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New York Rock Festival - Fri Aug 02, 1968 - Fri Aug 30, 1968
Singer Bowl, Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, Queens, New York
Organised by Shelly Finkel and Gary Kurfirst. The Singer Bowl was a multipurpose stadium built for the 1964 New York World's Fair and demolished in 2016. Originally named for the Singer Sewing Company. This was the bill, Big Brother and The Holding Company, Soft Machine, The Chambers Brothers, The Doors, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Rascals, The Vagrants, The Who. A pretty major line-up. 18,000 turned up.
The kickoff show included the likes of The Doors and The Who, the second show was by Janis Joplin, Soft Machine, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the final featured The Rascals and The Vagrants with Leslie West. Pete Townshend’s inspiration for the song ‘Sally Simpson’ (from Tommy) was the pandemonium he saw during The Doors set, when The Who opened for them on August 2nd.
Hendrix was on a big American tour and this line-up was a mini Woodstock, a year ahead of the real thing. The Doors were number one with Waiting For The Sun.
The following year the bill was even bigger Buddy Guy, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Edwin Hawkins Singers, James Brown, Larry Coryell, Led Zeppelin, N.R.B.Q., Odetta, Pentangle, Procol Harum, Raven, Steppenwolf, Ten Years After, The Chambers Brothers, The Incredible String Band, The Jeff Beck Group, The Moody Blues, Tim Hardin, Tom Paxton and Vanilla Fudge, spread over four gigs in August.
