MovieChat Forums > Festival Express (2004) Discussion > John Lennon's idea

John Lennon's idea

posted 19 years ago by campresort
6 replies | jump to latest

I forgot to add one thing to my message: At the time, I understood that the festival idea came from John Lennon and for reasons unknown he backed out.

[–] aurelie_ledoyen 19 years ago

Interesting...i liked when Jerry Garcia was trying to calm the crowd, telling them 'someone put their neck out to make this concert happen', he must've been talking about John.

We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view..

[–] pbl1 15 years ago

nooooo, he was talking about Ken Walker, the promoter.

What the $%*& is a Chinese Downhill?!?

[–] save_alf 15 years ago

was john lennon living in new york at the time of this concert? dont think he was, strange if he had the idea for this

[–] cryptical70 15 years ago

John Lennon's idea was to have a Woodstock-style peace festival in or around Montreal during the July 4th weekend of '70. When he visited Canada during his bed-in, this was one of his proposals. However, due to problems such as finding a suitable venue and local opposition, the idea was never realized.

There were a few Canadian rock festivals in 1970 such as Festival Express and Strawberry Fields, but John Lennon's proposal never took off. Instead, Lennon headed to L.A. and started "scream therapy" with Dr. Janov. After this, he flew back to London to cut JOHN LENNON PLASTIC ONO BAND at Abbey Road.

John Lennon moved to New York in 1972.

Although Lennon did have a plan to do a festival, there were just so many festivals going on during 1970. Most likely Festival Express was more inspired by what happened at Woodstock than the mind of John Lennon, though who knows how influential Lennon actually was during that time period.

[–] bmiller2-2 15 years ago

perhaps related? from Wikipedia's Janis Joplin page:

"The last recordings Joplin completed were "Mercedes Benz" and a birthday greeting for John Lennon ("Happy Trails", composed by Dale Evans) on October 1, 1970. Lennon, whose birthday was October 9, later told Dick Cavett that her taped greeting arrived at his home after her death."

[–] karmacoupe 10 years ago

No, there was no John connection to Festival Express — except that Ken Walker booked him at his Rock n Roll Revival show in Toronto the year before — released as the album "Live Peace In Toronto."

The idea for the Woodstock-on-wheels came from Ken Walker.

There's a great article on the background and how the trip happened here —

http://brianhassett.com/2011/04/festival-express/

Walker's quoted as saying, “If we were bringing all the acts together for one festival, why not do more than one? So I got the idea of the private train and started negotiating with CN Railways,” many comical details of which are in the film.

“We were supposed to open in Montreal but it was cancelled last minute by the mayor. And we tried to do Vancouver, but couldn’t get the stadium. So we did the two shows in Toronto, June 27th and 28th, with different bands each day. Then one in Winnipeg, July 1st, and two in Calgary, July 4th and 5th, after which Janis wanted to hijack the train to keep it going!”