The St. Louis Post Dispatch had a story recently about the Mississippi River Festival, a long ago annual music fest than ran for years across the river in Illinois from my Missouri home. For some of those years I went a lot.

The story brought comments from old farts who remembered attending. I couldn’t help chiming in about The Band concert when Bob Dylan came out and played at the end. I wrote about it in a separate blog sometime back.

My comment brought a response from a woman who said Robbie Robertson handed her his comb at the end of the show. I was farther back screaming too loud to notice just enjoying the fact that after a bad motorcycle accident Dylan was alive and well.

I had other memories of other shows at the festival.

Janis Joplin singing Ball and Chain.

A quiet, almost shy Joni Mitchell playing her guitar and some of the greatest music ever.

But one of my most distinct memories was pure rock and roll.

The Beach Boys were playing away and after one song, a probably high Dennis Wilson from his drum kit yelled out the room number of the Holiday Inn in Edwardsville where the band was staying.

His brother Carl was so pissed his glare could have melted Dennis’s drum kit.