more bare breasts than I could have ever hoped for

While I was posting last week about Wolfman Jack, among others, Wikipedia

reminded me about the Ozark Music Festival, which the Wolfman hosted.  I

was one of the 350,000 or so sweltering souls at the festival.  This is my best

recollection of the event.

 

Today is the perfect time to tell it.  It’s below freezing outside, which is a stun-

ning palette of whites, off-whites, slightly-off-whites and greys. Fog’s wandering

through the valley.  The shallows of the pond are solidifying,  slowly herding

the ducks to the middle.

 

Friday,July 19th, 1974, was the polar opposite of today, if the poles could get

hot.  It was a typically miserable mid-summer day in southeastern Kansas.

We could almost swim in the humidity — we being me and my friends Dick

and Ducks.  We worked at an adolescent group home.  That morning we had

to interview a kid for admission, then we were heading to central Missouri

to rock out for the weekend.

 

The festival, being held at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, had lined

up some top groups.  Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, BTO, Charlie Daniels, the

Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent, Boz Scaggs, Bob Seger and Spirit led the

way.  We were particularly keen to catch the Eagles.  Their Desperado album,

released in ’73, had captivated us with its treatment of the Dalton gang

shootout in nearby Coffeyville.

 

Our interviewee and his social worker didn’t show up until late afternoon.

Then we had to drive to Kansas City to leave my seven-year-old son with my

parents.  After supper with them, we called the Missouri Highway Patrol and

found out that the interstate to Sedalia was actually clear.  We headed out.

 

We got there about 11 p.m.  As we neared the main stages, we walked through

a traffic tunnel filled with drug vendors.  I made a few purchases, knowing that

if I ran out and had no money left, I could hang around the pot-smoke-filled

tunnel until I’d reached my target saturation point.

 

We found a spot between two school buses parked next to the fence that sep-

arated the spectators from the spectacles.  There was a service road on the

other side of the buses.  Joe Walsh was just finishing “Rocky Mountain Way”.

I asked a neighbour if the Eagles had played yet.

 

“Oh, yeah, man,” he replied.  “Just before Walsh.  Two fuckin’ hours.”

 

Walsh was the last act of the night.  Wolfman Jack came out and asked us to

settle in for the night because there was a lot of music lined up for tomorrow.

When the first band kicked things off Saturday, it was already hot.  It hit 107 F.

(42 C.).  One would think such a temp would burn the humidity out of the air.

One would be wrong that day.

 

It was just brutal.  We stayed in our spot, moving only to keep in the shade.

The spot was not without its advantages.  We were close to the stages.  The

thousands of folks constantly walking by included hundreds of bare-breasted

women.  I hate to admit this even now, but I would lose interest from time to

time.  It had to be the heat.

 

By afternoon, the overdoses began piling up.  Speed and a blistering sun don’t

particularly go well together.  Golf carts with a driver and a slumped over pas- 

senger beeped their way through the throngs on the road.  Helicopters flew

the OD’s out.

 

By evening, it was slightly less hot.  I amused myself by watching a couple

copulate under the bus in front of us.  They would roll one way, then back,

as if they were somehow cradled by the flat Missouri ground.  When they

finished, she exited from under one side of the bus, he the other.  I wonder

if they still write each other.

 

Then a guy tried to climb over the fence that separated the air-conditioned

RV’s of the musicians from the sweaty masses.  A security guard clubbed the

guy’s knuckles until he gave up.  Later, when Kansas demi-god Jim Ryun

addressed those masses and frothed on about all the love and peace he saw,

I wanted to yell out about the knuckle busting.  But that would have required

energy.

 

At 10 p.m. it was still beastly, even though there was abundant shade.  I was

still dripping sweat, wondering why we couldn’t get a break like the famous

thunderstorm at Woodstock.  Then, from a cloudless sky, I felt water drops

cool on my skin.  Was this our deliverance?

 

No.  It was a guy on top of one of the buses pissing on us.  Mind you, it wasn’t

malicious urination.  He was yelling “Whee!” and twisting his body in an

oscillating water sprinkler manner.  It was over before anyone could muster

up enough strength or interest to move. 

 

Dick, Ducks and I left Sunday when there were still some bands to play.  We

were wrung out.  With the relentless heat and humidity, the endless casualties

and the choppers overhead, it was too much like Vietnam for me.  On the plus

side, the music was better and our beer stayed cooler.