Have A Nice Flight

Listening to The Jefferson Airplane means understanding why the late sixties have been such an important period in rock music and culture, and why San Francisco has been such a special place then. A group of hippies that was born just to play as the resident band at The Matrix (the Marty Balin's local) soon became one of the inventors of psychedelic music and gave voice to the ideals of a new generation. This happened because all of the members of the Airplane were great musicians, with a strong personality and a distinct style, and they have been able to compose songs that marked an era and helped them in getting a big success and a strong impact on the media. This didn't happen much with other great bands from San Francisco, like The Grateful Dead or Quicksilver Messenger Service, because they were basically instrumental jam bands. So it's no surprise to see Ed Sullivan, on the first clip, introducing them as 'the number one rock group of the country', despite the controversial contents of their songs about free love, free drug and opposition to the Vietnam war.
The second video is from the Kralingen pop festival in Holland (documented on the movie Stamping Ground), one of the best musical events of the early seventies, that also featured brilliant perfomances by bands like The Pink Floyd, Family, Soft Machine, Santana, East Of Eden, It's A Beautiful Day...
The Airplane kept flying high until it claimed to become a Starship, and the inspiration began to fall, along with the decline of the so-called drug-culture.

Jefferson Airplane - Crown Of Creation (1968)
Jefferson Airplane - The Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil (1970)

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See you soon

Mirco