Toronto Rock & Roll Revival 1969

[humprof]

An epic (free) post today on Robert Christgau's Substack, And It Don't Stop: a repost of his long 1970 report from the Toronto Rock & Roll Revival, focusing on D.A. Pennebaker's filming of the event. (Pennebaker's footage is the foundation of a forthcoming documentary, Revival69: The Concert That Rocked The World.)

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/the-big-lookback-toronto-rock-and
https://www.chapmanproductions.ca/revival69

 

[Willie Wilson]

Thanks for posting this. There are several videos of various performances on YouTube and they prove what Alice said - the OGs really brought it. Looking forward to the new documentary.

 

[steelydave]

Really cool to see, even for a split second, footage of Chicago performing at this festival. Their performance at this show has been bootlegged (from what sounds like an open mic tape recorder placed near, or on stage) a million times - if you have a bad-sounding CD or LP of a 1969 Chicago (Transit Authority) performance with a generic title like "Chicago Live" that sounds like this description, it comes from this show.

A pipe dream for me would be that the entire set was filmed, but he extremely far-away shot of the band in the trailer (compared to all the other close-ups) makes me wonder if their manager (James William Guercio) insisted that they not be filmed, which was the case at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, really poor decision in historical retrospect. There's so little footage of Chicago in 1969 - 10 or 15 minutes at the Texas Pop Festival, 45 minutes in Amsterdam, and a handful of Beat Club performances in Germany - that every and any little bit more that comes out is a treasure indeed.

 

[humprof]

Really cool to see, even for a split second, footage of Chicago performing at this festival. Their performance at this show has been bootlegged (from what sounds like an open mic tape recorder placed near, or on stage) a million times - if you have a bad-sounding CD or LP of a 1969 Chicago (Transit Authority) performance with a generic title like "Chicago Live" that sounds like this description, it comes from this show.

A pipe dream for me would be that the entire set was filmed, but he extremely far-away shot of the band in the trailer (compared to all the other close-ups) makes me wonder if their manager (James William Guercio) insisted that they not be filmed, which was the case at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, really poor decision in historical retrospect. There's so little footage of Chicago in 1969 - 10 or 15 minutes at the Texas Pop Festival, 45 minutes in Amsterdam, and a handful of Beat Club performances in Germany - that every and any little bit more that comes out is a treasure indeed.

Danny Seraphine is one of the featured interviewees in the new doc, so hopefully there'll be more footage!

 

[nrleas]

forthcoming..? IMDB says 2022. US release was last week?

 

[humprof]

forthcoming..? IMDB says 2022. US release was last week?

It did the festival circuit in 2022. When Christgau posted earlier this week, theatrical distribution was "still being worked out."