Vortex I
In 1970, President Richard Nixon was scheduled to speak at an American Legion convention in Portland, Oregon, promoting the continuation of the Vietnam War. A huge anti-war demonstration was planned to be held in Portland. State officials were concerned about potential violence.
Some local counter-culture anti-violence groups proposed to Oregon's governor, Tom McCall, to permit a rock festival to be held in a state park during Nixon's visit, to draw potential protestors away from Portland. The Republican governor agreed, and surprisingly, he agreed for police to turn a blind eye toward nudity and drug use at the festival.
Thus was born Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life, the only state-sponsored rock festival in America.
The festival was held from Aug. 28 to Sept. 3, 1970 at Milo McIver State Park. Admission was free, and there were no official attendance records, but estimates range from 30,000 to 100,000 people. Meanwhile, Nixon cancelled his visit to the American Legion convention, and the Portland protests drew only about 1,000 people with no violence, so the festival achieved its purpose.
Nudity was commonplace at the festival, especially at a mud sauna tent (above).
(Photo by LIFE photographer Arthur Schatz)
Then you could head to the river to wash off the mud.
The video above contains extracts from a program about the festival shown on Oregon Public Broadcasting (with a soundtrack that I borrowed from another video about the festival). The full program can be seen at https://www.pbs.org/video/oregon-experience-vortex-i/
No famous rock groups performed at the festival because it was put together at the last minute. Instead, the musicians were mostly local groups from Oregon and California. But the audience didn't care. They were there to have a good time, and they did.
6 comments:
What a great story! it's a music festival and a Nixon administration meeting no one has heard much about, if at all. Thanks!
I went to that festival. Great time.
To continue. I wasn't able to stay for the whole thing. Several coworkers from the phone company did, including one who was a photographer and took plenty of pictures which he developed himself. Nice stuff there.
It was very well organzied. It was in the middle of a lot of farmland — grass seed farms — and the farmers either donated or were compensated for opening up their fields for parking (I worked in those same fields a year earlier). Once we got there, friendly parking lot attendants directed us on where to go.
Then there was the lengthy walk down into the canyon to the main areas where the people were. Didn't see much nudity before I had to go. Apparently I got there on the wrong day.
It was in the middle of hardcore redneck country, and there were some drunk rednecks there who heckled people. There was a high cliff on the other side of the park, which was lined with people with binoculars and cameras with telephoto lens.
On the whole, it went over very, very well. The demonstration organizers in Portland were upset by the distraction from the American Legion convention.
It is still legendary around here, lots of stories going on.
A follow-up festival was attempted a few years ago. Not much happened.
I enjoyed this and found it so interesting, my post today links to you.
Thanks for the firsthand info, Dan. From the photos I've seen and the PBS video, it looks like most of the nudity was at the river and the nearby mud sauna.
Thanks for the link, Pat.
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