Nerd Nite #13 - Michigan’s Woodstock: The 1970 Goose Lake International Music Festival: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard of

Tue, 01/06/2015 - 2:57pm

When: March 27, 2014 at Live!

Mark Deming – Michigan’s Woodstock: The 1970 Goose Lake International Music Festival: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard of
In the summer of 1970, over 200,000 rock ‘n’ roll fans made their way to Goose Lake just outside Jackson, Michigan for the biggest rock festival ever held in the Midwest. It featured nearly all the major Michigan acts of the day, including the Stooges, the MC5, SRC, the Up, Brownsville Station, and Mitch Ryder and Detroit, as well as Rod Stewart and the Faces, Joe Cocker, the James Gang, Mountain, Chicago, Jethro Tull, and the Flying Burrito Brothers. The festival made headlines, angered the governor, and had local homeowners up in arms. So how come you’ve never heard of it? Music writer Mark Deming discusses the strange but true story of the biggest weekend in Michigan’s musical history.

About Mark Deming:
Mark Deming is a writer who has been covering music, film, and various aspects of popular culture since the 1980s. He’s been a regular contributor to All Music Guide and All Movie Guide since 1999, and has also written for Ugly Things, Resonance, Detroit Metro Times, Chicago New Times, Phoenix New Times, Ann Arbor Current, American Garage, and many others. His vocal stylings have appeared on recordings by the Clutters, Mark Lansing and his Board of Water and Light, the End Times, and the Seger Liberation Army, and he once met Captain Kangaroo and Leonard Cohen on the same day.