Issue link: http://publications.winnipegfreepress.com/i/67029
Onstage is Dianne Heatherington & The Merry-Go-Round, with Hermann Fruhm on piano. Mountain Boys, Billy Graham's Jazz Group and folksinger Jim Donahue. My group, the Pig Iron Blues Band, was also on the bill. DJs Bobby (Boom Boom) Branigan, Charles P. Rodney Chandler and Darryl Provost were lined up to host. Espousing the hippie ethic of the times, everybody pitched in for free. "We got everything for nothing," Wallace remem- $1 and the show was set to commence at 3 p.m. on a Sunday. "There was no schedule for the bands," Wallace notes. "We kept getting all these phone calls from more and more bands wanting to play. I was lucky it rained because there were a million bands who wanted to play. bers. "The only expense was $34 to run the power line in. Garnet Amplifiers supplied the PA and the stage was a flatbed truck." Tickets were a bargain at www.winnipegfreepress.com/publications 5,000 attendees. By 2 p.m., double that number had taken over the festival site, spilling onto adja- cent fields and clogging the roads in and out. As at Woodstock, many people simply Organizers anticipated " abandoned their cars by the road and walked the remainder of the way. "Our whole band, The Weed, minus one decided to go," Alex Moskalewski recalls. "We waited for hours on the highway, then longer down some side roads, finally parking in the middle of a field along with a few thousand oth- ers. We barely got near the stage before the skies opened up. his band, Walrus, kicked things off fittingly with the notorious Fish cheer from Woodstock ("Give me an F…"). Joey Gregorash and " would be its last public ap- pearance, as guitarist Kurt Winter had been invited (along with another local guitarist, Greg Leskiw) to join the Guess Who the previous week, replacing Randy Bachman. Brother's set featured several songs later to be recorded by the Guess Who, including Hand Me Down World and Bus Rider. By the time the fifth act, blues-rockers Chopping Block, prepared to take the stage at around 5:30 p.m., the sun had been replaced by clouds. What began as a light sprinkle quickly became Brother made what Winnipeg Boomer June 2012 29