Hippiefest returns to Fort Lauderdale this summer celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock festival. Formed in 1966, Ten Years After finally got people to take notice after their incendiary performance at the original Woodstock festival. From there, Alvin Lee along with Ric Lee on drums, Leo Lyons on bass and Chick Churchill on organ, pushed the boundaries of the blues-rock format and in the process made classic albums, including the festival staple "I'm Going Home".Big Brother & the Holding Company, along with bands like The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane are considered one of the original, first wave of great psychedelic bands. Along with Janis Joplin, they embodied the San Francisco counter-culture sound of the 60's. Vanilla Fudge was one of the first American groups to infuse psychedelia into a heavy rock sound to create “psychedelic symphonic rock". After appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show, the band scored big with "You Keep Me Hangin' On".
SHA NA NA founding member Henry Gross hosts and performs. At age eighteen, Henry was a founding member of the Rock & Roll revival group, SHA NA NA. The groups' popularity soared after legendary performances in the Fillmore Auditoriums East and West and at the 1969 Woodstock festival, where he was the youngest person to perform. With the groups' appearance in the film "WOODSTOCK" and the accompanying Cotillion Records 1970 LP of the same name, their popularity became a worldwide phenomenon. In 1976 he released the solo single "Shannon". The song written about the passing of Beach Boy Carl Wilson's Irish Setter of the same name became a worldwide hit.