Forgotten Hits Reader Robert Campbell takes us back exactly fifty years ago this weekend ... to a post-Woodstock outdoor rock festival held right here in Illinois on May 29th, May 30th and May 31st, 1970 ...
Friday: 5/29/70, exactly (50) years ago, marks the start of
the Incident At Kickapoo Creek, one of the most successful post-Woodstock rock
festivals, and it was held in Illinois. The location was just northwest of the
intersection of then route 51 & 136 outside of Heyworth, IL. It was held on
the family farm of L. David Lewis, the promoter. The farm was about one mile
west of 51 on North Rd. There were two farms on this dead end two-lane road and
there was only one way in and one way out. There was a “S” curve half-way down
the road and the field the festival was held in was at the bottom of a hill
just after the curve. There was a dirt road for the bands to drive down to the
stage, which was set up on the banks of the Kickapoo Creek, just south of the
field in a wooded setting. The attendees got in there however they could.
The booking agent or the festival was the Blytham Agency
out of Champaign, IL, and the bookings were handled by Robert Nutt and a young
Irving Azoff. The advertising manager was Howard Bresnick and the stage crew
was run by Bob Heil and John Barack. The local authorities and the courts had
pretty much shut down the festival, but David Lewis just proceeded anyway.
Sometimes that works. The music actually started on Thursday night, 5/28/70,
and the first band to play was The Esquires out of Belvedere, IL, currently
attending college in Champaign. There set was used to test the sound system.
PHOTO: Poster Reproduction: The bands
listed to play
As a rule, as I have previously mentioned, the average attendee of a rock
festival can only remember seeing, at best, three bands. Sometime prior to 2008,
a group was formed on Yahoo Groups titled Kickapoo Creek @ Yahoo.com. The site
eventually had over 27 listed members who attended the festival as well as many
visitors. Primarily between 2008 and 2010, an exhaustive search was undertaken
to determine which bands actually showed up and the time that they actually
played. Of the 41 bands listed on the poster, as well as those rumored to have
shown up, only 22 have been verified. Every visitor to the website was
interviewed and all of the bands posted were tracked down, if possible.
Interesting enough, there is very little film and photographic evidence of the
bands. A lot of the film and photos were taken by undercover police at the
festival or from helicopters. There was no police interference at all and
that’s all they did. Years later, the films and the photos were turned over to
the local historical societies, where they have been discovered by folks like
us looking for information. Some attendees claim to have filmed the events, but
the film was lost or destroyed.
PHOTO: Attendee or undercover police,
who knows ... Nice motorcycle
Another fact is that most attendees were ill-prepared for the experience. We
were not in that category. We left Rockford in a 1967 MG 1100 sedan, which is a
small car, slightly larger than a current Mini Cooper. It was a front wheel
drive and there was no hump down the middle and there was actually a lot of leg
room and was comfortable. The trunk held a lot. We had two couples and all of
our camping equipment packed into this little car and it was just fine. We had
all taken the day off and arrived on the scene in the early afternoon. It was
hard to find, no signs, etc. If you got there early, you could still drive your
car down into the main field and set up camp. Later on, they cut that off and
then the road in jammed up as well.
PHOTO: Mid-afternoon on Friday. Our campsite is somewhere
in there and that
stage is in front of the trees where the creek is.
We spent most the afternoon preparing our camp. We gathered firewood and rocks
for a fire pit and made sure everything was organized.
PHOTO: Port-o-lets, common now, but not
back then.
This is a rare photo. Several hours after this, there was at least
a
30 person line in front of each one, and this lasted all weekend.
There was music on Friday. The schedule we compiled is a follows ...
12:00 pm Uncle Meat
5:00 pm Buck Tooth (Band member claims they were rained out)
6:00 pm Smith
5:00 pm Buck Tooth (Band member claims they were rained out)
6:00 pm Smith
There may have been more, but like I say, this is what we were able to verify.
Around 8:00 pm, we were walking around, watching everyone
set up, and out of nowhere a huge storm blew in, and I mean huge. We made it
back to our tents just in time and that was it for Friday night. I can’t ever
remember riding out a storm that severe in a tent before. Fortunately, we set
up properly. Most folks did not.
PHOTO: The Friday
night storm blows in.
At some point in time I swear I woke up in the middle of the night to the
opening chord to the song Fuse opened their set with. Yeah, I know they’re not
on the list, but they were there. This would have been well after midnight and
the rain had stopped. I remember walking up to the stage to see what was going
on in the mud and saturated field. I don’t ever remember seeing a band. I think
that possibly they were playing the Fuse album over the PA to see if it still
functioned.
Saturday was a better day ...
Saturday, 5/30/70: Kickapoo Creek Rock Festival
The Friday night storm has subsided and the festival
grounds are still pretty wet. There are a lot of attendees who came the night
before completely unprepared for the storm and they are all looking pretty
sorry. The skies are clearing and it is going to develop into a very hot and
humid day. The Kickapoo Creek also serves as the shower and bath tub and it is
full of people cleaning up by 9:00 am. The storm has also done a good job of
trashing the stage so it is going to take time to get it up and running. People
are also arriving by the thousands and the place is filling up. They are no
longer allowing cars down in the main field. The band entrance road that runs
along the east and south property line is pretty muddy and that’s where all of
the trucks and vans have to drive. There’s still plenty to do ... clean up in
the creek, get breakfast, stand in line at the port-o-lets and check out the
surroundings and all of the people. If asked about what goes on at a rock
festival, my pat answer is ... ”If you can think it, see it in your wildest
imaginations or dream it, it happens.” It definitely does not prepare you for a
run for public office. It’s also a lot of fun. We would walk around the
grounds, take a few pictures and talk to people. Typically around noon the camera
and all of the valuables would be put away and secured because that’s about
when the party restarts ... that is if it ever has ended.
Since the stage was not quite ready, the first act was Chuck
and Marry Perrin, a brother and sister acoustic folk duo from Central Illinois.
My guess is that this would require the least amount of equipment to get them
on stage. They would start the show both Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, by
the time I was able to contact Chuck for my research, Mary had passed away.
After
Chuck and Mary the bands that have been documented are as follows ...
12:00 pm Fuse
1:30 pm Devils Kitchen Band
3:00 pm Joe Kelley Blues Band
4:30 pm Unknown
A few group shots ...
The crowd is piling in ...
Joe Kelley Blues Band
Devils Kitchen Band
Unknown
Chuck and Mary Perrin
The Fuse truck backed up to the stage. You can see the F, U, & S but the
door covers the E. Herein lies a mystery ...
In some photos, there is a canopy
over the stage and in others there is not. The canopy might have blown down in
the storm and possibly another put up later. Fuse played after Chuck and Mary
and there is a canopy in photos of bands that played later Saturday. I still
have not figured that out. This photo was taken from a police helicopter
hovering over the near by high tension wires. Fuse put on a great performance
and was well received.
6:00 pm Ted Nugent
As it turns out, Ted Nugent completely stole the show and absolutely no one was
expecting it. I remember kind of walking by the stage when his show started. I
was going somewhere else and had not planned on watching his performance at the
time. I had previously seen him with The Amboy Dukes, but really did not know
what to expect. What followed was unbelievable. I did not know any of his songs
and can’t even remember whether or not he played “Journey To The Center Of The Mind.” If he did, he didn’t have to and it did not matter that you weren’t
familiar with the songs. He just started playing and the show escalated from
there. Each song got better and better and rocked more than the previous one. I
remember walking a little bit, stopping and listening to a song, walking a
little bit further, listening to another one and then finally saying to myself,
I’m not going anywhere until this show is over. And who knows when that would
be. It seemed like it lasted forever. And it was absolutely great. And just
when you thought he could rock no more, he started climbing up on his tower of
amps and played from up there. He would then leap to the ground and go climb another
tower. This was the most physical show I have ever seen and most likely
cemented his future career. Of course everyone thought he was loaded and most
likely though he would not make it to the next show. But apparently not.
After Ted’s show I think there was a dinner break where a rock festival
tradition was started. No one was really enthused about making dinner, so we
went back to the campsite, which was kind of like a wagon train circle. Some of
the people we knew, some we did not. We started a fire and put a big pot on top
of it and poured in a couple of cans of Dinty More Beef Stew. Still not
enthused, we started opening cans of whatever we had and dumping it in. Pretty
soon, everyone in the circle started emptying their cans in as well. We named our
concoction “Rock Festival Stew” and it turned out pretty damn good. This turned
into a crowd favorite and Saturday night tradition at every festival.
9:30 pm One-Eyed Jacks
There had to be a few more bands in here, but so far no documentation. Also, at
a rock festival, Saturday night does not end at midnight. It tends to bleed into
the next day.
1:00 am Litter
2:00 am The Esquires
3:00 am BB King
4:30 am Paul Butterfield Blues Band
3:00 am BB King
4:30 am Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Sunday, 5/31/70
Obviously, you will note that the Saturday night schedule
did not allow much time for sleep. Sunday was another beautiful day … however,
by the third day of a rock festival, the site is basically trashed.
12:00 pm: Chuck and Mary Perrin: Once again the days
activities started off with an act with minimal equipment.
General Crowd Shot from the van
1:00 pm: Siegel-Schwall Band
2:00 pm: Finchley Boys
Well after all, it is a rural setting
3:00 pm: Bloomsbury People (Sigmund Snopek III)
4:30 pm: REO Speedwagon (Terry Luttrel, Steve Scorfina, Neal Doughty, Alan Gratzer, Gregg Philbin)
6:00 pm: Jesse (?): That’s all I have
3:00 pm: Bloomsbury People (Sigmund Snopek III)
4:30 pm: REO Speedwagon (Terry Luttrel, Steve Scorfina, Neal Doughty, Alan Gratzer, Gregg Philbin)
6:00 pm: Jesse (?): That’s all I have
Best flag at the fest
7:30 pm: Canned Heat
9:00 pm: Country Joe & The Fish
Believe it or not, there is a bootleg audio of several of Canned Heats numbers, including “Reefer Blues”. I think that’s the name of the song. I actually acquired a CD with a copy of these songs and it’s not bad for a crude recording.
7:30 pm: Canned Heat
9:00 pm: Country Joe & The Fish
Believe it or not, there is a bootleg audio of several of Canned Heats numbers, including “Reefer Blues”. I think that’s the name of the song. I actually acquired a CD with a copy of these songs and it’s not bad for a crude recording.
Shot from the stage, north to the back of the field where the hill is
67 MG 1100 Sedan equipped with flashing gum ball light. What can I say, one of
my buddies worked at the police garage cleaning police cars that summer. We
would turn it on when we left camp at night so we could find our way back in
the dark. This vehicle made it to three rock festivals in the summer of 1970.
With full disclosure, we did not make it to the evening performances. I had to work at 4:00 pm the next day. In 1970, highway 51, now 39 was a two-lane road all of the way down. I knew that if we had stayed, there was no way in the world we could get up on time and make that lengthy drive back to Rockford. So we packed up the MG 1100 Sedan and left early. All four passengers took driving shifts on the way home. Years later, I talked to Dana Buck of the Esquires and, as it turns out, they actually opened and closed the festival. They played the opening set on Thursday night and were on “Garbage Detail” on Monday morning.
A lot of bands got rained out on Friday, and obviously more bands played than were listed … however, none have been verified. A list of all the bands that were listed to play, rumored to play and actually played is as follows ...
With full disclosure, we did not make it to the evening performances. I had to work at 4:00 pm the next day. In 1970, highway 51, now 39 was a two-lane road all of the way down. I knew that if we had stayed, there was no way in the world we could get up on time and make that lengthy drive back to Rockford. So we packed up the MG 1100 Sedan and left early. All four passengers took driving shifts on the way home. Years later, I talked to Dana Buck of the Esquires and, as it turns out, they actually opened and closed the festival. They played the opening set on Thursday night and were on “Garbage Detail” on Monday morning.
A lot of bands got rained out on Friday, and obviously more bands played than were listed … however, none have been verified. A list of all the bands that were listed to play, rumored to play and actually played is as follows ...
Canned Heat, BB King, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends,
Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Smith, Backstreet, One-Eyed Jacks, Guild (Michael
McDonald), Bloomsbury People, Nickel Bag, Finchley Boys, REO Speedwagon, Four
Days & a Night, Easy Street, Bluesweed, Bucktooth, Esquires, Feather Train
(Gary Richrath), Zebra, Phoenix, Night People, Truth, Seven, Blue Challengers,
Uncle Meat, Spare Chanyge, Genesis (Not the English band), Arrow Memphis, Gideon’s
Bible, Litter, Hot Set Up, Chuck & Mary Perrin, Devil’s Kitchen, Fuse (Joe
Sundberg, Craig Myers, Rick Nielsen, Chip Greenman, Tom Peterson), Joe Kelley
Blues Band, Ted Nugent, Siegel, Schwall Blues Band, Webster’s Last Work,
Scruffy Guy from Indy, Unknown Band (two singers), Jesse (?), The Blue.
Interesting as well, near the end of this research, I also came across two sources that indicated that The New Colony Six played as well. I am pretty sure I would have noticed if they played while I was there. One night, several years back, two of the NC6 members were live on Rockin’ John’s show on WORT-FM out of Madison, WI. There’s actually no support staff there so if you call up, you get Rockin’ John, which I did. I asked them if they had played at the Kickapoo Creek Rock Festival. All I got was some kind of wise ass remark about ... “Well, with a name like that, I’m sure we did.” No yes or no. In reading the column lately, there seems to have been a lot of turnover in the NC6 around 1970 so who knows if those guys on John’s show were actually in the NC6 in 1970 or not.
Unknown to any of us at the festival there was a huge “drama” swirling around the organizers of the festival as it was going on. Apparently there was a rumor that organized crime figures from Chicago were on their way to steal the money, which was with L. David Lewis up in the farmhouse. How these guys would get in and out is not known as the mile long road was jammed at the time. The legal battles continued after the festival and L. David Lewis had to put up a bail bond. Not immediately, but shortly thereafter, he took the remainder of the proceeds, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands and made a border run to Canada. He later ended up down south and eventually passed away. Who knows if the bands or the booking agents got paid or not. The crowd size was estimated at 30,000 to 60,000. Today the site is once again beautiful farmland.
A documentary of the festival, “Incident @ Kickapoo Creek,” has been made by RC Raycraft, who is younger and did not attend. It consists mostly of surveillance film and photos, as well as interviews. He has also published a coffee table type book of photos.
A book titled “When Woodstock Came to Town,” written by a young local author by the name of Kregg Argenta, has also been published.
When I got home I literally fell into bed and slept for 14 hours.
Interesting as well, near the end of this research, I also came across two sources that indicated that The New Colony Six played as well. I am pretty sure I would have noticed if they played while I was there. One night, several years back, two of the NC6 members were live on Rockin’ John’s show on WORT-FM out of Madison, WI. There’s actually no support staff there so if you call up, you get Rockin’ John, which I did. I asked them if they had played at the Kickapoo Creek Rock Festival. All I got was some kind of wise ass remark about ... “Well, with a name like that, I’m sure we did.” No yes or no. In reading the column lately, there seems to have been a lot of turnover in the NC6 around 1970 so who knows if those guys on John’s show were actually in the NC6 in 1970 or not.
Unknown to any of us at the festival there was a huge “drama” swirling around the organizers of the festival as it was going on. Apparently there was a rumor that organized crime figures from Chicago were on their way to steal the money, which was with L. David Lewis up in the farmhouse. How these guys would get in and out is not known as the mile long road was jammed at the time. The legal battles continued after the festival and L. David Lewis had to put up a bail bond. Not immediately, but shortly thereafter, he took the remainder of the proceeds, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands and made a border run to Canada. He later ended up down south and eventually passed away. Who knows if the bands or the booking agents got paid or not. The crowd size was estimated at 30,000 to 60,000. Today the site is once again beautiful farmland.
A documentary of the festival, “Incident @ Kickapoo Creek,” has been made by RC Raycraft, who is younger and did not attend. It consists mostly of surveillance film and photos, as well as interviews. He has also published a coffee table type book of photos.
A book titled “When Woodstock Came to Town,” written by a young local author by the name of Kregg Argenta, has also been published.
When I got home I literally fell into bed and slept for 14 hours.
Robert Campbell
