Goose Lake Festival Turns 56, Still Echoing Across Jackson County

Today is the 56th anniversary of one of the most unique festival experiences in Michigan history, and it would sadly be the last of its kind, as on this day in 1970, the Goose Lake International Music Festival was held in Leoni Township, near Jackson in Michigan.

Many of us dream of being able to go to epic concerts of our past like Woodstock, but the Goose Lake International Music Festival was essentially the Woodstock of Michigan, as bands like Rod Stewart and the Faces, Chicago, Jethro Tull, and the Bob Seger System rocked Goose Lake Park.

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The festival itself took place nearly a year after Woodstock and, much like Woodstock, drew more people to the area than they expected. The original capacity for the event was set at 60,000, but when 200,000 people showed up for the festival, things could’ve gotten out of hand fast.

But according to concertgoers who went to the festival, like local legend and radio personality Brad Carpenter, everything at the festival seemed to go down without much incident and was much more organized than Woodstock.

Even though there were 160 arrests after the event, there were no large reports of any major crimes happening. Savoy Brown, Joe Cocker, and Alice Cooper were all slated to be at the event; unfortunately, contractual problems kept them from performing.

One of the more unique things about Goose Lake was the stage itself. While one band performed in front of the audience behind the stage, the next band would set up, and once the performance was done, the stage would rotate 180° and the next act would begin, performing almost right away as the stage itself was built on a larger revolving turntable.

You could even say that Woodstock walked so that Goose Lake could run.

Sadly, after the event was all wrapped up, Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley made it so that the original plan to regularly host these kinds of festivals would not be allowed.

That was the original intention for the Goose Lake camp; sadly, it would never hold another festival of that size and is now known as the Greenwood Acres family campground on Goose Lake, which still celebrates its Rock'n'Roll roots around this time every year.

Here are some photos Brad took while at the festival: