The Newport Pop Festival was held here the weekend of August 3-4, 1968 with many huge stars. It was the first music concert ever to have more than 100,000 paid attendees who each paid $5.50 a day!
Harvey “Humble Harve” Miller, a Top 40 disc jockey for 93 KHJ-AM in Los Angeles, was hired to promote the show and hosted the event with Wavy Gravy.
Saturday, August 3, 1968
Alice Cooper, Canned Heat, The Chambers Brothers, the Charles Lloyd Quartet, Country Joe and the Fish, The Electric Flag, James Cotton Blues Band, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Steppenwolf and Tiny Tim.
Sunday, August 4, 1968
Blue Cheer, Eric Burdon & the Animals, Grateful Dead, Illinois Speed Press, Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Byrds, Things to Come and Sonny & Cher who it is said were booed off the stage for being too “Pop”.
Orange County Fairgrounds
88 Fair Drive
Costa Mesa CA 92626
714 708-1500
Was there for the Sunday show. 14 years old and straight from Catholic mass to the festival. It was my third concert experience (the 1st was Ravi Shankar at UCI and the 2nd was the Dead with Jefferson Airplane on a revolving stage across from Disneyland). August 4th 1968 was hot as hell. The fairgrounds were just dirt with no asphalt. I now live about 300 yards from the site.
Yes I was there too. Just turned 16 in July. Vacationing at a beach house with family. I remember Tiny Tim and very clearly Sonny and Cher getting booed. Bought a tiny half filled cap of LSD and matchbox of good weed. Was super sunny and hot! After returning to Connecticut I dropped the acid the day of a Jimi Hendrix concert in nearby Bridgeport, Connecticut and the following August went to Woodstock. The following year I hitched to Laguna Beach to join the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and finally ended up in Humboldt County. Mushrooms, buds, my chopper! Those were the days! ?
Every weekend they used to have a swapmeet here, but it closed in 2019 :(. In 2014 I remember I got the best 22nd bday present ever when I stumbled upon a vintage Grateful Dead shirt from one of the swap meet booths. They still have concerts here. The OC Fair every July brings some good bands to town actually . But my mom, who was born in 1956, and grew up in the era when SoCal was popular for young musicians, said her teen years in 70s OC were more fun than my teen years in mid 2000s OC
I was there. Flew to LA to visit my brother from Cincinnati two weeks after 8th grade graduation. Just days after we lost Bobby Kennedy. Hermosa Beach, Santa Monica Pier and Sunset Strip. Even went to the Trubedor. Iām 67 now. What a great trip!!! Actually saw Mic Jagar at the Santa Monica Pier.
How did I miss this concert? Oh yeah, I hated rock & roll back then. Mr. Weeks used to use the lyrics to Beatles tunes to study poetry in 7H English at Lincoln. I even hated the Beatles š But I was 14, a slow starter, and not part of “the scene”. I remember turning down weed and tabs of LSD in junior high… That and my parents took us to Mammoth Lakes that summer for a Sierra Club camp.
I still have the Daily Pilot newspaper from the day Bobby Kennedy was shot.
The summer of ’67 we went to Lair of the Bear in the mountains. I remember my brother was in love with Jefferson Airplane, which he listened to for hours with headphones on cassette tape. And the Doors came out with Light My Fire š
Hot.Hot.Hot. Little water but two days of some of the big groups of the time. I was 16 and in love with music. Incredible.