July 31 marks the 43rd anniversary of the Powder Ridge Rock Festival—or would if the festival had gone off as planned. Instead, it marks the 43rd anniversary of the intersection of 30,000 young people, no food or entertainment, and lots of hallucinogenic drugs.
The festival was scheduled for three days at the end of July and the beginning of August at the Powder Ridge Ski Area in Middlefield, Connecticut. Some of the biggest bands of the era were slated to play: Sly and the Family Stone, Fleetwood Mac, the Allman Brothers, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Cactus, Spirit, and James Taylor. The lineup was announced and tickets were sold. In the years after the 1969 “Aquarian Explosion” known as Woodstock, hippie music festivals were wildly unpopular among townsfolk and wildly popular among young people. Citing the negative impact residents believed the festival would have on their town, they fought for and won an injunction, which asserted that the festival was canceled and any performers who showed up would be arrested.
The injunction, delivered on July 27, might have prevented most of the musicians from playing at the festival, but it didn’t prevent the concertgoers from descending on Powder Ridge. 30,000 young people showed up despite the warning signs posted on highways, state troopers posted in the area, and a forced electrical blackout. The ski area owner was beside himself as the scene turned ugly, with the crowd at the foot of the ski hill ingesting LSD and mescaline, fueling dozens of bad trips. Sanitation and clean water also became a problem. However, many who attended the “unfestival” still have happy memories of the event.
Of all the musicians slated to play the festival, only one, singer-songwriter Melanie, stood up to the injunction. She plugged her equipment into a Mister Softee truck generator and played her hit songs.
At the end of the weekend, the hippies packed up their tents and returned home. The Powder Ridge Rock Festival would go down in history as one of dozens of canceled hippie fests of the era, but one of the only ones where the attendees turned up anyway.
