The Northern California Folk-Rock Festival was a music festival

Music festival

A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...

 held at Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose, California

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

 on the 18-19 May 1968. It was the first of two such festivals held at the venue, being followed by the Northern California Folk-Rock Festival (1969)

Northern California Folk-Rock Festival (1969)

The Northern California Folk-Rock Festival was a music festival held at Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose, California on the 23-25 May 1969...

.

The festival featured Country Joe and the Fish

Country Joe and the Fish

Country Joe and the Fish was a rock band most widely known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1966 to 1971, and also regarded as a seminal influence to psychedelic rock.-History:...

, The Animals

The Animals

The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...

, Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....

, The Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

, Big Brother and the Holding Company

Big Brother and the Holding Company

Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. They are best known as the band that featured Janis Joplin as their...

 featuring Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...

, The Youngbloods

The Youngbloods

The Youngbloods was an American folk rock band consisting of Jesse Colin Young , Jerry Corbitt , Lowell Levinger, nicknamed "Banana," , and Joe Bauer . Despite receiving critical acclaim, they never achieved widespread popularity. Their only U.S. Top 40 entry was "Get Together".-Background and...

, The Electric Flag, Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope (US band)

Kaleidoscope was an American psychedelic folk and ethnic band who recorded 4 albums and several singles for Epic Records between 1966 and 1970.-Formation:...

, Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal (musician)

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...

 and Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...

. Although not mentioned in promotional material, the The Grateful Dead also performed.