On August 29 in Joni Mitchell History:
1969: Joni is the opening act for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young at the Greek Theater
in Los Angeles. This is the fifth night of seven straight.
More info: http://www.jmdl.com/articles/docs/690826lat.cfm
1970: Joni plays on the fourth day of the "Isle Of Wight Festival" at the East Afton
Farm, Godshill, Isle of Wight. From Wally's Bio Page: "When Joni came out on stage,
the size of the audience amazed her. She told them 'It looks like they're making
"Ben-Hur" or something!" All through her hour-long set, she had to deal with the noise
of the rowdy and agitated crowds, and the frequent and distracting sound of small
airplanes taking off. About two-thirds of the way through her song "Chelsea Morning"
she stopped and told the audience "I don't feel like singing that song very much. Let
me play you one on the piano.'"
Randy Remote: I was there and remember her performance was marred by a noisy
helicopter flying overhead, which Joni could neither see nor hear. This resulted in
100,000+ people booing, jeering and shouting "go away" at the helicopter. Sadly, Joni
thought the boos were aimed at her and started to cry.
Ian Scott: That helicopter incident is particularly significant when you consider that
the festival was the biggest live entertainment event in the history of the world:
roadies who worked at both were unanimous that it was bigger than Woodstock. Now, the
impression that I get from all publications is that there was some hostility between
the crowd and Joni that day. This is ABSOLUTELY not true. I was sitting inside the
arena and in a good position to feel the general mood of the crowd, and I can assure
you that the only hostility was directed toward the helicopter pilot flying overhead
and NOT at Joni. 95% of the crowd did not even notice the Yogi Bear incident(he had no
mike and was not centre stage) and more than 99% had no sympathy for him. By the time
Joni struck into "Big Yellow Taxi" the helicopter had gone and everybody was listening
to Joni.
1986: From Wally's Bio Page: "A Showtime series "Coast to Coast" hosted by Herbie
Hancock premiered [today]. Joni was a guest on that first show for a jam session with
Herbie, Bobby McFerrin, Wayne Shorter, David Sanborn, and Larry. The two songs they
jammed on were Joni's compositions "Furry Sing the Blues," and a pepped-up
latin-flavored version of "Hejira."
More info: http://www.jonimitchell.com/Experimental.html
------------------------
Search the "Today" database:
http://www.jmdl.com/today
