TRAIN KEPT A-ROLLIN', INDEED.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

IN THE SUMMER of 1970, enterprising Canadian concert promoters rented a train to carry some of the top rock acts of the day - Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, the Band and more - to concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary.

The promoters seem to have lost their shirts. But they were smart enough to stock the cars not only with all the liquor the musicians could drink (well, maybe not all; there was an unscheduled pit stop in Saskatoon to replenish alcohol supplies) but with film and recording crews.

Finally put together in one feature-length documentary, ``Festival Express,'' the resulting footage captures not only top-notch stage performances by some long-gone supertalents in their prime, but happy jamming and general good fun in the club cars between gigs.

The Dead's Jerry Garcia, not surprisingly, sets to picking with anyone, from any genre, who wants to play, and guilelessly declares his love for Janis during one particularly sweet, sozzled laughin' jag. On a less predictable note, fellow Deadman Bob Weir offers a sincere defense of Canadian police who tried to prevent radicals that wanted free concerts from wrecking the shows.

Originally shot on 16mm and often during nighttime shows, the footage is inevitably grainy and sometimes fuzzy. But the incredible and very hairy energy of these great performers at their peaks shines through any technical glitches. ``Festival Express'' plays like a locomotive.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

FESTIVAL EXPRESS - Three and one half stars

(R: language, drug use)

Starring: Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Band, Buddy Guy, Ian & Sylvia.

Director: Bob Smeaton.

Running time: 1 hr. 28 min.

Playing: Landmark's Nuart, West Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Documentary of a 1970 train tour of rock acts across Canada captures some blistering, if inevitably grainy footage of great performers at their youthful best.