Soon after Woodstock came the Palm Beach Pop Festival, 40 years ago
Tags: Bill Heidtman, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Ken Davidoff, Palm Beach, Palm Beach International Raceway, Palm Beach Pop Festival, rock history, Spirit, The Rolling Stones
| Friday 20 November 2009 2:38 pm
Three months after Woodstock, the hippie scene shifted south.
To the boondocks west of West Palm Beach.
On Thanksgiving weekend, 40 years ago.
See anyone you know in the crowd? (Courtesy Ken Davidoff)
And the local ruling class didn’t like it one bit.
What did the sheriff do? Wanna see one of the greatest Mick Jagger pictures ever? Click
Then-Palm Beach County Sheriff Bill Heidtman vowed to make life miserable for the free-loving, pot-smoking, anti-establishment youngsters coming here for the Palm Beach Pop Festival. He threatened to herd alligators toward the crowd, gathered on the grounds of the old Palm Beach International Raceway. And he swore he’d have his good ole’ boys dig out fire ant colonies and relocate them at the venue.
Yet, 50,000 people showed up for the three-day event, the only one of its kind ever in this area. And they got to calling Heidtman “Sheriff Eichmann,” after Hitler’s henchman, Adolf Eichmann.
Mick Jagger at the 1969 Palm Beach Pop Festival (Courtesy Ken Davidoff)
The lineup of bands was nearly the same as the earlier New York state rendezvous. Except that Jimi Hendrix couldn’t make it. He was replaced by a little band known as The Rolling Stones. Janis Joplin belted out a few tunes, as did The Byrds, Sly and the Family Stone, Johnny Winter, Grand Funk Railroad, Spirit and Jefferson Airplane.
Florida rocker Tom Petty was there, too, after hitch-hiking south from his hometown of Gainesville.
Palm Beach society shutterbug Ken Davidoff remembers the festival well. At 19, he scored a gig as the event’s official photographer.
Janis Joplin and Johnny Winter at the 1969 festival (Courtesy Ken Davidoff)
“It was raining and freezing cold and people were ankle deep in mud,” Davidoff said. “There were 50,000 at the beginning, but by the time the Stones got on stage on Sunday, there were maybe 3,000 left. The weather and delays just drove people away.”
Among the delays, Davidoff cited the Stones’ arrival after authorities forced the band to wait on an airport tarmac for six hours, sorta, kinda, on purpose.
Davidoff recently built this Web site for the anniversary and stuffed it with some of the 600-plus pictures he took that weekend. He’s also interviewing festival-goers, roadies and promoters for a documentary.
“The festival was definitely a historical event that very few residents knew about,” Davidoff said.
For more photos, click here. And for some of the sounds, click here.
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There are a few great bootlegs of Janis at this festival floating around on the internet.
Listen, say what you will of this feature story, it should be yanked from the front page online where it currently sits under the tag “BREAKING NEWS”.
Set up another features tag to link to, but if you keep linking stuff like this there, you’re going to lose all credibility of what is actually “BREAKING NEWS”.
I was there with my friends, Nina Barker & Pat Murphy. We sat there through thick and thin seeing everything, waiting out the cold and wet to see the Stones close out the concert. I remember thinking “Wow, this little Pop Festival surely didn’t get the features of Woodstock, but was a whole lot better for lack of crowding.” I spent my birthday there and enjoyed some of the best music ever! Thanks again for the greatest concert event of my teenage years.
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Some music from the show… http://www.archive.org/details/RollingStones1969-11-30MiamiPopFestivalFL
very cool pictures
I was in college back then. Came hme from U of Fla over holiday to work for my old employer–Universal Ambulance of Lake Worth (long gone). We had the medical contract for there. I manned the first aid tent from beginning to end.
Still remember it and seeing the “old” bands.
The thing I most remember was when the participants tore down an outhouse burned the wood to stay warm.
IT WAS FREEZING COLD…..
Oh–two years later Sheriff Heidtman hired me when I got out of college and did a career there.
Happy times……
I was there. I remember some dude standing up with no shirt and dancing for the entire festival….. Was a great time!
I remember somes things about that weekend. Wet, muddy, cold, stoned and some of the best bands of the era! When Joplin announced Canned Heat cancelled and after the cheering, Joplin, Johnny, Edgar, Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert jammed for a set. Correct me if I’m remembering it wrong. I think someone gave me some weed with imbalming fluid soaked in it and damned near missed King Crimson. What the hell is that!
I have an original poster
I was there,Drove down from savannah,ga. thanksgiving week inn.got there thursday, cold, rainey,slept in the trunk of 59 chevy. I was sixteen, smoked pot for the first time.But had a great time.
It’s pretty amazing that as a direct result of the PB Post’s front page picture of Sheriff Bill Heidtmann’s deputy ripping the American flag from the top of a “hippy’s” tent at the festival, police agencies and many others, began wearing American flag patches as part of their uniforms. As for Heidtmann, it was simply one positive solution to his ongoing public relations nightmare trying to keep the masses under control!
I was there! Came down from the University of Florida with 3 other guys that were straight out of the “fabulous furry freak brothers” comics……..I was a surfer from Jax beach and into the blues. We had heard about Woodstock and this was as close as we were going to get at that point. One of the guys was a journalist major and got us press credentials because he wrote for the UF newspaper . this meant we got to be in the stand right by the stage……….unreal……..each day/night had a theme and it (and the dope) were mind blowing………the last night it was FREeEeeZING”………the heavies and biker guys tore up the stands and built Huge bonfires, I had paid my $20 ( for 3 days of the best music on the planet) and since I had no idea of where my ride home was I was stuck but it was awesome. only the real hard cores stayed to the end. I was at one fire with a hippy momma and her kid and was sharing a blanket. She pulled it towards her and uncovered on journalist friend who had passed out from eating reds and drinking ripple to keep warm. I shook him awake to see the stones…….After their set ended the sun came up and it looked like a war zone . Rubbish, fires, blackened earth people stumbling around….etc……the police just looking at us but not arresting anyone……..we still had a little weed left and saw some other freaks loading up a bus (like the merry pranksters) and hitched a ride out and to cocoa beach. We gave them the smoke for giving us the ride. My friend was originally from close by and he got a cousin (or somebody-who can remember everything) who gave us a ride back to gainsville. I’ll never forget that festival or the acts I saw then
Just for clarity, in my original post, I said the cops weren’t arresting anyone immediately after the festival and we got out before the bad juju started, but the other 2 original guys we went down with did. They got thrown in the local jail for a couple of daze and the cops shaved their heads before their families could wire the money to get them out. I think it cost them around $150 each…….I was very lucky and still am. I live in Hawaii now but still remember West Palm for that festival.
yes the rain and cold were well documented people were burning tires for warmth turning faces black, miserable what ive never heard any one recollecting that jefferson airplane finishing at 1 a.m. then the stones coming on at 4.am in freezing weather jagger saying ‘it,s great to be in miami i don,t know about you but i,m bloody cold” really! any else remember? we were to cold to boo remember driving out to the sounds of jumping jack flash to be young and oblivious but i was back to atlanta in july jim