2019 was the year that virtually every groovy little hippy pad that ever existed between 10th Avenue and 14th Avenue was demolished. T-town's dwellings where we first copped a buzz are no more. I found reading 19-year-old Courtney Haden's article to be both timely and appropriate even though it was written 49 years ago.
from the UNIVERSITY FREE PRESS, July 8-14, 1970 (Tuscaloosa):
ATLANTA POP
by Courtney Haden
Returning early Monday morning, stopping a the redlight in Columbus, Ga., we saw a VW van full of festival freaks pull up alongside us. We waved cigarettes at them, "Ya want some?" One electric gent scrambled out the back of the van with the speed of Speed, whooshes Thankyou, scoops the Winstons, and scuttles back to the VW just as the light turns green.
At the next intersection we pause again, and suddenly the same freak sprinter in out of his bus and over to our right side window. Leans in and says, "this is all we had, man, thanks a lot." Um, tab and a half of acid.
Explain the Atlanta Pop Festival on your terms? I can't even corroborate it in my terms.
You know the facts by now: 500,000 stoned music loves, dope, nudity, shit, garbage, incredible stage performances. You were there, whether you attended or not. No matter what your personal persuasions might be, you were represented by proxy. And you've returned now, whoever you are, and you've resumed your dailiness. Atlanta Pop and the Byron trip are over. Now what?
There is a Woodstock myth around, thanks not to Abbie, but to the established media, who laid the movie/album/rap on us. And the Byron folk were living the Woodstock trip, according to script, even down to chanting the Rain Chant when a shower blew through the festival. How many of the free mannerisms of Byronfolk were real, how many joints were puffed and passed only because "that's what they did at Woodstock?" Is there really a new consciousness abreeeding, or just more complex social games?
That there revolution is in your heads, not in the streets. The exhilaration of Byron must finally be replaced by the summer tedium of Tuscaloosa. A lot of people had to leave the festival to get back to jobs on Monday. Did they take a heightened awareness with them? (I don't mean, 'Did they get stoned'?) This week, would you give a hitchhiking brother a ride? Would you be as considerate of your fellow man at home as you were under grueling festival conditions?
You know where you're at, now. Not alone in your lifestyle, Byron showed you your culture brethren. You don't have to be in uniform; there were Straights and Freaks, Longhairs and Shorthairs, Radikals and Konservatives were all together on that raceway. Happy birthday to America from the Atlanta Pop Festival!
Woodstock is a lie, but a useful lie. There are millions of young hip kids who subscribe to a lot of these cultural values. But these people are outnumbered and outgunned for any conceivable head-on confrontation with Ameri a [sic]. The Man has the money, the Pig has community support, and the Media controls the majority mind. Is Revolution the answer? Then let it come, but not uselessly in urban streets, not hopelessly in the courts, and not endlessly in the rhetoric of radical politicians.
The way we lived for three mystic days in Byron can became the way we live all of our days. Only if that's what you want. But you have never LIVED a revolution. Can you? You know your enemies, but can you trust you friends enough when you need shelter? Unless your ideas are clear and your will is determined, it's probably suicide to try to get it on.
This is all bullshit. In truth I saw only one thing at the festival that even remotely indicated a holy possibility. On the last evening, we sat in front of a bedraggled longhair kid. He was completely in tune with the stage, and completely oblivious to his surroundings. He was Alvin Lee's guitar, he was the Allmans blues. In trance he dug performances, and at end, totally freaked, he would scramble to his feet and scream to the stars in a slow, tired, defenseless, desperate, triumphant cry, "More...git it on...yeah...play all fucking night long..." Nobody, nobody could touch that cat. We marked his every bawl with reverence. Dunno where he went.
Prove yourself to yourself, is all that it could mean.
