Music History Events: Free Music
June 27, 1996 Fugees headline the "Hoodshock" festival in Harlem, which the group organized as a free event to encourage voter registration. The Notorious B.I.G., Sean "Puffy" Combs and Wu-Tang Clan also perform, but the event makes headlines for a panic set off at the end of the festival when a man fires gunshots into the air. In the chaos, about 30 people are injured.
September 20, 1992 Pearl Jam play a free concert at Magnuson Park in Seattle where they register thousands of fans to vote in the upcoming election between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.
November 8, 1987 Generating footage for their Rattle and Hum documentary, U2 play a free "Save the Yuppie" concert at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco. An arrest warrant is issued for Bono after he spray paints "Rock n Roll Stops Traffic" on a fountain sculpture.
July 27, 1973 Thousands of people hit Watkins Glen, New York, for the "Summer Jam" one day before the music festival is scheduled to begin. The crowd is already so large and so raucous that The Band turn their sound-check into a mini-set. The Allman Brothers Band follows in similar character by rocking through "One Way Out" and "Ramblin' Man." The Grateful Dead come next with a two-set explosion. This impromptu jam tires them not at all, and the next day they still scramble psyches with two long sets.
August 16, 1969 The Beckenham Arts Lab holds the Free Festival in Beckenham, London. One one of the performers is David Bowie, who memorializes the concert in his song "Memory of a Free Festival." The festival is largely forgotten by history, probably because it happened at the same exact time as Woodstock in the United States.
June 29, 1969 The free-to-attend Harlem Cultural Festival kicks off in Mount Morris Park with headliners The 5th Dimension, who perform their #1 hit "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In." Five more shows take place over the summer, but footage doesn't appear until 2021, when it's documented in the movie Summer Of Soul.
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