Janson Unrau
Northern News Services
Monday, March 19, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Today it's known as classic rock. In the late 60s and early 70s the music of Janis Joplin and The Band helped provide the soundtrack for a generation and Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington did not hesitate to scoop up his own lovin' spoonful.

'Well, the Festival Express was on and I was a big fan of The Band and Janis (Joplin) who were performing at the event,' said Bevington of attending the Calgary show of 1970's cross-Canada concert tour. 'So I hopped in my little old car and back then the dust and the mud went all the way to Manning from Fort Smith (his home town), so it took me 12 hours to get there. But to this day it was a memorable concert.'

Thanks to the 2004 DVD release Festival Express, it won't soon be forgotten and neither will Bevington's presence at the show. With a great mass of jet-black hair, bushy beard and silver medallion swaying to his sweet moves, the then 17-year-old Bevington can clearly be seen dancing in the crowd to the sounds of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead.

'Actually, I wasn't really a fan of the Grateful Dead before that concert but I got to really like their music,' he said.

According to Bevington, it was really Janis Joplin who lured him to Calgary, a journey that he describes as, 'the most effort I'd ever put in to going to a musical event.'

'She was so big among people then,' Bevington recalled, still in awe of what he witnessed. 'She was one of the dominant musicians of the time, her singing style and everything else, it wasn't like she was holding anything back in her performance, so much so that you couldn't imagine her going any further with it.'

And unfortunately, Joplin did not. Like many musicians of her generation, she succumbed to her addictions, cutting short a career just four months after the Calgary show. On the flip side was the staying power of other acts on the bill, such as the Grateful Dead and blues legend Buddy Guy, who still performs concerts today.

As for getting captured and immortalized in a piece of pop-music history, the federal politician, whose friend first noticed the boppin' Bevington and pointed him out, said he certainly got a kick out of it all.

'I gotta say, I was a little thinner back then, but honestly it was great to see that they recognized that festival 30 years later,' said Bevington, while noting his silver 'bling' was actually a Norse pendant. How Bohemian!

'But honestly, it was quite special, very quintessentially Canadian with the train going past,' said a nostalgic Bevington 'In those days the corporations hadn't really taken over the music scene and people were really free with their music. That was so good, because it was more spontaneous with more of that sharing that, in the end, is what music is all about.'