Psychedelia, the Summer of Love, & Monterey

On the morning of June 19th, 1967 the mass of concert-goers, which had emerged from San Francisco and every far-reaching corner of America, awoke with a disappointing realization¿Monterey was officially over. The weekend of June 16th had marked the successful launch of rock music¿s first ever large-scale outdoor music festival. Yet by the following Monday, three days of unprecedented musical talent, peace, and universally positive vibes had disintegrated into the ether, bringing a lamentable return to reality. What had occurred at Monterey that weekend had been the materialization of something remarkable, a fleeting celebration of rock music, youthful counterculture, and the collective fulfillment of the hippies¿ far-out vision of America. With a graceful fluidity, rock left behind its insular, mainstream-innocence of the early 1960s to search for a more meaningful identity within American culture. This identity was built into the foundation of the rock festival, a cultural product which celebrated spontaneity, community, and most importantly, music as a peaceful means of revolt, challenging popular culture to reconsider its strictly enforced vision of the ¿American Experience."