FIRST ANNUAL DETROIT ROCK & ROLL REVIVAL

The Monterey Pop Festival gave Rock & Roll its final accreditation. The music industry had to take notice as this little publicized youth cultural event drew more people and attracted more press than all the Judy Garlands, Frank Sinatras and Bing Crosbys could hope to muster.

The magnitude of the Monterey success can best be comprehended in the light of its influence on the concert form: virtually every American city where the kids dig rock & roll music has had its pop festival. The great majority of these festivals fell short of the original at Monterey because of promoters too interested in making the quick dollar and not concerned enough with staging a true cultural event. The First Annual Rock & Roll Revival is one festival that will reverse this trend and return the feeling of festival to the rock & roll summer scene. We have here a truly contemporary music festival which will not only entertain and delight the participants but will educate and enlighten them as well. Rather than hire performers at random, the Detroit revival has been created carefully and precisely. The producer of this massive event, Russ Gibb, has chosen the acts with the intention of creating a total educational experience inviting only an eclectic handful of “name” bands and concentrating on the incredible array of talent and genius that is the Detroit Community! The headliners cover the complete spectrum of what is happening in music today. The staging of this festival has been a community effort with Russ Gibb producing the event and lining up the “national” acts, Jeep Holland and the people in A-2 Productions booking the Michigan Bands and coordinating the time table, and the notorious Trans-Love Energies multi-media community coordinating the publicity and staging. So many people have worked hard to bring authenticity to this First Annual Rock & Roll Revival that it must be considered as a true cultural event of the community. It is the task of this special issue of Creem Magazine to tie together and provide background for this spectacular event.