Amougies Festival

The Amougies Festival, also known as the "Festival Actuel", was a pop and jazz festival held on 24 to 28 October 1969 in the Belgian village of Amougies (Amengijs). It should have been held in the vicinity of Paris, but due to the tensions that led to the May '68 movement, the planned location changed several times. Around Paris, the festival was first planned in Les Halles, later Vincennes and then Saint-Cloud, and due to the continued resistance of the French authorities, also ventured out to the Belgian city of Kortrijk. There too, one had to depart until the admiration of mayor André Callebaut was received in the small municipality of Amengijs.

The festival was organized by the French record label Byg Actuel and sponsored by Actuel, the flagship magazine of the underground culture belonging to Byg. There were several major artists, including Pink Floyd, Ten Years After, Archie Shepp, The Nice, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Yes, Gong and Soft Machine. Pierre Lattès and Frank Zappa acted as master or ceremonies. The festival counted 80,000 visitors in a tent, which was raised on a field covering an area of 5500 m². The stage was about 200m². The weather was mostly wet and cold

A gathering like that in Amougies was not particularly well-received by the local population or the administration, who were probably afraid of the reputation of young hippies. For this reason, the organizers Jean Georgakarakos and Jean Luc Young had great difficulty in obtaining the necessary authorizations to set up the festival.

Indeed, this one was originally planned in the region of Paris, in Les Halles, then in Vincennes and Saint-Cloud. The French authorities (including the Minister of the Interior Raymond Marcellin ), having the still fresh memory of the events of May 1968, expelled the festival which was then scheduled in Kortrijk. It was then moved again to land in extremis in Amougies, a small peaceful village of Hainaut. The posters indicating the city of Kortrijk, many hippies landed in this nearby town before going to the village where the festival actually took place.

Such an event obviously demanded a great organization. Meetings were held between the organizers, local authorities and law enforcement officials to prepare it.

The bourgmestre of the time insisted that the village merchants feed the crowd and that the maintenance staff also came from the commune, the cash receipts for the inhabitants of the village were quite large. Merchants in particular have reaped many benefits from the event. Their stores were literally robbed and their profits amounted to millions of Belgian francs. Especially food stores took advantage of these large cash inflows, such as the bakery, which operated 24 hours a day during the festival.

The field on which the marquee of the festival was erected was in fact a field belonging to a farmer of the village. The tent covered an area of 5,500 m 2, with a podium of more or less 200 m 2. As far as housing is concerned, the Mayor of the time had made available to certain festival-goers the premises belonging to the commune. The others were staying in hotels, guest houses in the area, and often under the big top, buried in sleeping bags.

The security around the festival was orchestrated by a mobilization of police forces with reinforcements from Charleroi. Despite some drunkenness, they did not really have to intervene to calm the crowd. It must be said that the hippie mentality did not really favor great outbursts. Medical services have also not been much sought after. There were, of course, a few cases of drug use, but again, they were not large.

Despite the overall calm in which the event took place on Sunday, there was a small incident: some hippies did not have the means to pay the entrance and wanted to access the festival anyway. Of course, the organizers were not of the same opinion. The hippies then expressed their dissatisfaction and it was necessary to find a compromise: those who could not pay could only enter the festival once it had begun.

A film was shot by Jérôme Laperrousaz and Jean-Noël Roy during the festival but was banned, in particular at Pink Floyd's injunction. The producer of the festival had not acquired the necessary authorizations and had not always paid the sums due to the various musicians. The film has remained invisible ever since.

**Program**

About 50 groups and artists played at the festival. Frank Zappa played with several participants including Sam Apple Pie, Blossom Toes, Caravan, Pink Floyd, Archie Shepp and Captain Beefheart.

Friday, October 24th
The festival was opened by the Alan Jack Civilization group. They were followed by Zoo, Indescriptible Chaos Rampant, Frogeaters, Martin Circus, Âme Son, We Free, Gong with the Napoleonic drum Daniel Laloux, Burton Greene, Ten Years After, Colosseum and Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Saturday, October 25th
On Saturday, mostly jazz performers performed. The day was opened with the Blues Convention, which was badly welcomed by the public. Then Freedom, Sunny Murray, Alexis Korner (accompanied by a brass section), Don Cherry with Ed Blackwell, pianist Joachim Kühn with Jean-François Jenny-Clark and Jacques Thollot . Finally, Pink Floyd , who was accompanied by Frank Zappa for a more than 20-minute improvisation on Interstellar Overdrive on stage.

Sunday, October 26th
On Sunday there were performances by Blossom Toes, GERM with Pierre Mariétan, Caravan, The Nice and Archie Shepp.

Monday 27 October
On Monday night, jazz musicians Arthur Jones, Ken Terroade and Clifford Thornton played. They were followed by Yes, The Pretty Things, 360 ° Music Experience, John Surman, Sonny Sharrock and Acting Trio.

Tuesday 28 October
On Tuesday, Zoo played for a while, and then there were performances of East of Eden, Sam Apple Pie, Soft Machine, Steve Lacy, Captain Beefheart, Musica Elettronica Viva and finally Fat Mattress closed the festivities.

The Festival Actuel gave at the time a certain fame to the village of Amougies and the region. It's memory is still present in the memories of many people. The overall results were positive, and the authorities at the time were even ready to repeat such an event.

25 years later, on September 17, 1994, a "revival" was organized: the "New Festival" of Amougies. On the bill, Risky Blues, Jo Lemaire, Axelle Red, Alvin Lee, Khaled, Arno and Boy George. Unfortunately, it did not have the expected success.

2014 is the year of commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the festival. For the occasion, a festival was organized on August 23, 2014 on the airfield of Amougies.