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You would think a concert once ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as the second most historic of all time for simultaneously helping to deep-six the world’s biggest band, fomenting an enduring rock ‘n’ roll legend and birthing the idea of waving lighters during musical anthems would be baked into our collective imagination. Especially since it happened in Canada.
And yet the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, held Sept. 13, 1969 at Varsity Stadium and featuring an oddball lineup of The Doors, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent, Chicago, and Alice Cooper, as well as one heck of a last-minute addition — John Lennon, technically still a Beatle at the time but about to perform what you could call his debut post-Beatles gig with Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band, featuring Eric Clapton — has been all but forgotten by anyone other than surviving participants, audience members and rock historians.