Festival Express

Starring: Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, The Band, Phil Lesh

Directed by: Bob Smeaton, Frank Cvitanovich

RS: 3.5of 4 Stars

2004 ThinkFilm Inc. Music

In the summer of 1970, disparate acts including Buddy Guy, Sha Na Na and the Flying Burrito Brothers took a train across Canada to play a handful of outdoor concerts, their onboard jamming infused with the inertia of the locomotive and the countryside's bucolic beauty. In Toronto, idealism and commerce collided as police faced off with kids demanding free admission, prompting Jerry Garcia to plead for cooler heads. After a scene in which the artists buy out a liquor store in Saskatoon, we see Rick Danko of the Band leading Janis Joplin in a raucous round of "Ain't No More Cane." Such archival footage is made bittersweet by recent interviews, including Guy's summation, "Things like that only happen once in a lifetime."