Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

American music festival in 1972

The Erie Canal "Soda" Pop Festival, also known colloquially as the Bull Island Rock Festival, was a rock festival held on September 2–4, 1972, on Bull Island, a strip of land in Illinois but on the Indiana side of the Wabash River near Griffin. A crowd estimated at 200,000 to 300,000 individuals attended the concert, four times what the promoters had estimated. Food and water were in short supply, and the gathering descended into relative chaos amidst heavy rains and a lack of security, with many of the scheduled acts canceling their performances due to safety concerns. After the festival concluded, the remnants of the crowd rioted and burned the main stage.

On July 2, 1972, promoters Tom Duncan and Bob Alexander held a successful small rock festival, the Freedom Festival and Ice Cream Social, at Bosse Field in Evansville, Indiana, featuring artists such as Ike and Tina Turner, Dr. John, Howlin' Wolf, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and Edgar Winter. Based on that success, Duncan and Alexander then began planning a “bigger than Woodstock” festival nearby. The Erie Canal "Soda" Pop Festival was originally slated to be held in Chandler, Indiana. However, various court battles and restraining orders issued by local governments wary of large crowds prevented the festival from being held anywhere in the state.

Duncan and Alexander initially estimated that 55,000 people would attend the festival. As the weekend of the concert approached, however, it became obvious that a much larger crowd was coming to the festival. As Bull Island was accessible by only two roads, traffic on several roads on the way to the site, including Interstate 64, were backed up for over 20 mile (32 km); numerous attendees caught in traffic sold drugs to each other while waiting to continue moving. The only security personnel on the festival grounds were three White County deputy sheriffs. The scheduled festival lineup included Black Sabbath, Joe Cocker, the Allman Brothers, John Mayall, Cheech & Chong, Canned Heat, Fleetwood Mac, Ballin' Jack, Amboy Dukes, Bob Seger, Bang, Ravi Shankar, Albert King, the Doors, Brownsville Station, Mike Quatro, Gentle Giant, Black Oak Arkansas, the Eagles, The Chambers Brothers, Boones Farm, Slade, Birtha, Nazareth, and Delbert & Glenn. However, most scheduled performers cancelled their appearances during the festival due to difficulty reaching the site and concerns about its safety in light of the lack of security, open availability of illegal substances, unsanitary conditions, and flooding. The gaps between what sets were performed were long due to the extensive cancellations, which angered the audience.

Over the three days, the festival drifted steadily into chaos. Food and water were in short supply, and heavy rains soaked the poorly protected stage beginning on the Friday night before the festival began. A truck bringing food into the festival was hijacked, looted and burned. When some vendors overcharged for food and drinks due to low supply, the crowd robbed many of the vendors and destroyed their facilities. On Sunday evening, some hungry festivalgoers killed a local resident's cow for food, but did not have any means of butchering it. Drugs were freely available in a makeshift market where dealers openly displayed their illegal goods. Two attendees died during the festival, one from a heroin overdose and the other by drowning in the Wabash River. As the festival ended, the crowd set fire to what remained of the stage and looted parked vehicles. Cheech & Chong made several jokes about the poor conditions of the festival during their set before it was cut short by a downpour. The "Soda" Pop Festival lost an estimated $200,000, according to co promoter Bob Alexander. The promoters were subsequently sued by the landowner of Bull Island, onsite vendors, the Internal Revenue Service, the state governments of Illinois and Indiana, and a local farmer who alleged “cattle lost due to marijuana inhalation”; legal proceedings continued for nine years after the festival.