The lineup for the 2017 return of the Monterey International Pop Festival has been officially announced. Returning to Monterey some 50 years to the day of the original Monterey Pop Festival, this year’s event is going to be a special anniversary celebration of the groundbreaking event. Booker T. Stax Revue is listed at the top and we’ve also got Phil Lesh & the Terrapin Family Band scheduled to play as well. Not bad.
Joining them will be Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Dr. Dog, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Father John Misty, Gary Clark Jr., Hiss Golden Messenger, Jack Johnson, Jackie Greene, Jacob Banks, Jamtown feat. Cisco Adler, Donavon Frankenreiter and G. Love, Jim James, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Langhorne Slim & The Law, Leon Bridges, Nicki Bluhm & Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Norah Jones, North Mississippi Allstars, Phil Lesh & The Terrapin Family Band, Regina Spektor, Sara Watkins, The Head and the Heart, and more. The festival is going to be all-ages and tickets start going on sale this Friday, April 21.
Lou Adler, one of the original Monterey International Pop founders who co-produced the 1967 festival alongside John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, is involved once again in overseeing the festival weekend. Lou said, “The Monterey International Pop Festival cannot be duplicated but can be celebrated and will be, by the performers and the attendees at the 50th Anniversary festival.”
Also included in the official press release was a mention that they’re not going for a huge production here, specifically saying they’ll probably skip the big screens in favor of supporting a nuturing, nostalgic environment towards the yesteryear of music festival triumphs that started back in the 60’s.
With its motto, “Music, Love and Flowers,” Monterey Pop drew hundreds of thousands of people to Northern California in 1967. It was a celebration of benevolence and cultural change, the key event of the Summer of Love, and one of the chief defining moments of the baby boom generation. It presented rock music as a movement, not just in California, but globally. Preceding Woodstock by two years, it was the first major rock festival and started the rock festival tide. It was multi-racial; it was national and international; it brought together musical talent from diverse genres; it established new rock stars as art and culture leaders; and legitimized and kicked off the rapid expansion of rock music into today’s multi-billion-dollar industry.
