Bigger Than Woodstock But Somehow Forgotten-The Summer Jam 1973 Music Festival!

The Bathroom Situation

We all know that big outdoor festivals always face toilet problems. Even this festival had to have a number of portable toilets. The Summer Jam had to place all these toilets in a row that spread a long distance. The concert planners had to shell out about $50,000 to provide the portable toilets. These toilets needed 100,000 gallons of water to function as well. 

Festival Attendee’s Account

An attendee told interviewers about the whole experience and explained, “Later that night, someone set the Port-o-sans on fire, so after a whole day of not being able to go to the bathroom, I had to go pee in a burning Port-o-san. It was a completely bizarre environment. At some point, I just had to get away from everybody, because I was so disoriented.”

A Peaceful Event

“Peace, Love, and Drugs” appeared to be the slogan for Summer Jam. Even though the festival took place in a very confined area with an overwhelming number of crowds, there were not many altercations reported. There was a report about someone getting stabbed, but it was later debunked. The only crime committed was something as petty as breaking fences and getting intoxicated leading to people using the locals’ bathrooms.

Nude People

Since Summer Jam was more or less the same as Woodstock, of course, there were nude people. A farmer staying nearby the venue revealed an instance, “There was one red-haired woman … she walked across here and didn’t have a damn thing on, only a ribbon around her hair. You couldn’t help but get a kick out of something like that.” There were various fights that broke out in other raceway festivals.

Terror at the Altamont Speedway

In 1969, there was a counterculture concert that took place at Altamont Speedway in Northern California. Performers included Santana, Jefferson Airplane, and the Rolling Stones. The concert had 300,000 people which would amount to half the fans at the Summer Jam. This was a smaller event but would go down in history as one of the most violent festivals ever. Someone was stabbed during the Stones’ set, an LSD intake led to someone drowning, and a hit-and-run car resulted in 4 people dying.

A Violent Event Indeed

Even the musicians got injured at this event. Rolling Stones magazine wrote, “That’s the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn’t even get to play.” The magazine even called it “rock and roll’s all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when everything went perfectly wrong.” There were however, many people misbehaving at Summer Jam too…