Festival Express

Way back in 1970 – before cloth-eared lawyers with eyes on the quick buck took control of the music industry – a train traversed the Canadian wilderness with a group of laid-back musicians on board, stopping every so often for them to perform at the odd makeshift festival. It was a privately chartered train and the musos in question – The Band, The Grateful Dead and New Riders of the Purple Sage, raunchy rock chick Janis Joplin, gospel-blues partners Delaney & Bonnie and bluesman Buddy Guy – were among the greatest of their era. A rollicking time was had by all, as so admirably demonstrated by Smeaton’s lush, verité-style record of the event. Soused and stoned, they jammed seemingly non-stop for the entire journey. Many of these onboard musical soirées come over as gloriously ragged and deeply soulful; others, however, get bogged down in a cacophonous mire of licks and solos. On stage, though, they mostly perform impeccably, none more so than Joplin, who tops it all with another one of her barnstorming performances.