Posted on 09/03/2007 5:52:55 AM PDT by period end of story
Country Joe McDonald sang a new song and probably echoed the central thought of the day for most of the huge crowd at the 40th anniversary Summer of Love concert in Golden Gate Park on Sunday: "I wish I was back in the Summer of Love."
And for a moment, Speedway Meadow - in the sea of tie-dye with the aroma of marijuana wafting everywhere - almost seemed to feel like another time. Except for the portable ATMs dotting the landscape and all those cell phones.
A crowed estimated at more than 50,000 people, spanning multiple generations, filled the meadow to listen to a procession of '60s rock bands under a cloudless sky. The day began with blessings offered by Native American shamans and ended nine hours later with Jolie Valente, son of the late Dino Valente of Quicksilver Messenger Service, singing his dad's song "Get Together."
"It's never too late for another Summer of Love," said Wes "Scoop" Nisker, former underground radio newscaster.
"I haven't felt like this since 1969," said Woodstock concert producer Artie Kornfeld, one of the many counterculture heroes who appeared during the brief intermissions in the crisply efficient production.
The old hippies look a little worn. The brief reunion of Moby Grape - with the late Skip Spence's son, Omar, sitting in for his dad - went off well enough, but it's hard to imagine that band ever playing together again. Many of the bands were flying missing-man formations. Canned Heat featured only one original member - drummer Fito de la Parra - because most of the other guys are dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Especially if that word is EWWWWWW! written a thousand times...
“Ain’t nothin’ sadder than an old hippie”
I was there in 1967. Where were you then?
I don't remember, myself. Of course, I had only been born in the previous March...
ZOIKS!!!
What about two old hippies?
Is that Sen. Craig striking a pose?
It looks more like that officer what’s his name.
But this is San Fransisco so, alas, he's probably going commando. EWWW!!!!
Probably a leather thong if anything.
OY! There’s no “aging gracefully” for THAT pair!!
I was at UCLA .. smack dab in the middle of a sustained period of immaturity and ignorance.
But I grew up, started bathing, got a job and never looked back.
I heard a great joke:
Q: Why did all the hippies move to Eugene, Oregon?
A: Because they heard that there were no jobs there.
ROFL!!!
Kos really needs to rein in his followers.
Unfortunately, I was in college at a small, socially backward engineering school in Philadelphia. I was also in ROTC. Thanks to that, I was forced to keep my hair short, which marked me as "straight". (When some folks I knew saw me at a pot party in school, they did the kind of double-take you only see in Warner Brothers cartoons.)
What I remember most strongly is that the hippies were getting all the sex -- and I wasn't.
I've never forgiven them for that.
Oh how I cherish my NRPS and Airplane albums. Grace Slick is still my all time favorite female singer and “Manhole” remains my favorite album of hers.
There’s never a crop duster around when you need one.
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