Tuesday August 17, 2021 “Time Has Come Today” Chambers Brothers
We’re on our way to the next pre-Woodstock festival, the Newport Pop Festival which took place in Newport CA, August 3,4, 1968 just weeks before Woodstock, and the attendance there was estimated to be over 100,000. It is believed to have been the first pop music concert with over 100,000 paid attendees.
The acts included among others, the Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds, the Chambers Brothers, the Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, and Sonny & Cher who were booed off the stage.
To say there were logistical problems with this event would be understatement. The event's advance ticket sales were triple of what was expected. Fencing, staging, sanitation, and food concessions had to be organized within just three days and were not adequate. People without tickets on the outside would "storm the fence" and get in for free.
A broken water supply pipe provided a mud bath that a number of people jumped into, but people soon realized that the sun would bake the mud into a hard cover, so they stopped. There was no shade in the primary viewing area, and attendees were sunburned.
"Time Has Come Today" lyrics were written by Joe Chambers and legend has it that he wrote them while attending a class at UCLA with legendary psychedelic professor Timothy Leary and Joe says the class had taken LSD. Wonder if they got credit for that course...or if they even knew whether they did.
Stay safe and well...and I have spared you the eleven minute original version of “Time Has Come Today”...you’re welcome...and yes they really are brothers...OK, not the drummer, except in spirit.