World Famous Comics: Janis Joplin and The Full Tilt Boogie Band Festival Express
Janis Joplin and The Full Tilt Boogie Band Festival Express
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
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.
DVD Features: DVD ROM Features Theatrical Trailer
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
Festival Express I greatly enjoyed the ability to board that long departed train...and to view the artists having the time of their lives. The jams, both on the train and onstage were outstanding. Priceless!
A Singularly Unique Rock n'Roll Experience I live in Winnipeg and unfortunately missed FESTIVAL EXPRESS when it rolled through back in 1970. I opted instead to go to Winnipeg's other huge ticket that summer - Manpop - which featured Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly and the Youngbloods as headliners. I've always remembered Festival Express as a golden opportunity missed - but being only sixteen years old with limited funds - I was forced to live with the consequences of a tough choice.
Seeing the film "Festival Express" isn't quite like being there in person, but it's the next best thing! For young folks who weren't even born in 1970, it's a chance to see Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, the Band, the Fly Burrito Bros, Buddy Guy, Ian & Sylvia, et al... in their prime and find out what the buzz was all about. Janis and Jerry Garcia are in particularly great voice. Janis gives a gut wrenchingly poignant performance, particularly during "Cry Baby". I'm not sure what brought the tears to my eyes, her greatness or the knowledge that she would leave us just a few short months after that performance (followed later by the tragic death's of the Dead's drummer "Pigpen" & guitarist/singer Jerry Garcia and the Band's piano player Richard Manuel & bassist Rick Danko)
The concert footage of Janis and the Dead alone justify the film's admission price. My biggest gripe was that there should have been far more concert footage included. However, a local newspaper writeup mentioned that much of the concert footage was non-usable (bad sound, out of focus cameras, sound/no pix, pix/no sound....). It was so bad apparently - the fact that anything remotely resembling a cohesive film was wrought from the mounds of botched footage was nothing short of minor miracle! Don't get me wrong - the behind the scenes footage of the band partying and jamming stand on their own merit. Jerry Garcia pops up jamming on stage and off with everyone from Ian & Sylvia and the Great Speckled Bird (on stage in Calgary) to the Band's Rick Danko (on the train along with Janis - quite schwacked - hilarious!) Shots of protesters bitching about "the pigs" and high admissions prices (Fourteen dollars - how outrageous!)are also good for a chuckle and help capture the flavour of the period.
"Festival Express'" split screen camera techniques, the documentary style narrative and band lineups are bound to invite comparisons to the movie "Woodstock." I believe the camera techniques and documentary style are intended to help recapture the time period and mood rather than to ripoff "Woodstock." Further, neither Janis', the Dead's nor the Band's Woodstock performances made it into the original "Woodstock" movie. The experience of trucking a load of monstrously talented - notoriously hard partying rock n'rollers across Canada in a train with a well stocked bar, guitar amps, and a drum kit while the cameras rolled is singularly unique in the annals of rock n'roll - so is this film! Check it out!!
Rob Rheubottom
Winnipeg, MB Canada
Don't Pass This One Up! If you're 50ish and a fan of classic rock-and-roll, this DVD is a sure bet. It's grainy but sharp and the sound is top notch. Great concert camera work and beautiful color for a 1970 road show. The scenes on the train provide some very insightful looks of what band life on the road was like back then.
I just played it on my 20" computer monitor with stereo sound and it has overwhelmed me. I have no doubts it will play beautifully on my 70" home theater and the DTS 5.1 surround sound will be heavenly. If you are Canadian, like me, it's an added bonus to see some shots of Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary in the background.
Janis Joplin is in true form and sings some of her best. It's one of the main reasons I bought this and I'm not disappointed.
Don't cheat yourself out of a memorable DVD....you'll be playing this one more than once!
Makes you wish you'd been on that train! God, what a party! Great music from some unique performers.
The Band: Truly soulful rocking, featuring the greatest unsung Soul-singer ever, Richard Manuel.
Janis Joplin: Enjoying herself and (as usual) pouring everything into her performance.
Grateful Dead: Melodic and relaxed, with Garcia stretching out and embracing his audience and fellow performers.
Buddy Guy: Rocking out with a glorious 'Money'
And the jamming on the train: Danko and Janis having inebriated fun singing together with Jerry Garcia.
This is a fantastic film that really makes you wish you could have been right there. As Janis crowed in an audio clip released on 'Joplin In Concert', 'It sure turned a trainload of freaks into a party, man! Didn't it boys!'
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.
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