Festival Express

I caught Festival Express last night. It's a documentary about several of my favorite bands hitting the road in Canada during the summer of 1970 on a train. Janis Joplin, The Band, Buddy Guy, and the Grateful Dead all had gigs booked in large Canadian cities and lots of hijinks took place on the train as it took them from Eastern to Western Canada.

The film has sections of interviews with the musicians spliced together with concert footage and jam sessions from the different cars on the train. Each car had a different type of music playing from bluegrass, jazz, and blues.



At one point, they ran out of booze and had to stop in Saskatoon to pick up more supplies. They had a huge party on the train that night and Bob Weir mentioned that most of them were dosed out. It was great to see younger version of Jerry with all black hair and Pig Pen playing harmonica on New Speedway Boogie.