AJC July 5, 1969 pg. 1A

At Pop Festival

That Sound's Really Cool, Man,

But It's Mighty Hot

By PAUL BEEMAN

Atlanta Journal Staff Writer

HAMPTON, Ga. - A crowd of 50,000 young and generally shaggy music fans dripped under a blazing Fourth of July sun. then chilled as night air set in and patiently withstood at least three electric power failures Friday and Saturday to hear the "in" sounds of the time.

The spectators, some almost frightening in appearance, were orderly throughout the first day fit the two-day Atlanta International Pop Festival held at the Atlanta International Raceway 30 miles south of Atlanta.

The concert began nearly an hour late after appeals to the crowd over a speaker system:

"Get down from the speaker's stands. Get down from the light stands. We are not going to start until everybody's down.**

''Those of you who have your shirts off. please put them back on or we are not going to start the concert—and I don't mean just the boys, either. Sorry, but I'm only relaying the words of the management," the announcer said.

THE BLOUSES returned to the females whose dress had been questioned, but the audience still remained a voyeur's delight. Standard dress for many girls was see-through blouses, sans underpinnings or bikini tops.

The men made headgear out of shirts as the afternoon sun baked the crowd.

The heat was such that thousands lined up to be sprayed by cooperative local firemen and at least a hundred were treated for heat fatigue.

Many others lay on the ground seemingly asleep, although the noise of the bands made napping impossible.

The temperature, hovered around 100 degrees but seemed even higher due to the sardine- like packing of the audience.

Many in the rear area complained they were too far from the stage several hundred yards in fact, and could not see. But they could hear when the entertainers "did their thing." Conversation was ruled out because of the blaring "sounds."

THE KNOWLEDGEABLE, behind the scenes, blamed the victims themselves as much as the sun for much of the suffering from the heat.

"When you are out there lapping up beer and popping pills in this kind of heat—man, you are bound to fall down," said a long-hair in his late 20s who had been through the pop festival scene before.

Police, mostly hired private guards, were present but did little to interfere with the audience's enjoyment. No drug arrests were reported even though the area was described as "a gold mine for a narc “narcotic agent" by one music bug.

State troopers for the most part remained outside the track. One did enter the grounds while, a hundred yards away, a boy and girl in their late teens smoked "grass" on the grass.

The event may have been the only July 4th picnic anywhere where walking on other people's blankets was not only acceptable but necessary, if one attempted to move through, the jammed crowds.

The audience was receptive to every act, chanting "more, more," and flashing the peace sign in appreciation, even for Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan, the progressive jazz artists billed as something for the older