It’s arguable that 1967’s Monterey International Pop Music Festival was the FIRST official long-hair music festival, BUT local fest Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair was (probably) the first multi-day/multi-band outdoor music fest to happen in an open air venue; the venue being on open farm land near Sultan, Warshington.
Sky River happened over the Labor Day weekend in 1968 and about 20,000 people attended the happening and, in all there were maybe 20 or so groups and performers doing their thing, including an unscheduled set by the Grateful Dead.
I was told by a friend who attended the event “rain settled in on that Sunday afternoon, but as the Dead took the stage and played their ‘Anthem of the Sun,’ the clouds broke and the sun shone through. It was cosmic.” And, yeah, this was a year before Woodstock. The Big Sky fest, tho’ important, isn’t the story I wanna tell. See, unless you were around in ’68, you might not have known without an earlier event—called the Piano Drop—Sky River Rock Festival would not have happened.
This piano drop, which has since been called “a one-day Dadaist spectacle,” took place in late April ’68, in the village of Duvall, and was a benefit for underground mag Helix and local radio station KRAB. Oh, not only was there a “piano drop,” but Country Joe and the Fish were the featured musical entertainment. The “show” was free with a ticket stub from CJ&tF’s earlier Eagles Auditorium shows or you had to pay ONE dollar as a cover. I recommend you read the full bit at Collectors Weekly, but it seems the piano drop evolved via musicians Gary Eagle and Larry Van Over, as they hoped to replicate the “interesting” sound of a piano being beaten to pieces as heard on some radio show, or maybe it was an attempt to make a bigger SOUND of a piano falling off the back of a truck—there’s still debate over the inspiration. Either way the sound of the piano being destroyed sounded cool, literally, so, they reckoned the idea of dropping a piano from greater heights, via helicopter onto a pile of scrap wood, might produce an even COOLER sound.
Gosh, it made sense at the time. Really, what could go wrong, dropping a piano from a helicopter onto a pile of wood in the middle of a crowd?! The act of destroying things as a pop spectacle was certainly not new; English pop group the Move were known for smashing TVs on stage, but they weren’t DROPPING fucking TVs from a helicopter. Anyway, then, they fucking made it happen, kinda; all was cool as the band played, 3,000 punters even turned up, but when the time came to drop the piano, shit got tense.
(The Pilot) tried to stop directly above the log pile, but the piano just kept dragging him… When the helicopter was up there, and the piano started to sway, the helicopter started to sway, too. And they sort of swayed below and above one another—you didn’t know which one was in control.
(The Pilot) “hit the harness release, but nothing happened. He then hit the emergency cable release, and the piano snapped free.” “When I saw that thing fall, my heart went from my chest straight into my head, just like that…” And I thought, ‘My God, I hope it doesn’t hit anybody,’ because I had just spent 20 minutes trying to get people to move back and make a larger, safer area around the target.” Which the piano spectacularly missed.
Of course it did! Still, even as the piano missed its target and only made a dull thump when it hit the ground, it was happily dismantled by those attending the happening! In the end, the dollar a head fee covered the helicopter rental, piano purchase, with the rest of the cash getting split evenly between Helix and KRAB. All told, the happening was considered a success! Sheesh, I love it took 3,000 long hairs, Country Joe and the Fish playing on in the back of a truck, and the death of a perfectly used piano to inspire the first REAL music festival in the Pacific Northwest, and most likely the first proper long-hair music fest in the US. God damn.
If y’all wanna read more about the Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair, dig Seattle Times, Seattle Star, AND History Link Sky River Rock Festival features.