Posted Tue Dec 17, 2013 at 10:00 AM PST by Tom Landy
The fabled rock concert heads to Blu-ray in February.
In an early announcement to retailers, Shout Factory will be releasing 'Festival Express' on Blu-ray on February 11.
In the summer of 1970, some of the era’s biggest rock stars all took to the rails for Festival Express, a multi-artist, multi-day, multi-city concert tour that captured the spirit and imagination of a generation. What made it unique was that it was portable; for five days, the bands and performers lived, slept, rehearsed and let loose aboard a customized train that traveled from Toronto, to Winnipeg, to Calgary, with each stop culminating in a mega-concert.
Festival Express captures some of rock’s most iconic artists in an extraordinary setting, during an incredible time in music history. These were some of Janis Joplin’s final performances, as she would tragically lose her life just 3 months later. The Band were at the height of their time together, and the Grateful Dead were in the midst of releasing future classics Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty.
The entire experience was filmed both off-stage and on, chiefly by Peter Biziou, who would later win an Oscar for “Mississippi Burning,” but the extensive footage and sound tapes of the events remained locked away for decades, only recently having been rediscovered and restored. The film Festival Express is a momentous achievement in rock film archaeology which combines the long-lost material with contemporary interviews that add important context to the event nearly 35 years after originally being filmed.
The release includes the original feature film and a slate of extras, featuring the likes of The Band, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Buddy Guy Blues Band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, Ian & Sylvia and the Great Speckled Bird, Mashmakhan and Sha Na Na. Bonus features include Derailed – The making of Festival Express, additional & extended interviews, the theatrical trailer, and more.
You can find the latest specs for 'Festival Express' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it is indexed under February 11.
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