Winnipeg Boomer

Speckled Bird, which included guitar virtuosos Amos Garrett and Buddy Cage. Mountain, led by massive guitarist Leslie West playing a tiny Gibson Les Paul junior guitar, blew the audience away with its powerhouse sound, end- ing with Mississippi Queen. During a changeover, Randy Bachman wandered out onstage un- announced armed with an acoustic guitar. "I was so nervous that I ended up Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead Jam onstage Only 4,600 tickets were sold here (20,000 tickets was break-even). Nonetheless, the Winnipeg stop proved memorable for both perform- ers and attendees. Having spent two days on the train, several musicians went in search of local colour. The Grateful Dead and crew headed to the Pan Am Pool on Grant Avenue, where Jerry Garcia organized a relay race between various stoned musicians. Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett chose to disembark and take a room at the downtown Sheraton Carlton Hotel. Janis Joplin ended up at Memorial Park. "A few of us got a cab and said, 'Take us where the freaks are,'" she told Winnipeg Free Press reporter Ken Ingle. "We went to this park and there was an entire beautiful crew of people just lying around and playin' the guitar. The carefree ambience sur- " prised the hard-living singer. "There's hippies in the fountain five minutes. But there's 40 hippies floundering around in the fountain and standing under the spray. Festooned in feathers, scarves, and nobody's bustin' them. I mean, if you walked into a fountain in New York City, you' d be in jail in " garish costume jewelry and pink sunglasses, Joplin waded into the warm waters under the watch- ful gaze of the Golden Boy. Few hippies took notice of her. 18 August 2012 Winnipeg Boomer also present on the train. Local music journalist Andy That same casual air was Mellen got aboard and encoun- tered the queen of the hippies. "I sat down with Janis in this empty coach and she poured me a finger of Southern Comfort. I had my tour program with me and I asked Janis to sign the photo of her in it," he recalls. "She signed it 'Love, non- professionally, Janis Joplin'. I have that framed on my wall. I was this 20-year-old kid and here was this legend. She was so courteous to me." Just three months later, Joplin would be dead. Another visitor to the train was Randy Bachman, recently departed from the Guess Who. "Players would wander in and out, pull up a chair, plug into one of the little amps they had and just pick up on the flow of the ongoing blues jams. I just wanted to play with anybody, Day, the performers decamped for the Stadium show. The concert com- menced at 1 p.m., and the afternoon performers had a tough time soothing a crowd that was looking to rock. Blues guitarist Buddy Guy finally The following afternoon, Canada " Bachman says. brought the audience to its feet with a rousing set that included wading into the audience playing his guitar. Ian & Sylvia were backed by their recently formed country rock band, The Great spelling American Woman wrong," he recalls." I was doing the 'I say A, M, E...' intro and I missed a letter. People thought I must be stoned but I was just out of my element." He later returned to jam with Delaney & Bonnie, whose raucous R&B set was punctuated by the sing- ing of Happy Birthday to Delaney. Some of The Grateful Dead were not in a friendly mood, but as Chris Doole recalls, "When the Dead per- formed Alligator it got into this groove where it started to sound like 25 perfectly synchronized locomotives with Garcia's tasty little trills on top of it all. Everyone's attention was just nailed to it." It was past midnight by the time The Band and Joplin each mounted the stage and some concertgoers had already left. Looking like rustic mountain men, The Band played an excep- tional set drawing from their first two albums along with a few old chestnuts, including Little Richard's Slippin' & Slidin'. Garth Hudson's elongated organ intro to Chest Fever drew on several old hymns and was mesmerizing. Backed by The Full Tilt Boogie Band, Joplin rocked hard and won over the weary crowd. "I remember she said, 'You guys certainly know how to throw a ... train, amble onstage near the end of her set. "How about a kiss for the boys from Manitoba?" he queried. Smiling, Joplin consented. www.winnipegfreepress.com/publications One brazen young man managed to '" Doole recalls. ©2004 ThinkFilms Inc.

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