Keeping score at home? Before we even heard about the festival around New Year’s, it was to be a five-day event planned to coincide with the G8 and G20 conferences. Then it was three days, then two. Then it was pushed back to July. Then September.
But still, we kept the faith. Almost every move, especially dodging the G20, had a semblance of sense behind it, even if the gears weren’t exactly turning smoothly. We crossed our fingers, and waited for the news that somehow they’d pulled it off and signed a couple of awesome acts.
Even after announcing an uninspiring list of second-tier performers, the festival pushed on for a couple more weeks, putting tickets on sale and angling to secure financing, if not sign a major act. Then, finally, they used that little box on their Facebook—the one no one knows what to do with, on the left-hand column—to announce the festival’s ignominious end.
Kornfeld says he’s been out of the loop for months, though the concert’s website still touts his presence. He recalls the positive vibes when he came to town in the spring, and would have come back if he thought Imagine could be made real. “I would have gone back in July. I would have come back next week if I thought there was a chance to save it,” he says. Instead, he jumped from the sinking ship.
David Kam, who conceived the event and is still sticking with it, says a fraudulent bank deal lead to a big financial hit and funding never stabilized. In fact, he says, funding that might have allowed the show to proceed came in a mere three hours after the postponement was announced.
“It actually was extremely close [to happening],” Kam says. “We just ran out of time. If we had more time, we would not have had to postpone. Certain things are supposed to be in place, and it was much harder than we thought.”
KISS was the biggest band the festival came close to signing, Kam maintains; Imagine even got past the point of a letter of intent. Imagine’s new Arizona-based “Peace Ambassador,” Tina Michelle, drops the name of the Black Eyed Peas as another band that was interested.
But there were other forces at work. Kam didn’t have the connections and experience to navigate Imagine’s way around a corporate-driven industry.
“What we found is that there were companies already embedded in the music industry that didn’t want a competitor on the market,” Kam says.
But a lot of the bands who already have touring deals also have clauses allowing charity concerts, Kam says. With more time to set something up, that would have been an opening Imagine could’ve taken advantage of.

The concert is not cancelled, merely postponed, Kam and Michelle say. Already, they say, they have “strategic partners” ready to go forward, and they’re building a committed team for 2011.
But for all the behind-the-scenes brouhaha, Kam and company have to contend with the contracts they signed, both with Downsview Park and the artists. The Downsview contract allows the date to be moved, Kam says. That’s good news, since they seem to be treating this year’s effort as a sort of good learning experience.
They haven’t picked a new date yet, since this time they’re trying to book headliners and find a date that works for them—the headliners, that is—rather than trying to shoehorn everybody into something pre-ordained.
That still leaves the bands who signed contracts when there wasn’t stable funding on the table. An email sent out to performers by concert promoters OVCM, obtained by Torontoist, shows the organizers trying to placate performers, hoping they’ll wait for the relaunch and not sue for breach of contract.
The letter, from OVCM Vice President Kris Christie, reads:

We realize that this sudden cancellation has put artists in an unfortunate situation which may result in loss of revenue from this event as well as the possibility of not having time to rebook and we are deeply sorry for not being able to resolve this situation. We acted with all good intentions and did everything possible to overcome many challenges including the loss of multiple investors and sponsors due to a number of unforeseen circumstances, the cancellation of many festivals, the G8/G20 and the repeated reports of the decline in the market which created uncertainty for those wanting to financially support this unprecedented undertaking.
Upon securing the necessary funds we would like to honor your contracts for next year should you wish to participate once the new date is confirmed and announced. We assure you that all contracts will be renegotiated with deposits made immediately upon signing and again we deeply regret this truly unfortunate situation.

Christie rightly points out this has hardly been a banner year for the concert industry, with the revived Lilith Fair cancelling dates, and local stalwarts like Edgefest and Virgin not even trying to stage something. But that doesn’t change the fact that Imagine is out an amount “much higher than $100,000,” Kam confirmed.
Performers were recently sent an addendum to their contracts, also obtained by Torontoist. It contains five new clauses outlining rules of confidentiality and allowing both parties to renegotiate the contract in good faith if the date is moved. Also, artists can’t talk to media without going through the concert organizers.
Of course, the new conditions only take effect for artists who sign on. There’s the rub.
Iron Butterfly’s Rhino Reindhart must not have gotten the memo. “Me and the posse were just getting on when the Canada people pulled the plug, the bastards,” he claimed on his Facebook wall. “[T]hey lost every band’s deposit, and no air tickets what a joke to play with our lives.”
Kam admits things will have to be worked out with some of the artists, but he remains optimistic.
“We’d rather have people that are truly for the vision than people who were complaining even when the dates were right,” Michelle adds.
For all the fixation on the bands and the concert, Kam and Michelle contend the real issue was losing focus on the big picture.
“We were looking at it as a global event that would impact the world…what ended up occurring is you get into logistics and it becomes just a big concert,” Michelle says.
“This is a movement, not just a notion, so it’s an ongoing initiative.”
Imagine was supposed to be accompanied by the Earthship Summit, sort of a huge eco-conference, and their sights should have been set on getting acts that understood that vision, rather than merely wanting to lend their names, Michelle says.
Kornfeld applauds Kam’s vision and intentions, but also describes him as a “loose cannon” when it came to logistics.
Kornfeld also echoed some of what Michelle said, noting that the original Woodstock acts were not superstars when they were booked. Hundreds of thousands of people could have come out to Imagine, no matter who the bands were, if the event was done right, Kornfeld says.
For all his frustration, Kornfeld also believed the festival could be something more special than just another musical get-together—something that could have left a real legacy for Toronto and for Downsview Park.
“This could have been a Mecca where people come every year. It could have been a peace park,” he says.
Kam says there were also doubters before the Wright Brothers took flight. Michelle concedes the proof in the pudding will be the unveiling of a new, real date.
No matter what, there is some good to come from this.
It was Kam’s idea to auction off guitars for charity. Mike Carparelli, whose company donated the guitars, tells us it’s still going forward independently. The Damien Hirst guitar will hit the block at Christie’s in London in the fall, with proceeds going to War Child. It was initially hoped that the guitar would be autographed by celebs and then played on stage at the festival, upping its value, but it will now go au naturel. Hirst’s stuff often goes for mega-millions, and even without all the trappings, it should at least raise several hundred thousand dollars.
The other completed guitar, by Jim Warren, was autographed by the Beach Boys the other week and it will also be auctioned, but in New York, later this year. The proceeds from that one will go to Amnesty International.
Another three or four guitars could similarly be set up with A-list artists in the coming weeks and months, Carparelli hopes. As has so often been the case with most things Imagine, nothing’s been finalized.
Illustrations by Roxanne Ignatius/Torontoist.

It’s been an uphill battle but things are moving forward, co-organizer David Kam says, and a lineup and ticket details should be released in about three weeks.
Will we be totally surprised if the ambitious show doesn’t come off as planned?
Probably not. There’s only been concert even close to this scale in this city’s history (and not many more worldwide), and SARSstock had the support of every level of government and bigwigs such as Molson.
“In the last forty years there haven’t been many large events. The biggest challenge is probably getting the city on board,” Kam says.
Kam says that City staff are concerned about the influx of people and see the negatives rather than the positives of bringing hundreds of thousands of tourists into the city.
Local councillor Michael Feldman (Ward 10, York Centre) told Torontoist that, given how urbanized the surrounding area is, he’d want to be assured there would be no significant negative effects from the concert. The two prior mega-events at the site, SARSstock and World Youth Day, went relatively smoothly, but the latter caused sewer blockages, particularly in the nearby Idomo store, which was forced to undergo major renovations. Of course, residents were also affected by basic things like road closures, Feldman said.
Somewhat surprisingly, given that his ward abuts the park’s eastern edge, Feldman was not up to speed on the plans. The City of Toronto’s communications staff also seemed a bit baffled as to just who could speak to what concerns the City might (or might not) have. The City told us first to talk to the (federally owned) Downsview Park. When we persisted, we were told that we could only talk to someone at the City about concerns if we knew who was concerned in the first place. (We leave it to you, dear readers, to decide whether this says more about City bureaucracy, the lack of concern about the concert, the fact that no one at the City knows there are even plans for the concert in the first place, how little progress the concert planners have actually made, or whatever else you can come up with on your own.)
After speculation about troubles last month, worries that the fest was dead in the water kicked into high gear following a posting last Friday on the concert’s Twitter:

It soon disappeared (but not before we got a screencap!) and was replaced by an apology: “sorry for the last post. our account was hacked and we have fixed the situation. Imagine is ALIVE and WELL…cant wait 2 see u all July10,11″
According to Kam, the posting came from a disgruntled employee at OVCM, the concert promoter, who hacked in after being taken off the account.
Before that, the last post on the feed was an enthusiastic March 19 notice: “Amazing series of meeting this week! This concert is really taking shape…we have an amazing team in place. RU ready to rockn’roll with us?”
Encouraging, no? But even that post was after the date planners Kam and Artie Kornfeld hoped to have announced the acts.
In the meantime, their website has been updated, but the details of who is performing and how much tickets will cost haven’t been released yet. Instead, Kam spent last weekend seeing if anyone out there reading his Twitter feed could help land big-time acts like Roger Waters and Paul McCartney.
Waters is starting a big tour of The Wall here in September and while he doesn’t seem like the type to pop in for a few solo numbers, Kam says they are in negotiations.
And The Cute Beatle? He’s doing some scattered European dates in June, so he could be available. You’d think he might consider it if for no other reason than to infringe on the legacy of John Lennon’s historic Toronto show. They always liked to take digs at each other like that.
The Imagine website touted tributes to old-timey artists like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, but those aren’t sure things, particularly if Image can land the hoped-for fifty-to-sixty original acts spread across multiple stages, Kam says.

Enough time has passed since we broke the story in February to look at how some of the big concert tours are shaping up, take some educated guesses, and rule some people out.
Tom Petty is coming here in August with Crosby, Stills and Nash; Rush is here only three days after the planned dates; Dave Matthews Band is here just over a month earlier; U2 is here the week before. You can probably rule out the likes of John Mayer, Jack Johnson, and Green Day, who are all coming through town on their own this summer. In terms of acts already floated by the promoters, Pearl Jam will be in Portugal, Lady Gaga is at the ACC that very weekend, and (phew!) Nickelback just played here the other week and hopefully will be in quarantine or something the rest of the year. Sorry, Justin Beiber fans—he’s in Utah that weekend, but Woodstock original Santana is here with Steve Winwood, though the two are at the Molson Amphitheatre, not Downsview.
Kam says he tried to get Rage Against Machine via a booker who wanted $1.5 million. He hopes he can get the politically minded band onside if he can get in touch with them directly and pitch the concert’s message of peace, love, and telling the G20 leaders to get with the program.
That still leaves plenty of good acts out there—Phish is on a mid-tour break and doesn’t have a Toronto date on their sched, for example, and the Flaming Lips, who rocked the joint at SARSstock, are in a similar situation.
No doubt, you can all think of dozens more cool acts, but a show this size won’t come off without a few major headliners on board.
It may just be that the cruel realities of capitalism won’t work in favour of Kornfeld and Kam, but they still have time to prove everyone doubting them wrong. They may be a couple of dreamers, but hopefully they’re not the only ones, you know.
Photos of Downsview Park in February by Christopher Drost/Torontoist.

We were tipped off to news of a possible event shortly after the New Year, but we had no clue just how big of an event organizers Artie Kornfeld and David Kam were planning.
The Imagine Concert aims to bring a little bit of Woodstock to town (“for the green generation”), not coincidentally shortly after the leaders of the world’s most prosperous nations depart. The initial plan was to hold the event during the G8/G20 summit (June 25 to 27), but organizers soon realized there weren’t enough cops to both protect the world leaders and secure their concert site, and pushed it back.
Artie Kornfeld, the man behind the musical side of the effort was (also not coincidentally) one of the organizers of the original Woodstock Aquarian Exposition—the one Limp Bizkit fans didn’t burn down—and he is adamant that despite a dormant period, the “Woodstock Spirit” is very much alive.
Woodstock may have defined a generation, but Imagine has the potential to stretch across three or four, and on Twitter, Kornfeld wrote that “Toronto [is] more important than Woodstock,” no mean claim for the man whose recently released autobiography dubs him the “Pied Piper of Woodstock.”


“He was more of the idealist,” Kam says of Kornfeld’s role in launching that festival. “He saw it as a gathering for peace, freedom, and to help stop the war…that’s why he was the only one who didn’t do Woodstock [1994 and 1999].”
It’s a bit of a twist, since this time around Kam is the dreamer, and Kornfeld is the one doing much of the grunt work, at least on the musical side of things.
At a fourtieth anniversary Woodstock celebration last summer Kornfeld told a crowd: “Woodstock nation, get off your asses!” and he hopes Imagine will get both that generation and the current one up and at ‘em.
“As soon as I tell people what it’s about, it will sell out,” Kornfeld says. “It’s going to be a wonderful experience. I’m really into the rebirth of the experience of Woodstock.” (One difference: no on-site camping; organizers are recommending Glen Rouge Park for those hoping to recapture some of that festival spirit.)
What a Woodstock rebirth means for Kornfeld is good vibes and kick-ass musical acts. This early in the game, he can’t say just who’ll be there (Foo Fighters, Nickelback, and Lady Gaga have been contacted, he divulges), though on top of the big names expected, there’ll also be a talent search for would-be performers. Kornfeld doesn’t doubt the show will come off. “I love music and I love people, and it’s great they just come together,” he says.
Imagine is just the tip of the iceberg. The concert is part of the larger Earthship Summit Festival, Kam’s brainchild. The Montreal artist had the idea three years ago and he has much bigger goals in mind than cool music.
“My hope is to plant the seed, to create the momentum for world change,” he says: the festival’s themes will include poverty, peace, and sustainability.


Technology will take the festival well beyond the borders of North York with closed-circuit broadcasts in two hundred theatres across the continent, and Kam hopes to exploit the Internet and mobile technology to their utmost. International interactivity will be the name of the game, with plans for a green-oriented, Facebook-style network. Locally, the festival will be looking for volunteers
Kam has partnered with a wide array of charities—Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Save the Children, for starters—and pledged half of the profits to them. Kam also hopes to have ongoing charity efforts after the event.
Earthship aims to bring in big-name speakers (some live, some on video) such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bono (naturally). Helping make the big connections is lawyer Paul Marshall, who has represented everyone from the Kennedy family to Whitney Houston, and who helped Michael Jackson acquire the Beatles publishing catalogue.
The size of the names isn’t as important to Kam as the messages they’ll bring; John Lennon’s utopian ballad “Imagine” was his inspiration and Kam hopes to put out three re-recordings of it, an act which apparently has Yoko Ono’s blessing. Guitars played on an all-star version will be autographed and designed by well-known artists before being auctioned off.
The organizers hope to formally launch the event, with many more details, by mid-March.
Photos of Downsview Park (much of it currently under construction) and the surrounding area by Christopher Drost/Torontoist.