By Martin H. Rots

Last weekend was my 40th Class Reunion.  It was also the annual Frut Reunion held in my longtime hometown of Mount Clemens, Michigan that brings all us old rockers back together every summer.  I, unfortunately, didn't make either this year.  Interestingly enough, it was also the 40th anniversary of  one of the most monumental events  of my misspent youth, The Goose Lake International Music Festival.

Luckily, Goose Lake was planned before the Woodstock movie came out.  The rock phenomena that had begun with Monterey Pop in 1967 was beginning to scare mainstream America.  By the fall of 1970, after seeing the great mass of young people in the upstate New York countryside as shown in the documentary film, most local governments passed ordinances banning the gatherings.  Luckily, Goose Lake was slipped in before the right-wing bureaucrats had a chance to get organized and legislate them out of existence. 

At first we weren't going to attend.  Late Thursday night, sitting around a friend's kitchen table listening to the DJ on WABX talking about the festival, we decided maybe it would be a good idea to head out the next morning.  Of the four of us, only one owned a car.  The rest of us had motorcycles and Chris was designated to be the driver.

I got up early the next morning and rode back to Chris' place.  I had to wake him up and he was somewhat grumpy.  When I reminded him that we were going to Goose Lake that morning, he informed me we would be going without him.  This created a problem.  I was a veteran of many motorcycle road trips and on a limited budget, it could be a challenge finding shelter.  I'd slept in abandoned, out of the way motels after kicking in a door and moving out the mice.  In a pinch, in the rain, an overpass would keep you dry.  Neither of these options were going to work at Goose Lake.

While riding in the general direction of home early that morning, I passed a Shell station that rented U-Haul vans.  I turned around and went back.  For a very reasonable rate, I rented a van and the guy at the station helped me put my motorcycle in the back of the van.  I headed to my friend Mark's place, got him out of bed and unloaded the motorcycle.  From there we headed to Scott's parent's house on Lake St. Clair.  Along the way we encountered two girls hitchhiking and I didn't hesitate to pick them up. 

They got in and said they had hitched from Florida to go to Goose Lake.  The coincidences didn't end there.  When I mentioned they were a long way from Goose Lake they told me they were trying to find a friend's house.  When I asked them his name, they said, "Scott."  A few minutes later we were at Scott's house and you should have seen the look on his face when he saw the two girls.  He grabbed his sleeping bag and the five of us set off on our journey to the festival.

The girls stayed with us the first night, but we lost track of them the next day and never saw them again.  Unlike Woodstock the previous summer, there was no rain that weekend.  It was hot and dusty.  Also, unlike Woodstock, it wasn't free and it had been well thought out and planned to avoid the problems that had plagued Woodstock.

The entire festival grounds was ringed by a fence that was patrolled by friendly, but firm security guards.  There was food, showers and a giant slide for all the naked people to burn their butts on.  The "Goose Nest" where the audience sat was ringed by a chain link fence that defined the area.  The stage had a revolving platform so the next band could be set up while another was performing.  This minimized the time between acts.  This little touch eliminated the long wait between performances that wrecked havoc with the Woodstock schedule.  If Jimi had played Goose Lake, he wouldn't have been playing to a fraction of the original crowd on Monday morning he would have closed it on schedule, Sunday afternoon.

I saw Chicago that weekend for the first time.  They played Friday afternoon, not long after we arrived.  I remember standing off to the side of the stage in the shade and watching them perform.  I had thought they were a studio band and was amazed at how good they sounded live.

When the Stooges' set started to run long, they rotated the stage for the next act which was Mountain.  This didn't exactly thrill Iggy.  For some reason Mark and I had decided to cross in front of the stage in between acts.  We were making progress until Mountain opened up.  Suddenly we were packed so tight you could lift both your feet up without falling.  We were positioned front and center to the stage when Mountain launched into their hit, Mississippi Queen.  Suddenly, Iggy appeared and he was pissed that the Stooges set had been cut short.  He decided to take it out on Leslie West who was a big bear of a man.  Iggy ran across the stage, jumped on West's back and started pounding him.  West shook him off and continued playing while Iggy got back on his feet and exited stage left.

At one point, we heard the opening of McCartney's newly released Maybe I'm Amazed floating through the darkness across the audience's heads.  In the era before big screen monitors over the stage, a buzz went thought the audience that was convinced that Beatle Paul had joined us in our celebration.  Ronnie Lane sang the first verse, but when Rod Stewart began wailing after the intro, those of us in the cheap seats realized it was the Faces, an old Detroit favorite.  Their cover of the song wouldn't be released until the following year on the album, Long Player.

When it came time to go on Sunday, we were exhausted and had a three hour drive looming before us.  We joined the long line of cars creeping through the grounds and back to the freeway.  We took turns driving and dozing in the back of the van.  For years, I had a poster for the festival that I had nicked from the wall of the head shop where I worked at the time.  It hung proudly on my wall as a reminder of that long ago weekend in August when we all came together in harmony.  Eventually, I traded it to the folks at Art Rock in Ann Arbor for the Hendrix eyeball poster, a transaction I still occasionally regret.

In the end it was estimated that approximately 200,000 had attended the festival.  Like Woodstock, there was no trouble, just peaceful vibes and an audience determined to have a good time and listen to some of the best acts that rock had to offer.  The local and state politicians made sure it never happened again and the site was used as a campgrounds for many years.

It was a weekend I have never forgotten.