Atlantic City Rock Festival
by Bob Conner, Millville, NJ
Early 1964, I was 12 years old and started listening to WBZ-AM out of Boston on my little Japanese transistor radio at night ….
Roy Orbison, Shangri-Las, Gale Garnett, Manfred Mann….
Motown, British Invasion, Beach Boys….
Summer of ‘65 bought first set of weights and lifted daily on our sunporch to Satisfaction. Wooly Booly and Eve of Destruction. A few years and thousands of songs later, it was August of ‘69, I was 17 years old…three of us went to the racetrack in AC for the “Atlantic City Pop Festival”. The three day lineup was incredible. Woodstock followed a few weeks later and the AC event largely goes unremembered.
Forty-three years later and still listening and loving it all. Was lucky enough to spend my teens listening to the music of the 60’s and early 70’s. Ben Harper, Kings of Leon, Fountains of Wayne, Beck, Killers, Artic Monkeys, Modest Mouse all on my iPod… but the songs of my youth will endure forever…..
I am looking at the Atlantic City Pop Festival poster, which hangs right above my computer. Every time I see it, I sigh and think about how many talented musicians gathered for that — as you said — mostly forgotten concert before Woodstock. Santana was known as Santana Blues Band; it was Dr. John the Night Tripper back then….and Tim Buckley and Janis were still alive and playing then. And what a mix — rock, jazz, blues, 50s doo-wop. Wow, those were the days!
September 5th, 2007 at 9:09 pm