The Monterey International Pop Music Festival – 51st Anniversary: June 16 to June 18, 1967, there was only one: the Monterey International Pop Festival, which featured more than 30 artists and bands playing over the course of three days in the summer of 1967.
The festival's star-studded lineup reads like a who's who of rock royalty, but four names rise to the top of any conversation about the festival. There was Janis Joplin. ("When she sang, all of her sang," Pennebaker remembers.) The Who left the audience in awe after Pete Townshend concluded "My Generation" by smashing his guitar.
Finally, there was Jimi Hendrix, who threw his guitar down onstage and doused it with Ronson lighter fluid. "Then [he] lights it, and then leans back in this sacrificial rite of giving his guitar to the gods," the audience remembers. "One of the most iconic rock 'n' roll moments in musical history."
