January 21-22-23, 1966: Longshoreman's Hall, San Francisco, CA "Trips Festival"

 

The above article is from the Theater section of The Oakland Tribune for Friday, January 21, 1966. It starts "A mammoth three day "trips festival," or electronic show, will be held this weekend at the huge  San Francisco Longshoreman's Hall." It goes on to say

Tonight's affair will feature members of Berkeley's Open Theater, slides, movies, rock and roll music, jazz, American Indians, poetry, readings and revelations.

One of the slide shows was Stewart Brand's "America Needs Indians", the rock and roll was The Loading Zone, the jazz was Ian Underwood's trio with Tom Glass, The Jazz Mice (The revelations reverberated around the world). The next paragraph says

On Saturday's bill are The San Francisco Tape Music Center, Dancer's Workshop, a rock and roll group with 50 flashlights, thunder sculpture, a psychedelic symphony, movies and Hell's Angels.

The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and The Holding Company were the two rock bands--I wonder which had 50 flashlights and which was the psychedelic symphony?

The likely reason that the LSD-inspired Trips Festival was promoted in the Oakland Tribune was that the Trib's theater section regularly (and enthusiastically) reported on the doings of Berkeley's Open Theater, at 2976 Telegraph Avenue. The Open Theater was an important underground outpost. Mostly they put on avant-garde theater, but the previous weekend both Loading Zone (Friday Jan 14) and Big Brother (Saturday Jan 15) had made their public debuts there.

[the clip below is from the Entertainment Listings of The Oakland Tribune, January 16, 1966]