Open Thread - 02-03-23 - Indianapolis Raceway Festival
Submitted by JtC on Fri, 02/03/2023 - 8:47am
Opposable thumbs and a large cerebral cortex. These characteristics drove mankind to the apex of the animal world.
It was 1972. I was 18. My best friend at the time and a traveling buddy were milling about our hometown in north central Illinois. I can't remember exactly where I saw the advertisement, I think it was either on the radio or an underground newspaper. It was an ad for a rock festival in Indianapolis, Indiana that was to be held on September 9. The festival was named the "Indianapolis Raceway Festival" and featured Chuck Berry, Fleetwood Mac, It's A Beautiful Day, The Siegel Schwall Band, Argent, McKendree Spring, Flash, Pure Food & Drug Act with Harvey Mandel & Sugarcane Harris, Danny O'Keefe, Foghat, and Limousine.
Since we had already planned a crawling trip to Memphis, we decided to jog a little bit out of our way and mosey on down to Indy to check it out. Back then, "crawling" was a slang term for hitchhiking, which I had already done much of even at the ripe young age of 18, and much of that traveling was done with my buddy, Lloyd. On September 8, off we went with opposable thumbs in the air.
