It was the like one of the 1960s Staples High School concerts with the Doors, Yardbirds or regular Byrds: Sorry, sold out!
Fifty years after those legendary shows, a Westport Cinema Initiative showing of a documentary about them left plenty of folks standing in the lobby.
The movie — “The High School That Rocked!” — was a labor of love. Class of ’71 alum Fred Cantor (who somehow managed to miss all of those concerts, back in the day) teamed up with 2014 grad Casey Denton (an Emerson College film major who had a better reason for missing them: He would not be born for another 3 decades).
The resulting story of how the Doors, Cream, Sly & the Family Stone, Yardbirds, Animals and Rascals came to Staples — and what happened when they did — is fascinating and compelling. Also very, very cool.
Last summer’s SRO audience of 300 in Town Hall loved the video. Thousands of others wondered if they could see it too.
Now they can.
Earlier today, Vimeo released “The High School That Rocked!” in the US and Canada, via video on demand. (Click here to stream it now.)
It’s well worth the half hour. And I’d say that even if I was not one of the interviewees.
Though he’s glad the film is now available to all current and former Westporters, Cantor believes there’s a much wider audience out in Vimeo land.
He’s right. You don’t need any connection with Staples to download “The High School That Rocked!” You just have to be a fan of the best music ever.
Of course, if you don’t know anything about Westport, you won’t get the sly reference in the credits at the end.
The film was produced by “Sally’s Record Dept. Productions.”
Just finished enjoying waching the movie..I fett excited and joyous reliving my childhod experiences! I was a volunteer participating as a student usher and occasional backstage hand for every concert featured in the movie – primarily because I enrolled in summer school drama/music classes at Staples and Coleytown Jr High in the mid 60’s!
This was a fun experience being interviewed for this. And like Dan, I don’t know who I was with or how I got to these concerts. But I remember them. I went to most. Rhinoceros played in our Senior year and I remember thinking.. ho hum. And I made the choice not to go because after all I had seen SLY twice.. and CREAM!! And that wild Drum solo by Ginger Baker. It was probably a half hour long!!
I was there for almost all the concerts with my friend Doris Mundschenk, we were class of 1970.