The Louisiana Festival

THE LOUISIANA FESTIVAL:  "SELLEBRATION OF LIFE"

One evening at the Celebration of Life Festival near McCrea, Louisiana, a festival worker OD'd back stage and crumpled to the floor as "Sister Morphine" played over the P.A. system, in place of the live music which had yet to show up.

It was typical and symbolic of the whole event. All kinds of dope were plentiful at the site (700 barren acres with little shade), but it was mostly poisonous hard bogus drugs. All you had to do was go down to the corner of Cocaine Row and Smack Street (as proclaimed by makeshift signs) and pick up on the tasty goodies. Also available were plastic syringes for the amazing price of $1 apiece. UUUUGGGGH!

"Security" at the festival site was kept by three Louisian motorcycle clubs, hired by festival promoter Steve Kapelow, 28, the son of a wealthy New Orleans family that made it's money in real estate speculation. The bikers ended up shaking people down for money, food and dope, beating skinny-dippers with chains, fighting amongst themselves, and finally hassling with the state police, who forced them to leave at gunpoint after at least 29 persons were injured.

Typical Amerikan unhealthy "food" was provided at the site by Steward Enterprises of Houston, who paid Kapelow $35,000 for the rights to sell their pre-packaged junk to the people at incredible prices. A half-pint of milk was going for a quarter, a dry sandwich for 75 cents,and some vendors were getting three cups of soft drink out of one 12-ounce can and dealing them for 25 cents each. On Friday afternoon an impromptu people's caucus decided to move against the concessions and get people food. A crowd stormed the stands and grabbed all they could before the police moved in to stop them, passing stuff out to everyone. This action promptly forced a drastic lowering of prices and the initiation of a "free" kitchen tent.

"Free" that is, if you managed to sneak into the event without paying the original price of $28 for a promised eight days of country and music, which was eventually lowered to $20 after numerous efforts to crash the gates. By Friday evening Kapelow was letting people in for free, unable to deal with the situation at all. Those who did pay the full price saw about a third of the groups originally promised in the festival's advertising, were treated to a severe shortage of toilets and a bare minimum of water. Dr. William Aburzzi (who did medical work coordination at Woodstock and other festivals) described the situation when he said "All we've got here is bare survival."

Groups that did show up at the scene included; John Sebastian, Chuck Berry, Eric Burdon and War, Jimmy Witherspoon, Stoneground, Bloodrock, the Amboy Dukes, Boz Scaggs, Delaney and Bonnie, Steve Stills, and the Chambers Brothers. Also included were two trapeze acts.

The festival was originally scheduled for an island in the Mississippi River, complete with patrol boats and photographed ID cards to insure that there would be no gate crashing. The original location was kept a secret, and decoy sites were announced, and even worked on -- all in an effort to keep "undesirables" from descending on the festival, and to insure that Kapelow would turn a tidy profit for his investment. After all, that's what it's all about for those guys anyway. But Miss. authorities at the original site doused the event with a court injunction.

Kapelow then retained the Cypress Point Plantation in Louisiana. The Celebration leased the site Thursday, June 17, and immediately the local "police jury" banned it. But freeks kept pouring into the site anyway and the promoters went to court. Traffic kept building, and state police began routing the festival goers as far away as 20 miles south of the site. The people were coming, and a bit freaked out, the local officials compromised in federal court and agreed to allow the festival to open if there were enough survival supplies and facilities.

The facilities never materialized, and on Sunday, Dr. Abruzzi announced that due to the lack of cooperation from the promoters in getting him medical supplies, and the fact that his staff had other commitments (the festival was running several days late), he would be pulling out after the evening's concert. On Sunday afternoon, seeing that the end was near, police began stepping up drug arrests as people started leaving. Police made 150 arrests.

There were three deaths-- one from an overdose of methadone, and two from drowning in the swift Archafalaya River, the only shelter from the sweltering heat.

Whew! What a mess. Another indication that as long as our people's festivals are put together by big-money people (even the "hip" ones) who are more interested in gobbling down their profits than providing a good time for all, they will continue to end up as this one did. We need people's festivals, put on not to increase someone's bank account but to bring the music and the people together. Until we organize these things ourselves, we can continue to expect events like the one in Louisiana last week. The incredible success of the Ann Arbor Summer Park Program's weekly free concerts is just a slight indication of the possibilities if we get it together.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE ! SELF-DETERMINATION FESTIVALS!

-David Fenton, RPP