Monterey Pop (1968). Photofest.
(D. A. Pennebaker, US 1968, 78 min., 16mm)
One of the first rock festivals, the Monterey International Pop Music Festival took place over a weekend in June 1967. It featured the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Who, and Ravi Shankar, in addition to Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, and Simon and Garfunkel. Documentarian D. A. Pennebaker (who released Bob Dylan’s Don’t Look Back that same year) captures the music and mood of the burgeoning counterculture at the beginning of the Summer of Love. Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner said, “Monterey was the nexus—it sprang from what the Beatles began, and from it sprang what followed.” Newly enhanced with a 5.1 stereo soundtrack, Monterey Pop allows you to experience the dynamism onstage, offstage, and in the audience.