Original subtitles

You know, it's interesting

that along with this wave of festivals

that developed in the wake of Woodstock

there, you know... the notion developed quite quickly

that when you're going to do a special event,

why not flm it? Why not make a documentary film out of it?

Just about a week before

it was going to happen,

and l learned that the...

the organizers hadn't organized the film yet.

So l approached them

and l guess, l don't know whether they thought about it before

but it was obvious, you know

that a three-day festival like that should be filmed.

So l had lengthy negotiations with them

and we got a crew in about five days

and everything was there.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Why film the Festival Express?

l think a big part of it,

although of course Ken Walker could tell you more,

or for that matter, Willem Pullman,

but l think a big part of filming Festival Express

has to be this was a unique idea.

lt wasn't just a festival.

lt was a travelling festival.

Originally it was going to five cities.

You know, it became truncated to three.

Montreal and Vancouver got x'ed out.

But you have this idea of this caravan moving

from Toronto to Winnipeg to Calgary

it happens to be on a train, a private train,

and what's going to happen on that train

and what might that train produce

in terms of interesting social, cultural,

musicological situations.

Here we had a chance of the musicians

really having a party with each other.

Normally musicians leave after the show.

Their bus is already waiting and they go.

ln this case they were staying

and enjoying watching the other musicians playing

and then going together on a train for three days.

lt was like a... a really good chance

to get into the inside of the musician.

To get... get beyond the commercial image

that has always been created for them.

To get their personalities, you know?

And l think that the film with Janis Joplin

and some of the others really shows that.

l remember seeing the cameras, um,

but l don't remember knowing, uh,

what was going to happen with that footage,

or whether we expected there to be a film.

l think, uh, you know,

the newspaper reports in the following days,

and as the tour continued there was still coverage of it.

Uh, you know the word was out that the protests had,

you know, fucked the promoters,

and that despite the music and despite, uh,

the pleasure that the people who were attending

were having with the music,

uh, it was going to be a financial disaster.

So l think we assumed that, uh, you know,

the film was going to go down with that.

Well l think this is why the film has actually held up,

because the organizers of the festival lost a fortune,

and they were really embarrassed

about us showing all this fighting with police,

keeping people out.

lt was a ridiculous show, of course.

And apart from that, they were trying to

get a bigger share of the show.

Now suddenly, because they lost all this money, they thought,

''Well we maybe have something really big''

so they wanted to try to get a bigger share.

Anyway l don't want to talk about all that controversy,

that's a long time.

But that's why it took 30 years to get this film made.

What happened was, um, in about '75 or '76

uh, the actual Festival Express project

kind of collapsed on itself

as a result of multiple lawsuits

being tossed back and forth.

And, um, the film kind of went into a limbo.

l never heard about the footage again until about 1994,

when a friend of mine, Garth Douglas,

called and said that somebody he knew named Nick

um, had called to say that he'd met this lawyer in Rosedale,

who had said he might be interested

in looking at some film canisters in his garage.

And we went to this guy's garage

and we found about 150 big old film cans.

We took it back to our office, we rented a flatbed,

and discovered that what we had was a pile

of work-print slash-print, and bank stock.

And my first question was, ''Where's the neg?

Where are the sound materials?

This looks great, what is it?''

And, you know, you're looking at

dusty old, you know, cans of work-print

that say, you know, ''Janis Joplin, Full-tilt Boogie Band.

Traffic. Grateful Dead.

The Band. Mountain.''

( chuckling ) You just start...

you know, it's like at this point l'm, what?

ln my... in my late 30s

and l still love the music.

And that, you know, at that point l'm working professionally,

making documentaries about music, among other things,

and suddenly there's this treasure trove.

Turns out, garth calculates there's 30 hours of this stuff,

which is work-print.

Very little of it is, uh, is in synch.

Um, so the, uh, you know, the, uh,

the treasure hunt began.

Um, l had some preliminary meetings then with Garth

and with Ken Walker, the concert promoter.

And with Willem Poolman,

who was the producer of the original film shoot.

James and l made a deal with Willem,

and, uh, l started... l got on the phone

and spent five and a half months searching for this stuff,

talking to people all over North America:

old labs, defunct labs, old sound guys.

And finally dug this stuff up

in, uh, the National Archives of Canada,

in the crawley vaults.

Had about one-tenth of the stuff catalogued.

They had had an archivist in there

for about eight years, just...

and, uh, the son of Budge Crawley's old production manager,

Bill O'Farrell, Bill O'Farrell Junior,

was an archivist and he went in

and dug out stuff for 3 or 4 months.

We kept getting boxes of stuff.

Boxes of neg, boxes of print,

boxes of sound materials.

And we finally got what we felt was the... the entire film.

Yeah, l got a phone call from a mate of mine up in Toronto.

And he owns a studio up there called Metalworks.

His name is Gil and he was the drummer in a band called Triumph.

l used to produce them.

Anyways, he... he... he called me up and says,

''Listen, l... l've found this bloke.

He's got loads of film on... it's all up your alley.

lt's vintage stuff, you know.

Do you want to come up and do a quick mix?''

l said, ''Yeah, all right.''

And so he says, ''l'll send you a ticket.''

And l flew up toToronto,

met Garth Douglas,

who had apparently done all this investigative work

and found all this film.

And we transferred,

it must have 30 or 40 hours worth of audio tape...

um, to multi-track, from 8-track to 24.

And l mixed three sections.

One was the Band, one was The Grateful Dead,

and, um, the other was a Janis track.

And we put a little demo together.

And l thought, ''Well, it would be nice to do this movie.

There's some wonderful music.''

When l saw the footage it was like,

you know, it's like such a jigsaw puzzle

and l was quite intrigued

to try and see the thing through to fruition.

And l got a call from Garth Douglas

and he'd been talking to Eddie Kramer,

who... who was involved in the project,

mixing the tracks and that.

And l'd done a Hendrix thing, and Garth said,

''Look,'' you know, ''Will you be interested in getting involved?''

So l said, ''Yeah, it sounds fantastic.''

When l listened to the tapes for the first time,

l thought...

''l know what's gonna go on with this''

because this is 1970, it's 8-track,

lt's primitive conditions,

and it's very similar to the stuff l was doing with Jimi Hendrix,

which was the same period, same kind of problems,

you know, synching and non-synching

and all that nonsense.

And some of the tapes were okay, some of them were not.

Generally the quality is not up to modern-day standards,

so l knew l was in for a bit of a haul.

Creatively, it's almost like,

you know, a lot of the work's been done for me.

You know, a lot of it, it's been really well-shot.

Peter Biziou shot the stuff, as well as other cameramen

from England and fromToronto, and probably from the States.

And you know, Frank Sotonovich, who l knew anyway

was, you know, the original director,

and l met Frank a couple of times

when l was like, a young guy you know, trying to make films

and he had a good sort of spirit about him,

and l thought, oh, if Frank was involved,

Peter Biziou was involved,

it's good that l've been, you know,

one of the people who have been passed this ball

and been allowed to sort of run with it

and hopefully get it across the finish line. And get it done, you know

James and l worked on getting the project off the ground

for about five years, well, four or five years.

From the winter of '93, starting really in '94,

until '98 or '99, l'm not sure when.

l pretty quickly came to the decision

that is was, you know,

there was no way l had the time or resources

to try and put this thing together

because it was not so much the film-making part of it

but there seemed to be no chain of title.

There seemed to be no continuity of, uh,

you know, who signed what release for what.

We got to the point, literally,

where we understood that the whole process

was hampered by rights,

and the only way we were going to get a film made

is to get the rights done.

l think the difficulties were mostly the...

obtaining the rights from the producer... from the musicians.

And l think until it was financed,

you really... we couldn't really get that

Because the musicians wouldn't let us use their name to do the financing.

We had to have the financing first.

l just figured, you know, l'm a storyteller.

l want to tell stories. l don't want to hang out with lawyers.

So, uh, l, uh, bailed on it.

Um... some point thereafter...

Gavin Poolman came into the picture for me,

and 'cause l think he and Garth had been working together,

'cause l left the project.

And Gavin of course was Willem's son,

and it seemed like a logical move to say,

''Here.'' You know? ''God bless you. Good luck.

l'd love to see this done.''

And, uh, ''But l can't spend more...

you know, l've spent five years on it, that's enough for me.''

And then within like, a month, Garth said,

''Look, you know, this other guy's involved, Gavin Poolman.''

And l met Gavin, and you know, he seemed enthusiastic about it

and told me more of the history of the thing.

Well l was involved originally as a little kid

when my dad went of to produce the film,

and it sort of fell apart somehow.

l was a kid so l didn't really know how

And one day he came home with film cans to put in the garage.

Tonnes and tonnes of film cans,

and of course we moved a lot for various reasons,

and we always had to carry these film cans everywhere,

and l was going, ''Come on, Dad.

Why do we have to carry these cans around?

Can't we just, like, leave them behind?''

And ultimately the cans of flm that were in my garage,

turned into the film we're making now.

He kept the original guys on it.

He kept Kramer, and you...

lt was fun.

Bob went to Dublin and worked with the editor

who's working on the flm now, Eamonn Power,

and they cut together a show reel,

which, l almost cried when l saw it.

l didn't know it could possibly be this good.

And, uh, so we took the show reel around

with my producing partner, John Trapman,

and showed it to, basically, some wealthy individuals,

who decided that this was a risk worth taking.

So we financed the film completely

on the basis of this show reel being shown to wealthy people.

You can get an investor who is interested in rock music

and he has the money, he will get all very excited.

Like, l think l'm, myself, very excited the film is being made.

The great thing about this project is,

the archive, you know, tells a story.

You know, that's where the narrative is

rather than if you go out and interview loads of people

and their long-winded talking heads,

probably like this, like what l'm doing now,

you know, so much of the story comes from the footage,

you know exactly what's happening.

You know, it's there in the pictures and the sounds. lt's fantastic.

But it was very important for the film to tell its own story

rather than us to be discussing, you know,

the differences in the way that music has evolved

or some sociological or anthropological view,

which we felt would alienate an audience.

We're making a film that will hopefully show people

the love that the musicians had at the time for the music

that we as audiences had at the time, and still feel.

You know, when l look back on that era...

'67 through '72,

l... l've always thought of that

as the golden age of rock 'n roll.

And here, these disparate characters from the music biz,

and they... lt wasn't really even the music biz then.

These were wonderful musicians, on a train,

going from one place to another.

lt's like a... like... you know,

Jimi Hendrix said,

you know, his new band was going to be the band of gypsies.

This was really like a band of gypsies.

All sort of gathered together

in one place at one time

and moving through time to another city

and creating music at the same time.

lt's kind of bizarre but it's wonderful

also, because you're looking at people before they became icons,

they were just, you know, guys fromAlbuquerque

and a girl from Texas,

and a bunch of folks from the Gaspe.

They were just folks.

And to see them in that light,

to see them as people,

rather than North American icons

really gives it a nice flavour.

And l think that's what makes the Festival Express different.

That's what will make it different

from all the other rock films out there and there are a lot.

As someone who was there as a 16-year-old

and someone now who's a 48-year-old

who still loves the music and admires those musicians,

and the film-makers that are involved,

it almost seems, in an odd way,

that the wait's been worth it

because people are really going to appreciate it now.

And you know, handled right, and l think it will be,

it's going to be an extraordinary document

that, uh, will put people in touch

with a very rare moment in music.

Um, and a rare moment socially and culturally

that... that for 90 minutes,

people will be able to re-live on the screens.

The film was, l think, originally conceived

in about june of 1970.

Uh, it's... it's now December, 2002.

Hopefully it will be finished in the summer of 2003.

So this... we may make the Guinness Book of World Records:

33-year film production.

l don't think anyone else has ever done that

I was promoting concerts and festivaIs.

And prior to doing FestivaI Express,

the year before,

I did the first Toronto Pop FestivaI at Varsity Stadium.

And then, uh, that was in June,

and then in September we did the Rock'n RoII RevivaI.

WeII I had done a festivaI with Kenny WaIker,

he had done one in Toronto before,

I think it was rock 'n roII...

Toronto Rock 'n RoII... Toronto Rock 'n RoII FestivaI,

( cIearing of throat ) I beIieve it was.

John Lennon was there.

CIapton.

And, uh, from that, I think they got...

I knew Kenny, and from that I think they got the idea to...

''Wow. Let's, uh, Iet's do more festivaIs.''

I decided that the best way to traveI

and present the festivaI to as many peopIe as possibIe,

was to use stadiums.

Then the question came up, how to do it"?

How to move everybody "?

And Kenny's very kind of...

He's kind of an organizationaI genius.

He came up with the idea of...

This is my guess, educated guess,

that he came up with the idea to do it by train.

Everybody said it sounded great.

And the agents, having known what I did

with the Rock 'n RoII RevivaI,

um, you know I puIIed off a coup

by getting Lennon to come,

thought that I was very capabIe of doing it.

I knew the probIems he was having,

you know Iike the toiIets, for exampIe.

to make sure there's enough toiIets for everybody

And there was the whoIe big story

about how he printed the tickets

on Canadian currency, Iike on the paper.

To avert counterfeiting.

I mean he was thinking of everything.

One of these peopIe who think of every singIe contingency

You know, he sort of thought it aII out.

And he was a wiId guy

He, uh, he wouId occasionaIIy stop the train

and get out with his .38 magnum,

to hunt bear.

Of course he never got anything

because he had a IittIe chemicaI breakfast

and he probabIy couIdn't distinguish

the bears from the trees, you know.

The onIy ones that weren't so sure

they wanted to traveI on the train was the band.

Um, and, uh, JopIin said,

''Come on. It's gonna be a party.''

And so she got, I think,

Rick Danko to agree to come on the train.

When we first heard about it,

it sounded Iike a wonderfuI musicaI event.

You know, we get to get together

and interact with aII these musicians,

some of whom we don't see aII that often.

You know, some of them,

Janis, the new riders of the purpIe sage,

those guys, we saw them aII the time.

But the guys from the band,

and DeIaney and Bonnie, and peopIe Iike that,

this was... this was new for us

and there were going to be some reIativeIy fresh interactions,

you know, and the possibiIity for some new stuff to happen

and... which it sureIy did.

I was just a IittIe bass pIayer making $115 a week.

$135 a week with DeIaney and Bonnie.

I don't know. And I had just gotten in the band.

I was a kid. I had just turned 20.

I was 19 when I got with DeIaney and Bonnie.

I turned 20, and they said,

''Oh, we're gonna go. We're gonna go tour.

And we're going to Canada.''

And our band had just been formed.

We were just put together in apriI,

and this was in June.

So, um, we were okay. We were touring.

We were starting to pIay the music weII

But we were a new band.

Like, the GratefuI Dead had been around

for quite a whiIe, they were estabIished.

So, reaIIy, we were just IocaI boys from Canada

back... back in Canada,

the onIy time we ever pIayed Canada,

on the train of aII things.

And we were nobodies.

So to be... rub shouIders with aII these things,

it reaIIy was speciaI. It was quite speciaI.

For me, I never had a doubt.

It was an adventure.

And I was gonna enjoy it to the fuII,

no matter what happened.

But I was absoIuteIy, in my heart, set

that this was going to be a great time.

WeII, anybody who's into trains,

and I was writing songs about freight trains

and Iove and Iost Iove, and aII this stuff,

and riding a freight train, dusty boxcar waIIs,

stuff Iike that, I mean that...

I was not a hard seII.

Yeah... everyone, I think, just Ieaped at the chance

because it was so bizarre, the whoIe idea.

And, you know to have your whoIe worId move on...

CIickety-cIack over the raiIs, I mean...

I think that... it had a romantic appeaI.

I was in my mid-20s and writing for ''RoIIing Stone''.

And, you know this was reaIIy a chance of a Iifetime

to get invoIved in this.

You know, to be on this train with aII these amazing peopIe.

And you know it was a gig that I grasped with both hands, eagerIy.

It... there was a kind of a...

A thing happened with Woodstock,

whereby the concert grew out of aII proportions,

expected proportions,

and there was a point where they couId not seII any more tickets

or controI the numbers and the gates came down,

and the fences came down, and the peopIe came in.

And it was, what"? 500,000 peopIe or so.

Uh, that began to trigger this...

This idea of, ''music for the peopIe.

Free music for the peopIe''

Right"? ( ChuckIing )

Which is a great concept for the peopIe

but they have no idea of the amount of money

that it takes to put aII that on and make it happen.

In fact I was approached on my way in to the grounds

as I carried my guitar,

and someone tried to expIain to me this is the peopIe's music

and the peopIe shouIdn't have to pay for that.

And truIy, my response to him was,

''WeII, gee. What do you do for a Iiving"?''

He said, ''WeII I work at my father's cIothing shop.''

I said, ''This is reaIIy good, you know"?''

I'II be down tomorrow to get my free suit. The peopIe's suit.''

And he Iooked at me quizzicaIIy and said,

''What"?'' I said, ''Yeah, the peopIe's suit.

I'II be there to get mine tomorrow. WiII you be at work"?''

And it stopped him in his tracks

and I guess that's seIf-expIanatory now isn't it"?

And then there was a deIegation

that came to our offices on Dupont Street.

And they crashed into the office

and demanded to see me.

And they said they were the M4M;

the May 4th Movement.

And I said, ''I don't know what the May 4th Movement is.

If it's a cIub, I don't want to join.''

And so I said, ''I have no interest in joining any cIubs.''

And they said, ''No, weII we're here 'cause we want...

Music shouId be free. Free dope.

No pigs and 10%%% of the profits are to go to some...''

Daycare something or other.

And I said, ''Where are the profits going to come from

if we're not charging"?

And who the heII do you think is going to pay for putting this thing on"?

I'm not doing it for the good of my heaIth.

You know, we've got a budget of haIf a miIIion doIIars.

You got any spare change"?'' ( chuckIing )

So the guy said, you know

''You're just ripping us off.''

That's aII that they kept saying.

And it sounded good.

And so I said, you know ''This meeting is over.''

And I got up from behind my desk

and I grabbed him by the back of the neck and the arm,

and we were on the second fbor,

and I took him to the stairs,

and I pushed him down the stairs.

And there was raiIings on either side.

so I had my hands on both raiIs,

and I kicked him down the stairs.

There was a Iot of taIk, there was gonna be...

peopIe were going to crash the gates and disrupt it.

And there were peopIe Iike, on rooftops,

way at the end of where the fieId was,

where the concert fieId... the performing fieId was.

And peopIe yeIIing, screaming, you know,

''We shouId get to hear the concert for free.''

There was a great deaI made of, you know

''The pigs. The pigs.'' AII that stuff.

But, you know, truIy the mounted...

not the mounties, but the... the poIice,

the Toronto PoIice that were on horseback,

they were terrific.

And the horses are very good with crowds.

That's what they're trained for, is to not panic, and not doing...

but when you've got kids throwing pepper in a horse's eyes, I'm sorry.

That truth is that... ( chuckIing )

it can't be free, compIeteIy.

Somebody's gotta pay for something

to make it happen.

Even if... Even if you don't pay a ticket,

even if you don't pay money for tickets,

something's gotta be, you know...

you gotta rent a truck, you gotta rent a generator.

You know, somebody's gotta pay for it.

Some Iong-term friendships got estabIished there.

That's where I met Kenny Gradney for instance,

who Iater ended up being the bass pIayer for IittIe feet,

and aIso in one of my bands,

somewhere aIong the way there.

Um, but we became friends, uh,

we were both pretty much the kids,

you know of that entourage,

and we just had a Iot of fun together

'cause nobody took us seriousIy

And so we met, and somehow not being taken seriousIy,

we sort of maximized that.

We were aII young kids.

Everybody was reaIIy young.

This was what, 33 years ago"?

Everybody was young.

Everybody was Iike, ''Hey hey!'', you know"?

And the bass pIayer was, ahh, and I went, ''Give me that.''

He handed me his bass, I started pIaying.

You know, someone, ''Anybody want a drink"?'' You know"?

Passing the joint, passing whatever,

and just pIaying.

It was just us. We were Iike...

we became a famiIy instantIy.

It was amazing.

And we were just aII boxed in,

pIaying the music the same way

eating the same way,

faIIing off to sIeep Iike this the same way.

Or, if you had a IittIe sIeep.

I made them get me a IittIe sIeeping bed.

Then when I went to that,

It was Iike three girIs and a coupIe of guys,

and then, I'm Iike, ''So how did you get in"?''

''Shh!'' ( chuckIing )

That's what was said to me.

''Okay, man. I'm not going to put you of.

You know, just have fun.''

There were some reaIIy deIicious moments.

AII these, you know weII-known musicians

just drooIing, you know

foaming at the mouth, going absoIuteIy nuts,

crawIing up and down the aisIes.

Oh, you know, absoIuteIy drunk out of their minds.

And these were peopIe who didn't drink a Iot, I... I got a feeIing.

AIthough the bIues guys of course, probabIy aII drank a Iot.

But the guys in my band didn't drink that much.

For one thing, many of these bands

were from the oId Haight-Ashbury:

Janis, the GratefuI Dead,

AIso the rise of the PurpIe Sage.

And this was a... reaIIy a wonderfuIIy,

sort of magicaI, sort of bohemian community

tiII it got overrun in the summer of Iove.

And in the meantime, everybody had become hugeIy famous.

I mean the dead were, you know, huge symboIs of hippie cuIture.

Janis was a huge star.

And I think that everybody you know,

thought of this as a sort of, you know,

a kind of, uh...

Haight-Ashbury high schooI reunion, you know

Like... and it was very much Iike that.

You can't pIay music and get rich.

And I mean even the cats that get a hundred grand a gig, you know"?

They don't get fuckin' rich. It goes everywhere.

Because musicians, essentiaIIy, aren't in a position

where money is what's happening with them.

Music is what's happening, and the money goes pIaces.

Every musician that gets a Iot of bread, man,

spends it on their cuIture, man, on their scene, man.

They spend it on dope. They spend it, you know..

They Iay it out, man. To other peopIe just Iike them, man.

And it stays in the fucking community

and it moves around reaI fast.

And the reason there are so many heads

who are abIe to Iive on the street

is because there's a fucking Iot of musicians

make a Iot of bread and spend it though.

Man: You don't see rich musicians

wearing brooks brothers suits. WeII, you see...

You know, that's aII I can say, man,

is we ain't from here.

WeII I wanted to make sure that if...

anybody was too high to perform,

or too Iow to perform,

that I had somebody on board that was abIe to straighten them out.

And then I thought, uh, that if, uh... uh...

anybody needed surgery

I wanted somebody capabIe of doing that.

The doctor was reaIIy busy

because you know, peopIe had to perform and Iike,

he was Iike, you know, giving doses of speed,

with, you know B-12 shots.

And everybody got... everybody was going...

at one point, was going back, puIIing their pants down.

In the IittIe medicaI section, you know,

to get some kind of shot of one thing or the other.

If I've got a performer that's too high this way

you have what's necessary to bring them down.

And if they're too far down,

you have what's necessary to bring them up.

And if they're too far this way

you have what's necessary to centre them out.

But the show's gotta go on.

That's your job.

When we got to Winnipeg,

I had rented the OIympic swimming pooI,

and, um, 'cause I figured, you know,

there's no showers on a train and, um,

they're gonna want to wash up.

So we rented the pooI

and I had them cIose it to the pubIic.

They bus us aII up there, right"?

We're getting off the train, we're stinky.

We haven't bathed in two and a haIf days,

and we're stoned and drunk,

and we puII up, and there's these kids standing there!

''25 cents. You have... for your trunks,

you have to pay 25 cents for your trunks.''

We aII Iook at them.

We stand up. We start taking our cIothes off.

We're there buck naked.

With those IittIe things Iike they have

in the supermarkets, you have to...

jump over that.

Everybody just jumps in the pooI, buck naked.

It's Iike, ''Oh wait! You can't...!''

Think Janis decided that, uh,

she was gonna go starkers into the pooI.

And so she tore off her cIothes and jumped in the pooI.

And I got a caII from the pooI manager

Who said to me,

''There's some crazy woman here who's taken her cIothes off.

Can't happen.''

He said, ''You're gonna have to get her to get dressed again.''

So I said, ''You know, this is, uh... uh...

an unscheduIed thing.

None of them brought bathing suits,

and the pooI's supposed to be cIosed to the pubIic.

What the heII are you worried about"?

Nobody's going to see it except you.

And if you teII me you're standing there and watching,

then you're teIIing me what kind of a pervert you are.''

( Iaughing )

Word got out that I had just punched out the mayor

and that's when JopIin and some of them

decided to make that modeI train that I have,

and present it to me.

They were just fIipped out,

and the mayor... I had him on the ground.

And, uh, I mean I was weighing in at about 230 pounds,

and he was maybe 110 pounds soaking wet.

So when I hit him, he went...

I Iifted him right off his feet.

And then I jumped down and I was gonna...

I had a hand, my hand... had a handfuI of his throat,

and I was drawing back to deIiver another one.

I wouId have kiIIed him.

And, uh... ( ChuckIing )

There was some guy hoIding my arm.

And someone... You know, ''Let go of me!''

And I'm trying to swing this way,

and I kept saying, ''I'm gonna kiII this son of a bitch!''

And... so this guy flashed his badge.

He was chief honcho from the R.C.M.P. in Edmonton,

and said that, ''You did good, but don't hit him again.''

You know there was Ken chasing him down the haIIway

the mayor taking a swing at him,

and the doctor saying to him,

''Ken, I've aIready given you 5 tranquiIIisers

I hadn't sIept in four days.

So, and then after that scene with the mayor,

my bIood pressure was right through the roof.

And so he had what was necessary to stabiIize me,

'cause when he said, ''I'm gonna hospitaIise you'',

I said, ''Like heII you are. I'm not going.

There's nobody eIse to run the show.

And the show's gotta go on.''

So I said, ''I'm not going to any bIoody hospitaI.

Now you've been hired to do a job, do it.''

So he gave me, I don't know, something to caIm me down.

And, uh, but I know that the capiIIaries on my forehead

Were so cIose to the surface

that if I wiped my hand,

there'd be bIood on my fingers.

You wanted to stay on that train

And go to the bar car one more time,

and...

go to the restaurant car and dine,

reIax with your friends

and it wouId have been nice if we had to traveI

maybe 100,000 miIes that way. it wouId have been great.

( chuckIing ) You know, 'cause I was having so much fun

I didn't want the train to stop.

Just make a u-turn and go back.

It... It was bittersweet.

We were aII parting company the next day

and we were sad about that

'cause, you know, we were good friends,

good buddies at this point.

But at the same time, young as we were,

we knew our bodies weren't going to take much more of this.

So the prospect of getting a IittIe sIeep,

of maybe Iaying of the hooch for a few nights

and aII that kind of stuff,

that seemed...

that seemed Iike a better and better idea

as the hours went on.

We aII were staying at the Banff Springs hoteI

which is a big...

It's Iike the hoteI in ''The Shining''

and it kind of overIooks this big Iake.

And we went... that...

That night, we aII sort of gathered

in one of these big, oId rooms in the hoteI,

and, you know, everybody kind of created this sort of iIIusion

that we were stiII on the train

because nobody reaIIy wanted it to end.

And peopIe were saying,

''I can hear the fan bIowing in my room, and I can...''

I mean peopIe got very sentimentaI

and nostaIgic about this

because it was a reprise, as I said,

of the Haight-Ashbury.

And aIso it was Iike this... this wonderfuI, uh,

you know communaI feeIing that suddenIy was ended,

and it was over.

Everybody was crying.

Nobody wanted to go home.

I was sitting in a windowsiII with Janis,

and she had a bottIe and we were smoking a fatty,

and she goes,

''Lemme pIay you this song Kris wrote for me.''

And she starts singing Bobby McGee.

And I just start bawIing.

I mean I'm sitting there, Janis JopIin's on acoustic guitar

Singing Bobby McGee to me.

I'm 20 years oId. I was Iike, freaking out.

It was unbeIievabIe.

When I think back on it,

it makes me smiIe, mostIy.

And when that happens, you know,

then it's not such a bad thing, you know.

You may have forgotten a Iot of the detaiIs,

but I can... when I... when I think of it,

aII I can do is... is crack up.

It was reaIIy a Iot of fun.

And it was a growing experience.