After a lifetime of devotion to "classical music," I am still stumped
when asked to define what it is.

On the other hand, at the premiere screening of "Festival Express" tonight
in San Francisco, I had no doubt whatsoever that I am witnessing a classic
- in the sense of "creations of the highest excellence," if not necessarily
in the circuitous (and useless) "characteristic of the classical artistic
and literary traditions."

Watching the rescued footage documenting the 1970 Festival Express, a
trans-Canada train ride that served as a mobile summit for the period's
greatest rock and blues bands, classifications became meaningless.

When you hear Janis Joplin - just two months before her death - sing
"Cry Baby" and "Tell Mama," the comparison with Callas is inescapable:
there is the same intensity, power, and hair-raising visceral impact.
Then there is a brief riff by Joplin's lead guitarist, John Till, and
the sound of complex, layered, unearthly beauty, easily at home in any
concert hall.

So great was the Festival Express lineup that The Grateful Dead
participated as one of bands, not the "one and only." During the long
ride between Toronto and Calgary, the musicians mingled, played together,
"bonded," resulting in some wonderful scenes (visually and musically)
of Joplin, Jerry Garcia and Rick Danko of The Band jamming to produce
some kind of instant crossover, fusion, or whatever...  it's MUSIC.

At its best, it is music that's authentic, with the power to move the
listener, and of lasting value - is that close enough to "classical"?

It was a surreal experience tonight to watch in the premiere audience
the "living Dead" - Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh - watch themselves
perform 34 years ago.  The last time I saw them was in Davies Hall,
performing with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony.
The crossover, apparently, is not only in my mind.

"Festival Express" tells the fascinating story of organizing and running
the unique "moving festival," and it has generous - and mostly hitherto
unseen - scenes of performances by The Grateful Dead ("Casey Jones,"
"Don't Ease Me In," "Friend of the Devil"), The Band ("Slippin' and
Slidin'," "The Weight," "I Shall Be Released"), Sha Na Na ("Rock & Roll
Is Here to Stay"), New Riders of the Purple Sage ("Better Take Jesus'
Hand"), The Great Speckled Bird ("CC Rider"), Buddy Guy ("Money"), and
more.

The film was directed expertly and invisibly by Bob Smeaton (who must
have been in grade school in 1970), Grammy-winning director of "The
Beatles Anthology" and "Hendrix: Band of Gypsies"), and the producer is
Gavin Poolman, son of the courageous producer of the Festival Express
itself, Willem Poolman, who kept the train running, indulging the
musicians' every whim even as he was losing his investment in the
commercially troubled venture.

I will gladly suffer the outrageous slings and arrows of heated "off
topic" charges if I prompt anyone to cross over to this kind of classical
music long enough to see "Festival Express."

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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