Ad for second Miami Pop Festival with scheduled performers |
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| Location(s) | Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Florida |
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| Years active | 1968 |
| Founded by | May: Michael Lang December: Tom Rounds |
| Date(s) | May 18–19, 1968 December 28–30, 1968 |
| Genre | Pop music, Rock music |
The Miami Pop Festival was the name of two different music festivals that took place in 1968 at Gulfstream Park, a horse racing track in Hallandale, Florida (now called Hallandale Beach), just north of Miami.
The first Miami Pop event took place May 18–19, 1968. An estimated 100,000 people attended this concert, which was promoted by Michael Lang, later famous as promoter of Woodstock. Bands featured at the festival included Steppenwolf, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Mothers of Invention, Blue Cheer and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Jimi Hendrix performed "Fire", "Foxy Lady", "Getting my heart back together" and "Purple Haze". Sunday's concert was rained out and because of this, Hendrix wrote "Rainy Day, Dream Away." Chuck Berry, The Blues Image, Pacific Gas and Electric and Three Dog Night also performed. The opening act on the main stage on Saturday was a little-known group called The Package and the closing act on that same stage was Jimi Hendrix.
The second Miami Pop Festival was held December 28–30, 1968 at Gulfstream. It was promoted by Tom Rounds, who had previously promoted the seminal Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. True to its name, Miami Pop II emphasized a lighter, "Top 40" style of music including Procol Harum, The Turtles, The Grass Roots, Three Dog Night, Jose Feliciano, The Blues Image and The Box Tops. More "serious" veins of music were represented by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Hugh Masekela, Pacific Gas and Electric, Fleetwood Mac, Richie Havens, The Sweet Inspirations, Joni Mitchell, Jr. Walker & The Allstars, The McCoys, Sweetwater, The James Cotton Blues Band, Canned Heat, The Charles Lloyd Quartet, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Ian & Sylvia, Country Joe and The Fish, Buffy St. Marie, Steppenwolf, The Amboy Dukes and Iron Butterfly; rounding things out were Chuck Berry's roots rock, the picking of Flatt and Scruggs, jamming from the Grateful Dead, smooth nightclub stylings by Marvin Gaye, raucous soul from Joe Tex, and covering a range from hard rock to folk.[1] Many of these musicians were cast as superheroes in a commemorative comic book distributed at the festival.