playing, and getting smashed together the whole way. Nearly as rewarding as the live performances are the candid scenes of the train ride itself, an endless jam session and party during which musicians of all shapes and sizes let their hair down--musically and otherwise. The contemporary interviews with Walker and some of the surviving musicians aren't particularly noteworthy, except as a way to prove that it all actually happened. Walker comes off as a hero in the film: he treated the musicians like royalty and insisted that the train roll on even though he was losing his shirt. (His financial failure is a large reason why this material stayed in the vaults for so long.) Perhaps the most remarkable scene is an off-the-cuff, LSD-fueled train jam featuring Joplin, the Band's Rick Danko, and the Dead's Jerry Garcia playing the old chestnut "Ain't No More Cane." Danko is so obliterated that even Janis has to ask him if he's OK--when Janis is worried about your state of mind, you must be pretty messed up. --Marc Greilsamer
Great gift for the sixties generation Festival Express is a blast from the past - the sixties and seventies generation will not believe how young and thin they once were. A very good birthday present.
Good Times! This is a good way to get a glimpse of what life on the road was like 'back in the day'. This tour wouldn't/couldn't happen today. Despite some logistical problems, and misguided college kids who don't quite think it all the way through there was probably never a better overall time than this train trip across Canada. Well worth watching! Steve Urbauer
A perfect "snapshot" of Rock's Golden Era Oh, how I wish I had been able to "Ride that train"... First off, the music aspect of the film is worth twice the price of the DVD alone. To see and feel Janis in her final days is beyond epic. I originally saw this in the Boulder Theater at a pre-release screening, and after both her performances the audience was literally speechless and silent for a few seconds before someone simply said what we were all thinking; "Wow." From the Dead to Buddy Guy, and the Band to ShaNaNa, it is a completely phenomenal musical experience.
However, the candid and often hysterical footage from the actual "trip" itself is by far the greatest part of the film. Imagine some of America's greatest musicians living a week in a Canadian fantasy world. Excess, genius, and hilarity all rolling down the tracks. Rick Danko, Janis, and Jerry singing in an drunken, acid soaked haze is probably one of the funniest rock and roll moments ever captured on film. (You know when janis Joplin asks, "How are you doing man?" to Rick, the world is definitely turning upside-down.)
Buy this, you won't regret it.
Exciting Lost performance footage The summer of 1970 - one of my best - definitely for *music*. Here we have some of the biggest icons of that period, up close and personal. Maybe a little too personal, as we watch many musical genuises, and apparently very decent decent, use legal and illegal substances well beyond necessity, and make us realize that none of 'em were role models outside of the instruments, the lights, the imagery. The film includes poignant reminders of the downside of the Summer of '67 meets Woodstock era: alot of wild people trying to destroy the efforts of alot of folks who invested more than money in trying to provide respectable entertainment for them. In one spot way up North a group manages to at least slow down the proceedings and get performers like the Grateful Dead to perform an impromptu concert for free. Jerry Garcia is the diplomat - got it togther in a calm manner. The progressive promoter, who road the train along with the musicians, emerges as quite a character: a kind of hippie Edward G. Robinson, assertively convincing a liquor store manager to sell him a prop display for an inspired application back on the train, knocking down a "98 pound weakling" of a local politician who demands that he lose considerable money in deference to his new, youthful constituency, who are somewhat undecided about the merits of Capitalism; tossing an "activist" down a flight of stairs. As to the music, if you're a Grateful Dead or Janis Joplin fan, you've got it made in the shade (though "Cry Baby" is curiously below her standards here). If you're into Delaney & Bonnie, unless I missed something, all I see of Bonnie is a shot of her mellowing out on the train and another shot of her inshadow watching another lady sing the blues. Delaney & Bonnie & Friends were huge at the time...not much here. Disc Two has very little content. Overall quality, excellent.
Wonderful! Festival Express is a wonderful documentary of some amazing bands who take a journey across Canada. It contains wonderful footage of the bands on the train jamming together. It renews your faith in the ability of people to exist together and leave their egos at the door. It's amazing to see Janis and the Dead hanging out and playing together. If you want to see great musicians enjoy each other you need to watch this. It's guaranteed to put a smile on your face!
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