Inside Americas worst music festival: 300,000 people on drugs, six toilets - then they burned the stage down

It was hailed as a music festival that would rival the original Woodstock, with a blockbuster line-up including Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles. 

But a series of catastrophic errors saw the three-day Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival of 1972 descend into chaos - and go down in history as the worst music festival of all time.

Also known as the Bull Island Rock Festival, the Illinois event has since been compared to the calamitous Woodstock 99 and now notorious Fyre festival disaster. 

Most stars ended up canceling their appearances, with Rod Stewarts manager famously flying over the site only to deem it entirely unsafe.

So dire were the conditions that 300,000 people were forced to share six toilets, with desperate crowds turning on staff. 

One farmer even sued promoters after his cattle died due to marijuana inhalation. 

A series of errors saw the three-day Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival of 1972 descend into chaos - and go down in history as one of the worst music festivals of all time. Also known as the Bull Island Festival, the Illinois event has since been compared to the Woodstock 99 and Fyrefest

One farmer even sued promoters after his cattle died due to marijuana inhalation. Pictured: Two festival-goers smoking

The crowd that ended up descending on the small festival site on the Indiana side of Walbash River was completely unprepared for the disaster that awaited them. 

They were bound for Bull Island, come hell or high water, recalled retired Indiana State Police Trooper Ed Lunkenheimer in an interview with Evansville Living in 2011. 

It was like an invasion, he told the paper.

Lunkenheimer had been brought in to conduct traffic control along Interstate 64.

But the highway quickly became inaccessible, with traffic on the only two roads leading to the site at a complete standstill and backed up for more than 20 miles.

Wed never seen that mass of humanity. Ever, Lunkenheimer continued, describing how the congestion soon gave way to crime.

To make matters worse, there were just three deputies from White County, Illinois - where due to a shifting riverbed Bull Island technically resides - on site. 

Promoters Tom Duncan and Bob Alexander had already been shooed away by officials in Chandler, Indiana, where the festival was first poised to be held.

A total of 300,000 people were forced to share six toilets, with desperate crowds turning on staff

Pictured, festival promoter Bob Alexander, who died at 76 in 2020. Shortly before, Alexander told the Courier Press: All we ever set out to do was to have a great show and make a lot of money. Come hell or high water, the people were going to have an event

The pair had then pivoted to the Bull Island site near Griffin just days prior to the event, leaving the local countys government largely powerless to stop it.

Pictured: A female festival attendee outside her tent

Already emboldened the success of their first festival just months earlier, they lured onlookers with promises of acts like Sabbath, Joe Cocker, the Allman Brothers, Canned Heat, Bob Seger, and the Eagles.

The two prepared facilities for a crowd of 55,000, oblivious of what was to come.  

The star-studded lineup ended up spawning almost six times that amount, dooming the event before it even started. 

Staffers like Shirley Becker recalled being forced to address the increasingly restless crowd.

We only collected money on the first day, she said years later. There was no hope after that.

Lunkenheimer also described how attendees began sharing drugs as their cars remained stuck in the street. 

We couldnt really control all the drugs, he said. We just hoped we didnt have too many overdoses.

The festival was beset by rain, marijuana smoke and a crowd that dismantled 300 makeshift bathrooms for firewood

Fellow trooper John Neidic added: Every place you turned, [drug use] was just all over the place. Anything from marijuana to heroin.

The crowd proceeded to clog up all of Bull Islands entry points, creating a perpetual cloud of marijuana smoke.

Yet despite the chaos unfolding, organizers did not intervene and call off the event. 

Things continued to get worse when thousands of festivalgoers physically forced themselves through the gates without paying, with others abandoning their cars on the interstate.

Within hours, the crowd had swelled to 300,000 - most of whom made the seven-mile pilgrimage from the highway to the stage.

Still set on playing, several of the smaller bands made the trip as well, oblivious to the problems to come.

Sonny Brown, a local photographer, described the scenes there on the second day, after 300 wooden toilets trucked to the scene were dismantled by the increasingly desperate crowd seeking firewood.

By the second day, the Sunday, personal hygiene was non-existent, he told the Courier & Press in 2011.

For waste – human waste or whatever – they just had trenches.

A lack of food and water also gave way to looting.

Pictured: One of the trenches at Bull Island Rock Festival

By the second day, the Sunday, personal hygiene was non-existent, one attendee said in 2011. A lack of food and water also gave way to looting, as attendees grew increasingly desperate

I think the promoters knew they lost control of the whole event [at this point], said Becker.

I remember one guy didnt have any money, so he gave me a beer. I was delighted. I didnt have any water, and I was so thirsty.

The overall air of intoxication was further fueled by copious amounts of Boones Farm wine.

Meanwhile, headliners like Stewart, Sabbath, Cocker and Stevie Nicks all failed to show up.

Promoters first blamed last-minute disputes over money, but Alexander would later concede the cancellations were out of safety fears.

The manager of Rod Stewart & The Faces flew over in a helicopter and deemed that the site was not safe.

Nazareth singer Dan McCafferty further recalled seeing both Cocker and Stewart turning up, but that neither went on.

We were still young, though, and up for playing any gigs we could get, so we agreed to go on, even though things didnt look great, McCafferty, who died in 2022, recalled in an interview years later.

Cockers manager, Nigel Thomas, added he and the singer found the festival in ruins when they arrived on the first day.

My road crew, which had driven our equipment to the site, found the stage unsatisfactory and unsafe and the security inadequate, he later said.

Randy Foley, an audience member from Ohio, remembered how virtually none of the bands advertised would play.

The ones who did were hardly superstars, he said, citing a forgettable all-female band called Birtha.

The most famous acts that ended up playing the first two nights - before the crowd fully turned on organizers - were Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, Foghat, Canned Heat and the Doobie Brothers.

Cheech and Chong also appeared, Foley said - recalling some less than positive remarks about the festival disguised as jokes. 

After about 15 minutes, it started to rain, he added. They said their ta-tas, and left the stage.

Meanwhile, announcers continued to promise acts that never appeared.

People were getting out of hand, he remembered, describing how the audience began rioting at the end of the second day.

After a lull, the announcer said there was no more, recalled Foley. None of the big-name groups had showed up. The crowd roared… wanted, demanded, more.

As debris began flying onto the stage, Foley said they got out of there pronto. 

Most stars ended up canceling their appearances, with Rod Stewarts manager famously flying over the site only to deem it entirely unsafe. So dire were the conditions that 300,000 people were forced to share six toilets, with desperate crowds turning on staff

At least one frustrated reveler went on to torch the stage, which was looted and burned to the ground.

Still surrounded by hundreds of thousands of filthy festivalgoers effectively stuck at the site, the stage became the center of the depravity.

As Foley and his group headed back to their Volkswagen, they saw several partygoers looting parked cars and vans and siphoning gas and wheels.

The sight resembled something out of a third-world country, witnesses said - with acres and acres of garbage, thousands of dollars in damages, and a horde of angry, unpaid investors left in their wake.

As they began to pick up the pieces, promoters shrugged off responsibility.  

They blamed the crowds predisposition to anger for the damage - ignoring the vastly overwhelmed staff and promised security force that never showed.

They had violence in their eyes when they got to the gate, not after they crossed it, said Duncan, who quit the music business following the festival. 

Ive never seen such a rough breed of people, he added. 

The most outrageous tale was perhaps Duncan recalling how he was sued by a local farmer for compensation for lost cattle due to marijuana inhalation. A subsequent headline read: Even the cows got high 

Brown said: All they left was a mess. 

Cops were called to try and keep a handle on the crisis but there was little they could do given the amount of spectators. 

Volunteer nurses and doctors also struggled to reach those in need.

Two attendees were later found dead. One 24-year-old man drowned in a nearby river and a 20-year-old man died of a heroin overdose. 

The deceased had been carried seven miles to the interstate by a group of friends, where he died as state troopers tried to save his life.  

Another teen overdose victim was saved by a state trooper after the officer performed mouth-to-mouth at the side of the road.

No other casualties occurred - but the weekend ended in a nine-year legal mess for the promoters.

Having already lost roughly $4 million in revenue, the two were hit with lawsuits from furious investors and vendors and were subject to more scrutiny from the IRS.

Months later, Duncan would tell a local reporter that he had left the music business disheartened and broke, as his partner Alexander pressed on, attempting to organize other rock festivals around the Midwest.

Alexander later estimated the ordeal cost him some $200,000.

Pictured: The grounds of Bull Island Rock Festival as it is today, more than 50 years later

When asked about the festival in the years before his death at 76, the little known festival runner said: The mere fact that were talking about it 40 years later says something about it as a major cultural event that happened in Middle America. 

You know, Id love to try it again, in the same location, he said.

But Alexander would pass away just a few years later, with his obituary bizarrely touting the festival as an achievement.

The post did not mention how members of the crowd ended up burning the stage or that most of the talent never showed.

Others also surprisingly remembered the event fondly. 

Audience member Mike Glab said: I took a hit of Orange Sunshine that Saturday night, my first acid trip.

As Foghat played I Just Wanna Make Love to You, I looked down at my hands and discovered Id gashed them wide open. 

People leaped up and ran for first aid, but when I came down I realized it was just a nasty paper cut from a guy who had been passing out flyers.

Fellow festival veteran John Fifer told Eyewitness News in 2022: We saw a lot of people, heard a lot of music, seen a lot of smoke.

Fellow festival veteran John Fifer told Eyewitness News in 2022: We saw a lot of people, heard a lot of music, seen a lot of smoke

I dont know - I guess it was the hot summer weather, he joked.

One thing is for certain: the three-day event will forever live in infamy.

Years after his partner retired to Arizona, Alexander told the Courier Press: All we ever set out to do was to have a great show and make a lot of money. 

Come hell or high water, the people were going to have an event.