{"id":182,"date":"2010-03-09T05:25:33","date_gmt":"2010-03-09T10:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=182"},"modified":"2026-09-18T08:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T12:16:30","slug":"bootleg-bin-festival-actuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/03\/09\/bootleg-bin-festival-actuel\/","title":{"rendered":"Bootleg Bin: Festival Actuel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.musoscribe.com\/images\/actuel_fest.jpg\" width=\"227\" height=\"225\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" \/>In October 1969 &#8212; two and a half months after Woodstock &#8212; the rock festival was at its peak. Eclectic festivals were the norm. So it was then that the French indie\/jazz music mag Actuel planned to sponsor a five-day show in Paris. Oddly, they chose <strong>Frank Zappa<\/strong> to serve as emcee. Speaking no French, Zappa chose to communicate through music, and jammed onstage with a few of the groups. Last-minute permit difficulties forced the relocation of the festival to Mont de l&#8217;Enclus in Amougies Belgium. A film was made of concert highlights, but owing to performance-rights issues, the film, <em>Music Power<\/em>, was never released.<\/p>\n<p>So ended the story&#8230;almost. In 2005 a figure known only as &#8220;JJB&#8221; released his audience tapes of the show to interested parties at no charge. While the tapes are not release quality &#8212; distortion and tape speed problems are evident, and the taper simply switched off his recorder mid-song if he didn&#8217;t care for an act &#8212; the music serves as an important historical document.<\/p>\n<p>The tapes include complete sets by several major acts. <strong>Ten Years After<\/strong> built upon their newfound fame. The original <strong>Yes<\/strong> lineup played a rousing set of mostly covers. The <strong>Nice <\/strong>(featuring <strong>Keith Emerson<\/strong>) did a set, one of their last before folding. Canterbury favorites <strong>Caravan <\/strong>played a full set, as did <strong>Captain Beefheart<\/strong>. <strong>Pink Floyd<\/strong> jammed with Zappa, as did overlooked psychedelic group <strong>Blossom Toes<\/strong>. (Happy 64th birthday today to Blossom Toes&#8217; Jim Cregan.) In most cases, Zappa would just surprise the musicians mid-set and walk on. Interviewed in March 2006, Blossom Toes guitarist Brian Godding told me, &#8220;Frank [came] on, tuned up and [tried] to teach us one of his tunes&#8230;in front of the crowd!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ten discs in all, the <em>Festival Actuel<\/em> set provides a time-capsule alternative to Woodstock. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the progressive end of late 60s rock.<\/p>\n<p><em>Difficulty to Locate: 9 out of 10<br \/>\nGeneral Listenability: 7 out of 10<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In October 1969 &#8212; two and a half months after Woodstock &#8212; the rock festival was at its peak. Eclectic festivals were the norm. So it was then that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bootleg","category-review","cat-11-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32455,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/32455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}