H/t to Joe Connor, who left a comment a couple of weeks ago mentioning the 1969 Atlantic City Pop Festival. It was the first I ever heard of it, and I wasn’t alone in being unaware that two weeks before Woodstock and featured some of the same acts. But the only people who remember it were the estimated 100,000 who attended the three-day event, like the author of this remembrance at Best Classic Bands.
The Atlantic City festival was put together by promoter Larry Magid, who had opened the Electric Factory in Philadelphia the year before and went on to bigger things in the concert-promoter biz. It was held west of the city at Atlantic City Race Course, so it was accessible by bus and had actual crowd control, along with good weather. In short, it came off with very few hitches, so it attracted little attention outside the music world.
Woodstock, by contrast, drew the eyes of the world because it was poorly planned, inaccessible and plagued by rain – and swarmed by more than 400,000 people, a fraction of the number who later claimed to have been there. Its concert film cemented the even in the collective memory; Atlantic City Pop, for some reason, wasn’t filmed or taped, so little record of it exists.
At Atlantic City, fans could buy single-day tickets for $6 in advance, $6.75 at the door, or attend all three days for $15. The lineup featured several major acts that would also play Woodstock – Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, Joe Cocker, Canned Heat, Santana (billed as the Santana Blues Band) and Janis Joplin – but also cast a wider musical net. Audiences heard the big band swing of Buddy Rich, the blues of B.B. King, the soul of Booker T and the MGs and the South African jazz of Hugh Masekela, along with the typical mix of rock and folk. Bands that played Atlantic City but not Woodstock included Procol Harum, Iron Butterfly, Frank Zappa and, briefly, Joni Mitchell, who walked off because she thought the audience wasn’t paying attention.
Music fans will recognize most of the artists on that promotional poster, but one obscure name stands out. The American Dream was a Philadelphia-based psychedelic pop band that released one eponymous LP in 1970 before breaking up. The album is remembered today because it was the first record produced by the Todd Rundgren, who was 22 at the time. It squeaked onto the Billboard album chart at No. 196. “I Ain’t Searchin'” was released as a single.
They got the gig because Magid frequently hired them to open for national acts at the Electric Factory, where they made their name with high-energy stage shows and tight harmonies. Lead guitarists Nick Jameson joined Foghat briefly, then went on to a long acting career; you might have seen him playing the Russian president on the Kiefer Sutherland series “24.”
The album gets classified as psychedelic, but the tunes range from boogie-woogie to jangle-pop that sounds like proto-power pop, as on “Big Brother.”
