Amchitka Concert
Greenpeace co-founder Irving Stowe decided that the only way that his Vancouver-based Don’t Make a Wave Committee could raise enough money to send a ship to protest nuclear bomb testing was to hold a rock concert. Stowe was a lawyer, a music lover, a visionary and a father…but he had never organized a rock concert.
On October 16th 1970, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Phil Ochs played for free to a packed house, delivering brilliant performances and making history.
It’s all captured on a two-disc CD complete with a 48-page booklet of never-before-seen, candid black and white photos of the concert, and photos of the Amchitka voyage and modern-day Greenpeace.
Amchitka, the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace offers you the live vibe and nuance of the concert that changed the course of social activism for peace and the environment.
Funds raised that night sent a boat renamed the Greenpeace to Amchitka Island in the Aleutians on the southern tip of Alaska to protest a series of underground nuclear bomb tests by the U.S. government. Greenpeace was born and the test series was canceled as a direct result of Greenpeace bearing witness and alerting the world.
It could playfully be argued that by performing this concert Joni Mitchell was the attending mid wife at the birth of Greenpeace. It is a fact, however, that the music on this CD has been donated and approved by the artists and their publishers for a limited period with all proceeds from sales going to Greenpeace in support of our work.
Forty years later, the artists are back and Greenpeace is extremely grateful. We hope you join them in supporting us with the purchase of the CD and music.
Thank you for your support!