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| Festival Express | 
 enlarge | Director: Bob Smeaton
Actors: Janis Joplin, Janis Joplin & The Full Tilt Boogie Band, The Grateful Dead, The Band, Buddy Guy
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $10.95
You Save: $9.03 (45%)
New (44) Used (12) from $10.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  95 reviews
Sales Rank: 4509
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Compilation, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 90
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: N7573
ISBN: 0780649230
UPC: 794043757327
EAN: 9780780649231
ASIN: B000305ZDO
Theatrical Release Date: November 2, 2004
Release Date: November 2, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: FACTORY SEALED BRAND NEW!
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Product Description
Festival Express is a rousing record of a little-known but monumental moment in rock n' roll history starring such music legends as Janis Joplin The Band and the Grateful Dead. Set in 1970 Festival Express was a multi-band multi-day extravaganza that captured the spirit and imagination of a generation and a nation. What made it unique was that it was portable; for five days the bands and performers lived slept rehearsed and did countless unmentionable things aboard a customized train that traveled from Toronto to Calgary to Winnipeg with each stop culminating in a mega-concert. The entire experience both off-stage and on was filmed but the extensive footage remained locked away -- until now.A momentous achievement in rock film archeology Festival Express combines this long-lost material with contemporary interviews nearly 35 years after it was first filmed.Running Time: 89 min. Genre: MUSIC DVD/CONCERTS UPC: 794043757327 Manufacturer No: N7573
Amazon.com
The vintage concert footage alone makes Festival Express a memorable and worthwhile endeavor, offering scintillating performances by Janis Joplin, the Band (their rollicking version of "Slippin' and Slidin'" is particularly mind-blowing), the Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy, and others (remember Mashmakhan?). In 1970, during the heyday of the rock festival, promoter Ken Walker decided to organize a traveling musical revue, bringing the mountain to Mohammed, as it were. In five days' time, the festival played in three Canadian cities with the entire conglomeration traveling, playing, and getting smashed together the whole way. Nearly as rewarding as the live performances are the candid scenes of the train ride itself, an endless jam session and party during which musicians of all shapes and sizes let their hair down--musically and otherwise. The contemporary interviews with Walker and some of the surviving musicians aren't particularly noteworthy, except as a way to prove that it all actually happened. Walker comes off as a hero in the film: he treated the musicians like royalty and insisted that the train roll on even though he was losing his shirt. (His financial failure is a large reason why this material stayed in the vaults for so long.) Perhaps the most remarkable scene is an off-the-cuff, LSD-fueled train jam featuring Joplin, the Band's Rick Danko, and the Dead's Jerry Garcia playing the old chestnut "Ain't No More Cane." Danko is so obliterated that even Janis has to ask him if he's OK--when Janis is worried about your state of mind, you must be pretty messed up. --Marc Greilsamer
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| Customer Reviews: Read 90 more reviews...
 DVD Extras October 8, 2004
204 out of 216 found this review helpful
With more than 50 additional minutes of exclusive performance footage not seen in the theatrical version of the film, the Festival Express DVD set features the following "bonus" set list:
Grateful Dead "Hard to Handle"
Grateful Dead "Easy Wind"
Janis Joplin "Move Over"
Janis Joplin "Kozmic Blues"
Buddy Guy "Hoochie Coochie Man"
Mashmakhan "As Years Go By"
Eric Anderson "Thirsty Boots"
Ian & Sylvia "Tears of Rage"
Tom Rush "Child's Song"
Seatrain "Thirteen Questions"
The DVD set also offers 25 minutes of additional interviews
THIS FILM IS NOT LONG ENOUGH! October 2, 2004
161 out of 167 found this review helpful
Folks, I can only say...it sure brings tears to my eyes to see
these people again, the ones that are gone. Richard Manuel singing "I shall be released", Rick Danko jamming with Jerry Garcia "no more cane", and especially seeing Pigpen blowing harp
during "new speedway boogie", and the shots of Janis singing two
great tunes "cry to me" and "tell mama". I guess I'm getting nostalgic in my old age, but these musicians meant a lot to me when I was young, providing the soundtrack to a lot of my youthful escapades. The Band played the best concert I ever saw
in 1970 in Pittsburgh, just a few months after this film was shot, so they are captured here in practically the same spirit.
I went to see the Flying Burrito Brothers once in 1971, but couldn't get into the bar because my girlfriend was underage, but they are shown here as a four piece singing "lazy days", so I finally get to see them perform.
This is a wonderful film capturing a wonderful cross country music express. The only complaint - woefully short for my taste- I could take a few more hours of this.
It beats Woodstock October 12, 2004
36 out of 41 found this review helpful
After seeing this film I needed a drink....many drinks. What I had experienced was mind blowing. Seeing many of the greatest rock heroes siting in a train and being themselves. But there is a moment in the film that you realise that this way of living is dangerous... seeing Rick Danko, Jerry Garcia , and Janis singing, playing guitar....having fun makes you realise that live is short. You see a lot of dead people in this movie. But lucky for us there are a few people left to tell the story what happened on that train.
Okay enough talk about dead people....then they were alive and made great music. For me the highlight was "The Band" playing "I shall be released" and Janis Joplin. But what am I talkink about...every second, every song of this movie was great.
Wave That Flag July 3, 2007
32 out of 36 found this review helpful
The Fourth of July always puts me in the mood for a little Grateful Dead. To me they are the quintessential American band. It certainly fits musically, with their music drawing from the blues, country, bluegrass, and gospel, in addition to other streams of Americana. But, even more so, their collective personality was classic American, in lots of positive ways and plenty of negative ones too. They were fun, energetic, creative, exploratory, and generous, yet hypocritical, arrogant, fat, lazy, and ultimately self-indulgent to the point of self-destruction. They were dreamy idealists while at the same time the most crass of capitalists. And just in case the connection was too subtle for the heads, the Avuncular Jerry Garcia would croon it out on "U.S. Blues:" "I'm Uncle Sam,/ That's who I am/ Been hidin' out/ In a rock n' roll band."
You aren't going to catch a Dead show anymore, at least not the real deal, but Festival Express is a nice little treat to catch a little bit of contact vibe. I hadn't heard about this until recently, but apparently there was a traveling festival in 1970 including the Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy, Janis Joplin, and the Band. The concert footage is worth watching but even more amazing are the scenes from the train, traveling from town to town, with musicians completely inebriated and jamming non-stop in various combinations. It's worth it just to see a relatively young Jerry Garcia and a relatively old Janis Joplin sitting intimately and just making music. The movie also comes with a villain- though he is packaged as the hero- rock promoter Ken Walker. Hunched over, wringing his hands like Mike Myers playing Dr. Evil, and even with an old-fashioned handlebar mustache just to complete the malevolent ambience. He tells us over and over again how he saved the day in various venues. Threatening anyone in his path, punching out some Canadian mayor in the face, brandishing a gun to make his point, that kind of thing. He takes great pride in what we come to learn was a gigantic failure, but the movie would be less entertaining without this character.
Anyway, it is fun ride, you'll wish you could have been there. I recommend it as part of your Fourth of July festivities. Never mind that the entire film takes place in Canada. Some of the best of America is actually Canadian. This is nothing new, don't over-think it. It's just a good time.
Brings 'em Back Alive and How Great is That? September 15, 2004
31 out of 35 found this review helpful
Even in the recent shadow of the 60's it was a lunatic idea for a rock promoter -- plan a three concert tour of Canada, set prices at a level above free (the only acceptable concert price for many a year past Woodstock), charter a train for the musicians, fill it with food and booze for six days of travel across the Canadian prairie, and expect to make money. But that's what the promoters of Festival Express did and now, 34 years later as the long-lost tapes have emerged, been edited and re-mixed, I'm just thankful they had that lunatic idea and filmed this documentary to put us on that train. Of course it all was a financial disaster, rock musicians can easily outdrink even diplomats and academics, but it is one terrific ride, and for me, far and away the documentary of 2004.
Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead explains the liquor thing: "Liquor was new for all of us; we'd all been doing marijuana and hallucinogens." Well, Janis had always had her Southern Comfort, but for the rest of the entourage maybe that explains why the train had to make an unscheduled stop in Saskatoon to restock the booze. The hat was passed, so the narration goes, and over $800 was raised, enabling us to see loving footage of the likes of Jerry Garcia and Rick Danko of the Band helping load new cases of booze onto the train.
The music scenes here are superb, far better than in Woodstock, let alone the anti-Woodstock, Gimme Shelter, and the ten or so minutes in the middle of the film when under the night stars in Winnipeg the Band sings The Weight followed by Janis doing Cry to Me may be the best capturing on film of what it was like to live in that time and hear that music live. Of course, if one is ever still tempted to think he/she was brilliant while high an extended scene of Danko, Garcia, and Joplin noodling away on an old Leadbelly song (aside -- these people really knew their roots, blues and country/folk, and lots of that comes through in the casually shot footage of jam sessions on the train) surely cures that illusion -- if they weren't, and they weren't, chances are no one else was either. Still the 60s do have their relevant messages for today -- for example, the Dead singing New Speedway Boogie with its first line that should be applied to all our politicians, in office and aspiring to, "Please don't dominate the rap, Jack, if you've got nothing new to say..."
Janis sings Me and Bobby McGee over the credits, right after the closing scene of an old engineer, shutting the switching site shed doors on the engine that pulled the train and walking away, growing smaller in the distance as the camera stays fixed on his back. For one who remembers exactly where he was when hearing of her death just a couple months later, the only disappointment of this movie is that there may be no soundtrack album, at least none is mentioned in the credits. If the Band, the Dead, Janis, or their supporting cast -- Ian and Sylvia, Buddy Guy, Flying Burrito Brothers, among others -- matter to your life still, see this movie as soon as you can.
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