THOUGHTS ON WOODSTOCK 1969, 1994, 1999

By G. Horstman

Since we have an "First Person" account of "Woodstock '99" from one of AMZ's journalists, as well as a whole lot of photos of what went on that you didn't see on TV (even if you did the PPV thing like I did - for 90 Bucks yet!), I decided to write an overview of the "Woodstock Arts & Music Fairs" and "Three Days of Peace, Love and Music" as I remember them.

Unfortunately for me, I never experienced "Woodstock" in person. In the summer of '69 I was about a year away from getting into "trippy hippie" mode, and although I lived within a 7 hr. drive of "Woodstock," we really didn't hear too much about this big music festival until it was happening on the 6:00 news. Not being into the "scene" yet, I didn't make the trek to NY from PA. However, when it was over, I got my hands on anything remotely related to "Woodstock," including the album, seeing the Warner Bros. movie (many times), newspaper clippings, etc.

In the past 30 years, there have been so many documentaries, TV clips, movies set within "Woodstock," and press coverage of the Rock Icons that appeared at the first fair, even if you weren't born at the time you know the story. Everything from the gate-crashing FREE music for 3 days, to the brown LSD that sent so many people on bad trips, to the driving thunderstorms which endangered both the crowd and the bands, to the lack of food and toilet facilities (hey, the organizers were expecting maybe 50,000 - 100,000 people, not 500,000!), to nude people running around caked in mud, to some of the famous photos of coed bathing in a pond with flowers in their hair, images of the original "Woodstock" will always remain an important part of American culture.

Who can forget the New York State Thruway being closed? (Unheard of!) The thousands of kids that hiked for MILES, abandoning their cars just to get to the music - and trusting that nothing would happen to their stuff? The other thousands who never even GOT to the festival because of the traffic? The locals who couldn't get out of their driveways because of the traffic jam of the century? The performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" by "Jimmy Hendrix," complete with guitar on fire and beat to death, which has become an anthem in the annals of Rock & Roll? Janis Joplin belting it out with "Big Brother and the Holding Company?" "Richie Havens" starting things off 3 hrs. late on day one to a very restless crowed of well over a quarter of a million people, playing every song he knew, and even songs/chants he made up toward the end of his set, just to keep them happy for hours? Helicopters coming to the rescue of Richie (and others) by flying the acts in, since they couldn't get through the traffic? "Jefferson Airplane" heading up the Sunday morning activities playing the more than appropriate "White Rabbit?" The night "Arlo Guthrie" asked half a million people to ". . .light a match?" I really don't remember all the bands that performed at the first "Woodstock." I seriously doubt that those in attendance do either! BUT, what did happen was "Three Days of Peace, Love and Music." Considering the conditions, the number of people in the audience, so many opportunities for things to go BAD in a very big way that didn't, the inevitable exodus at the end of the Festival in as orderly a manner as possible, and even clean up crews at Yasgur's Farm to leave it in at least a semblance of the order they found it in, I think "Woodstock '69" was quite a success - for everyone except the organizers. It took fifteen years to get out of the financial hole they found themselves in.

Over the years, we saw the likes of "Live Aid," "Farm Aid" and various other major concert experiences, with performers from all over the world coming together for one cause or another, but nothing like "Woodstock" - until 1994. The 25th Anniversary of the first "Woodstock Music & Arts Fair." For this "anniversary" edition, I lived too far away to trek there in person, and we're talking major generation differences at this point in time. Not wanting to be one of the "old hippies" that showed up, I took the easiest (and best) seat in the "house" - in my living room on cable TV. I taped the entire three days of course, and really haven't pulled the tapes out to re-watch them since. I see I have some of the tapes marked with performances I thought were exceptional, like "Metallica" and "Aerosmith" to name a few, but I also remember watching "Green Day" getting pummeled with mud slung onto the stage by the crowd. I know the band was egging the crowd on, and because of all the rain it was one big mud bog, but things got out of hand with their set and it continued through the rest of the weekend. Definitely not the same spirit as the first "Woodstock," especially seeing the raging moshe pits and body slamming going on. Of course the music in 1994 was a far cry from "peace, love and harmony." With a lot of Punk, Hard Rock and Metal bands doing their thing, this was a rough crowd.

There were a some things still very much like the first Festival. Nudity for one. That seems to be THE most consistent tradition carried on. But the bad stuff, like poor sanitation, lack of food and water, walking miles to the camping and parking areas, etc., were again a problem. The mood of the crowd was more what I'd call "angry" than "peaceful," and a lot of bands were shown disrespect at this Anniversary edition of "Woodstock." A lot more "big name" bands made appearances this time around, but several bands also showed their disgust at being bombed with mud, empty bottles, toilet paper, etc. I can't say I blame them for it either. Since our AMZ journalist attended "Woodstock '94" and "Woodstock '99," I expect we'll hear a lot of comparisons in his article covering "Woodstock '99."

For the "Thirtieth Anniversary of Woodstock," again I watched from my living room clear across the country and taped the whole thing - and paid a fortune to watch all 3 days on Pay-Per-View. My first comment about PPV was their concerted effort to find topless and nude females to zoom in on at every chance, simply because they were broadcasting PPV so they could. The folks watching MTV or VH1 missed one hell of a lot of T&A shots, as nudity once again was the norm rather than the exception. I don't have anything against people running around nude if they want to, and this year a whole lot of people got their bodies air-brushed with these really cool designs, so I guess technically it wasn't COMPLETE nudity, but I didn't pay $90 + tax to see airbrushed boobs and butts. I wanted to see the bands perform, not the crowd dancing around nude or throwing stuff at the stages. My other complaint about PPV was the confusing way they broadcast the bands. Most of the time they concentrated on the Main Stage, but went to the Second Stage during set changes on the Main Stage. And they never ONCE showed anything from the Emerging Artists Stage, although they found plenty of time to go around broadcasting girls with their boobs airbrushed, or getting them airbrushed, or checking them out when they were done getting them airbrushed. No shots from the Extreme Sports Area either, and only brief forays into the "Woodstock Peace Wall" mural project being carried on by several artists who drew the designs, and volunteers who painted in the spaces. We have several photos of the "Wall," and even a couple pieces of the wall itself included with the photos. Every time a new act hit the Main Stage the broadcast returned there (which I guess is right), but after a few minutes they were panning the crowd for nude folks instead of showing the bands playing. The acts they cut away FROM during the "regular" broadcast day were broadcast in the middle of the night, so if you weren't up 65 hrs. straight, or weren't taping, you missed some GREAT bands, like "Guster," "The Roots with Special Guest Erikah Bahdu," "George Clinton And The P-Funk All Stars," "Mickey Hart & Planet Drum" and numerous others.

I think one of the few times they stayed at the Second Stage was for "Insane Clown Posse" - merely for the oddity factor. ICP did drag a small amount of their freaky stage set out (something almost none of the bands did), and they definitely kept some cola company happy because they bought out what looked like a warehouse of 2 liter bottles that they sprayed all over the crowd and themselves for their entire set. Strange but worth watching. Not much in the line of Rap got on the Main Stage except for "Kid Rock," "DMX" and of course the "Red Hot Chili Peppers" with their own brand of rap/sing to wind things up Sunday night. There were some other groups with rap as part of the songs on the Main Stage, but not as many true Rap/Hip-Hop performers as I expected to see on either stage.

You will notice that we didn't get any live shots from the Main Stage, because it was impossible for our journalist to get close enough to take any photos. We have much more from the Second Stage, the Emerging Artists Stage and various other things that were happening on the grounds, like the vendor booths, petition booths, extreme sports, crowd shots, etc. If I can cadge any stills from my VCR that aren't jumping around, hopefully I can add some photos of the "big" acts as well. And their were some surprises on the Main Stage. I never thought I'd actually be impressed with "Kid Rock" and his sidekick, but when the dude went around and played EVERY instrument in the band near the end of his set he got my vote for best impression made by an artist I wasn't really interested in. This guy is a MUSICIAN, not just a white rapper.

"Sheryl Crow" made her biggest impression on me when the crowd was harassing her to ". . . show her tits." Snappy comeback: "You'll have to pay a LOT more than what you did to get in here to see MY tits!" This was also pretty much the first time I've seen "Everlast" except for guest performances on talk shows. This was another act that impressed me, and his concern for people in the crowd was very evident. He stopped his performance more than once to tell the crowd that people were getting hurt by the glass bottles being thrown (in addition to all the plastic bottles, toilet paper, clothing, etc.), and to quit mauling the girls just because the audience was so packed together it was easy to cop a feel.

Several groups came out during the course of the weekend to play the famous opening notes of the "Jimi Hendrix" version of the "Star Spangled Banner," but IF I remember correctly (and I didn't have time to go through 65 hrs. of video tape to find out for sure), "Wycleff Jean" was the artist that actually did the whole song, set his guitar on fire, and at least tried to keep it on fire, while he beat it to death in true Hendrix fashion.

One of my favorite bands, "Metallica," was the last main stage band on Saturday and they sure didn't disappoint. In addition to a REALLY edgy, heavy metal set that included songs from just about all their albums (yes they played stuff from "Master Of Puppets," "And Justice For All," "Metallica") right through "Garage Inc." Once again a massive storm moved in, this time while "Metallica" was playing, but the fans were out in that pouring rain, so the band came back for I think three encores of at least 2 songs each. They played WAY past the time the night's stage acts were supposed to be over, and were most definitely a case of "saving the best for last" on the busiest day.

By the time Sunday rolled around, I was about "Woodstocked-Out." I kept taping, but didn't watch a whole lot, although I did catch "Our Lady Peace, "Megadeth," "Jewel" and "Red Hot Chili Peppers" partially. I'll have to go back through my tapes to see "Willie Nelson," "Brian Setzer" and "Ice Cube" among others. (What a combination THAT is!) I happened to "re-join" the broadcast in time to see the first fire near the towers. Yes, there were several fires set at the very end of the last set Sunday night by the "Red Hot Chili Peppers." There was also a lot of looting that went on. Unfortunately, the whole concept of "Three More Days Of Peace And Music" actually DID happen, but television news, MTV, etc. chose to concentrate on the bad stuff that went on when "Woodstock '99" was basically over.

No props to the Chili Peppers. Not only did their set incite the crowd to begin with, but once the first fire was raging they chose to sing "Fire" by "Jimmy Hendrix." They also made some really crude and asinine "requests" for things the crowd should throw on the stage that don't even bear repeating. When they didn't come back immediately for their encore, the audience was getting pissed off and restless, and even more fires sprung up. One of the Woodstock announcers came out and promised that RHCP would be back in a few minutes, but asked people to clear the way for the fire engines. After about 10 minutes, RHCP did come back for their encore, by request made a VERY half-hearted announcement about letting the fire trucks through, then proceeded to stir up the crowd even more. Once they left the stage this time, their set was over and the organizers/security/police and firefighters were left to try and control the damage.

In my opinion, putting RHCP on as the last act of Woodstock was a mistake. These guys don't have a hell of a lot of respect for their fans or themselves, and they let 3 pretty fantastic days of music end on a sour note instead of an up note. Since I was only able to see what was broadcast on PPV, our first person account from the AMZ journalist who was actually there will delve more into this issue than I possibly could. Overall though, I thought "Woodstock '99" was a lot closer in spirit to the first "Woodstock," and if the powers that be can keep up the good work started at this one, then hopefully future anniversaries will be even better.