by “Dangerous” Bob Sauer

[Editor’s note: The following testimonial is true. “Dangerous” Bob assures us that he took no journalistic liberties with his recounting of the following events.]

Want to feel old? Admit out loud that you saw live news reports of the infamous hippy invasion of Waupaca County back in June 1970. Want to feel just as old but lucky? Admit you were part of that invasion and you are happy to report you can still sit up, take nourishment, and have retained a substantial amount of wits about you. Yes, earlier this summer marked the 55th anniversary of the “Earth Peoples Fair,” better known as the Iola Rock Festival. Barely a year after Woodstock, a crowd of, according to one estimate, 80,000 hipsters came to occupy a 200-acre hayfield off County MM just west of the ski hill.

A massive swarm of ’60s survivors descended on this area with “high” hopes of finding love, freedom, music, drugs, communal companionship, sharing, drugs (redundancy intended), and a new frontier. Sure, I guess drugs and free love were signature elements of the culture at that time, but the overpowering magnetic force drawing people together was always the music. Everything boiled down to the music. The music helped us express our purpose. Music gave us a unified, galvanized resolve. And hey, let’s face it, music gave us a reason to dance all crazy-like. And that monumental event aimed to deliver. For the three days of Friday, June 26, through Sunday, June 28, 1970, a non-stop full out rock ’n’ roll blitz included the likes of Paul Butterfield, Johnny Winter, Steve Miller, Amboy Dukes (Ted Nugent), Soup, Brownsville Station, Crow, Chuck Berry, Mason Proffit, Fuse (Cheap Trick), Short Stuff, Seigel-Schwall, Buffy St. Marie, and more than 20 other bands.

You’re likely not wondering if yours truly was there, but if you are — you bet your Beatle boots and love beads I was. And so eager to be a part of that human zoo that myself and six other long-haired leaping gnomes piled into my ’62 Belair and got to the show Thursday, a day early.

Once we got into Waupaca County, we just had to follow the crude directions posted every mile or so on rummage sale type signs along Highway 49 and County MM to the festival site. Along with other early birds, we pulled into the recently harvested second crop of hay parking lot. Three tie-dyed, Deadhead-looking chaps were waving and pointing white canes directing vehicles to assigned spots. It was a mostly orderly, somewhat organized matrix of semi-equally spaced-out parking stalls. Between giving directions, the three guys engaged in mock sword fights while prancing and frolicking around like fairytale pixies. To me, these dudes appeared to be semi-equally spaced out, too.

Anyway, we all left our inhibitions, common sense, and moral compasses in the car for safekeeping and headed for the grand entrance. There we were greeted by a group of fully blossomed flower children who attached bright blue wrist bands on us after collecting our pre-paid admission tickets ($10 in advance; $14 at the gate) available at head shops and record stores everywhere. I don’t know about the other guys but being so ceremoniously banded like that made me feel like a fledgling falcon being released into the wild.

The entrance itself was flanked on one side by a large military style medical tent (dubbed “Acid Rescue”) and by a huge previously abandoned barn on the other. The barn was almost immediately annexed by a couple dozen leather clad motorcycle club members who were allowed to keep their Harley’s there too. An interesting juxtaposition of welcoming committees to be sure.

Since we were among the first handful of attendees, we got camping rights as close to the stage as was allowed. We staked out our claim to this absolutely primo, unobstructed spot a mere 80 yards from the stage with a green 10×20 canvas tent. Our second order of business was to baptize and inaugurate our area by raising tall and conspicuously our sovereign flag. An interlocking series of extra tent poles hoisted up an old bed sheet boldly proclaiming, “Fox Valley Freaks.” This new glory beacon would be a rallying point for our later arriving buds as well as a visual landmark reference for us to find our way back after the many magical mystery excursions we were sure to make for the next three days.

We stowed our gear and started assembling our sacred fire ring while watching in awe as the festival construction crew put the finishing touches on the gigantic stage sprawled out in front of us. Two immense walls of Marshall amps framed the scaffolding, which supported row after row of colored lights and special effects equipment. The stage itself looked like it could accommodate a full court basketball game.

All Thursday night and into the wee hours of Friday morning, legions of the funky faithful were trickling into the grounds adding to the steadily growing encampment. By Friday noon, the music had started, and the trickle turned into a tsunami of humanity making their way through Iola and surrounding communities.

Later videos and still photos would show locals lining Main Street in Iola watching with, I’m sure, a curious uncertainty as this slow, steady procession made its way through the village. It likely reminded some of the Barnum and Bailey circus train of yesteryear coming into town. In this circus, however, the exotic attractions weren’t in cages on trailers. This time they arrived in red, white, and blue buses; panel trucks and vans crammed full of New Age beatniks; motorcycles; scooters; and car after car all heading for some social nirvana.

This tribal migration to the promised land was, for many of us, an attempt to find new hope for old dreams. After all, the nightmare of Vietnam was still raging, and inner cities were literally burning as the civil rights movement became more and more uncivilized. Nobody seemed to give peace a chance. I guess we thought we could help change that — one gig at a time.

Hey, check this out: speaking of new hope, the actual New Hope church grounds became, coincidently and/or ironically, the operational headquarters for several jurisdictions of law enforcement. Somehow an agreement was reached that officers would not have presence on the festival grounds, but they would keep traffic moving smoothly and be on hand for any emergency.

I think it was David Crosby (of Crosby, Stills, and Nash fame) who said, “If you can remember the ’60s you weren’t there.” Well, Dave (may he rest in peace signs, by the way) just to establish that I was not fried extra crispy like you, but rather just fried original recipe, here’s a few more select memories I’m willing to share. Keep in mind some have been recalled through the purplish haze of the time.

• Even today, sitting around backyard family campfires, I occasionally experience a certain olfactory flashback to the ever-lingering smoke wafting from the hundreds of friendly fires burning at the festival. Hot embers were incessantly baking a variety of precious vittles as well as the cooks tending them.
• The tents and tarps that would define the inner city of the event eventually took on the look of a Moroccan bazaar with goods and services specific to this demographic. Crude but descriptive signs advertised a wide variety of herbs, spices, and dried, prepackaged exotic vegetation. If you needed your “prescription filled,” tables and crates displayed pills, tablets, and capsules of assorted colors, shapes, and sizes. One overly organized entrepreneur employed a super-huge Plano fishing tackle box full of enlightenment medication. The trays and slots in the tackle box that were intended for treble hooks, sinkers, and spinner baits were instead occupied with purple micro-dots, orange barrels, green ovals, blue wedges, roundish yellow sunshine, and tiny plain white, slightly smeared paper blotters compliments, allegedly, from Dr. Tim way out in Berkeley.
• Oh, here’s a good one: On Saturday afternoon, we carried one of our compatriots Egyptian style through the crowd to Acid Rescue after she boogied herself off a lawn chair during one of Ted Nugent’s 10-minute solos. I’m sure she didn’t feel a thing but the awkward tumble from the chair left her with a real nasty gash on her right knee. We watched only slightly horrified as the medical staff at Acid Rescue proceeded to clean and stitch up our friend. In the next bed compartment over we couldn’t help but overhear a distraught young lady in a complete meltdown panic. After the staff calmed her down a bit, she explained that she was freaking out because of all the chemical cocktails she’d consumed and the negative effects it might have on her unborn child. Hearing this the medical staff were appropriately concerned and asked her what trimester she was in. The girl thought briefly, counted to two on her fingers and finally admitted she’s been pregnant for just about an hour and a half. Whoa, noisy mitosis or what?
• I hope I never forget to remember a real special new friend I met from a couple of tents over. Her name was, she said, Ruby Tuesday which seemed about right since she was wearing a giant crimson sombrero, blaze red knee socks, and cherry red lipstick. She was there with friends from Rockford, Illinois, and they were off somewhere doing something. After exchanging pleasantries for a while she invited me to “cop a squat” (sit down in the dirt) and share a lunch with her. Lunch, in this case, consisted of a 3” x 3” Rice Krispie Treat that we shared one kernel at time. Picture this: Ruby T. would meticulously, almost surgically pluck one little Krispie from the treat between two weirdly steady fingernail tips (painted red of course). She would bite the kernel in half and mouth to mouth feed me the minuscule remains much like a mother bird might feed her baby. That glorious one-course meal lasted through most of Seigel-Schwall’s sweet bluesy set. Between tiny bites we sat, swayed, finger popped, and enjoyed what, I’m pretty sure, was the coolest, least-filling lunch of my life.
• All the acts and performers on the festival bill seemed legitimately age-appropriate except, at first, for one: Big Band leader Buddy Rich and his 12-piece orchestra. I mean after a day and a half of long-haired rockers laying down incendiary guitar shreds, bass licks, and blues rifts, suddenly there’s two rows of guys in button-down shirts and suit coats taking the stage, packing trombones, horns, and saxophones. A lot of the crowd, myself included, watched with a dubious eye, this seemingly square band in a decidedly round rock ’n’ roll hole. It didn’t appear dubious for long. Buddy introduced himself and his band before climbing up to a platform above the orchestra to three complete drum sets situated side by side. He sat himself down in the middle drum set, smacked his drumsticks together four times, and the band broke into, oh I don’t know, a “Night Train to Somewhere” tune that was as loud, proud, and muscular as anything we’ve seen. Their act went on roaring with super tight heavy melodies as Buddy, the self-proclaimed best drummer in the world, pounded out the rhythm without mercy as he jumped from one drum set to another. For over two hours they totally blew us away. Gotta say I didn’t see that one coming.
• Well, all’s weird that ends weird. Early Sunday morning’s blurred and burned-out serenity was alarmingly interrupted with the sound of gun shots and screaming. A small stampede of hipsters were running around all Helter Skelter from the direction of the entrance and more specifically from the biker barn. It turns out that around daybreak some of the biker types had initiated some non-consensual “dancing” with a couple of hippy chicks. An altercation broke out and in retaliation a couple of hippy dudes started some Harleys on fire. The bikers hated that and their counter retaliation involved gunshots being fired into that part of the crowd. No lives were lost, but there were several injuries. I’m not sure who, what, or when anyone was arrested and charged after that chaotic scene. What I am sure about is that, apparently, nothing is sacred because, even in the promised land, promises can be broken. But still, wow what a trip!

Photos by Richard Sroda of Amherst Junction. Courtesy of Liz Zenk.