Festival Actuel 1969
Date
Fri Oct 24, 1969 - Tue Oct 28, 1969
Map
Amougies
Belgium
Belgium
AlsoKnownAs
Actuel Music Festival of Jazz, Rock & New Music - Festival d'Amougies
Organized by
Years active
1969/1994/2014
Founded by
Jean Georgakarakos and Jean Luc Young
Amougies (1969): Music Power & European Music Revolution directed by Jérôme Laperrousaz and Jean-Noël Roy. Belgian B&W TV documentary made by TV station RTBF directed by Marc Mopty.
Arts & Acts
- 360 Degree Music Experience
- Acting Trio
- Alan Jack Civilization
- Alan Silva
- Alexis Korner and The New Church
- Ame Son
- Anthony Braxton
- Archie Shepp
- Art Ensemble of Chicago
- Arthur Jones
- Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation
- Blossom Toes
- Blues Convention
- Burton Greene
- Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band
- Caravan
- Chicken Shack
- Chris MacGregor
- Claudia Saumade
- Clifford Thornton
- Colosseum
- Cruciferius
- Daevid Allen
- Dave Burrell
- Dave Burrell Big Band
- Don Cherry
- East of Eden
- Ed Blackwell
- Fat Mattress
- Frank Zappa
- Free Music Group
- Freedom
- Frogeaters
- Germ
- Gong
- Grachan Moncur III
- Indescriptable Chaos Rampant
- Jacques Thollot
- Jean-François Jenny-Clark
- Joachim Kühn
- John Surman
- Keith Tippett Group
- Kenneth Terroade
- Martin Circus
- Max Auer
- Pharoah Sanders
- Pink Floyd
- Renaissance
- Robin Kenyatta
- Sam Apple Pie
- Soft Machine
- Sonny Sharrock
- Steve Lacy
- Sunny Murray
- Ten Years After
- The Nice
- The Pretty Things
- Triangle
- We Free
- Yes
- Zoo
Europe's answer to Woodstock!
The Actuel Music Festival of Jazz, Rock and New Music was originally planned to take place at Paris' Les Halles. It would have been the first festival of its kind in Paris, and all advance advertising and performing contracts had been drawn up with Paris as the festival location.
Then the Paris police vetoed the City of Light as the festival site. The police were certainly not discouraged from taking this strong measure by the various established local promoters, record companies and TV corporations who were not especially eager to see any competitive "happenings" nor wished for new blood to enter the rather closed show-business setup traditional to Paris.
The authorities fear hippies, and hypocritically deny permission for events which might attract large groups of young people in the name of vague possibilities of violence and drug abuse. All the producers wanted was to get young people together to hear music – period. Somehow, in France, the music, which was the main objective of the festival, got lost in the confused politics of contemporary French society, and the first Actuel Paris Music Festival had to take place in exile, in a tent near the Belgian country town of Amougies. Over 75,000 people attended during the 5-day festival.