The Messed Up Truth About Performing At Woodstock

What was your impression of the 1969 Woodstock?

I consider my brother in law the luckiest man on the face of the earth. He's a retired geophysicist from NASA. He was part of a group who mapped ocean floors for the return of Apollo 11. After the mission he took a vacation and visited his parents who lived less than 5 miles from Max Yasgurs farm. He simply walked a few miles to the concert.

It was an ordeal to just get there but any hardship was worth witnessing the greatest bands there ever was to witness the ending of the sixties

I was in fifth grade when this came to Woodstock. I remember my dad saying Look at all those Hippies!! I thought to myself dang dad get with it man. I couldn’t say that out loud.

RIP Jeff Beck.

R.I.P Beck

Joni Mitchell also famously had to miss the festival because her agent didn't want to risk not making her appearance on The Dick Cavett Show shortly after it

FYI: because of rain storms bands would not go on, one of the producers made an announcement saying everyone should light candles to keep away the rain, so when Melanie went on stage to do her set in the rain all she saw was flickering candles in the rain all over the hill side, thus she wrote the song, Candles in the Rain & when ever she would perform that song ppl would light candles, until fire Marshalls started shutting her concerts down cuz her & her guitar were considered a "festival" , anyway over the years it became customary to light a candle during an encore of a concert, started w/ candles at Woodstock w/ Melanie, over yrs evolved to matches, lighters, flashlights and now cell phones, 54 years later!!

Sly and the Family Stone's performance was legendary, I heard they went on at 4 in the morning. One of the promoters had to bust into Sly's trailer and drag him onstage due to his mental state. It was a beautiful weekend though, just groovy.

Sounds like it is much better to remember your experience than living it.

Nobody collected our tickets, my ex still has them. Sound was not that good where we sat. Someone brought a roll of 8' plastic, we unraveled it to stop the rain, but ended up smoking dope and keeping it under the plastic so we all could breathe it. A fellow was having a bad trip and crying for his mother for about 1/2 hour. Finally a dude walked over and gave him an uppercut to the chin, he collapsed in the mud crying and laid there for 15 minutes, nobody helped him. We traded a can of ChungKing Chowmein for acid, big mistake! The music was almost secondary to the excitement of being there, it was a Happening!. Helicopters and helicopters, so many...many were the kind used in Viet Nam, and folks throughout commented they were going to shoot us. Everybody by the second day knew we were involved with something very very big, it made the miserable weather livable. The only reason we went was because in DC, the word was that Bob Dylan was going to be there. I went back exactly 30 years later, sat in the same spot...talking about spooky, it was the same feeling one feels when one is on a bloody civil war battlefield, deadly quiet, weirdly quiet. Sitting envisioning reliving the stage and the people, for some reason, and don't know why, dark, big time dark feeling. As I was leaving, I noticed young people scattered throughout, most had instruments. It was surprisingly a sort of a weird holy ground experience, glad I went back.

Saw Santana at the MGM Casino in Northfield, OH just recently - INCREDIBLE SHOW. He has an awesome band with him with two FANTASTIC vocalists that sound like they were on the original first 3 albums! Helluva show - go see him!

While I was JUST a bit too young to make my way from the West coast to Woodstock, I look back in time and thank God I could not have made it. I attended many concerts in the San Francisco bay area. It was wonderful for the music and experience, but a nightmare to get to bathrooms, such as "Snack Sunday."

I've seen the video of Carlos Santana at Woodstock. It was amazing

I was 17 and desperately wanted to go. A cousin had seen it advertised in some music mag as "An Aquarian Festival," and he, myself and another cousin tried to take off for NY. We got about 60 miles and our crap car broke down - and that was the end of that. Who knows how that music festival would've changed our lives had we made it? We had to settle for Joni Mitchell singing about it after the fact.

I was 3 and spending the summer at my grandmother's old summer place in Ardonia, NY just miles from the event. I recall nothing :)

My opinion was that Lang was never a good organizer. He was just the guy that happened to own the rights, but actually never should have been allowed to set foot anywhere near the decision making room. Thats why 1994 and 1999 were also poorly organized. Lang had been exposed.

Who doesn’t know that ❓❓❓I would have given everything to be there 💕💜💕💜💕💜

WPDH in Poughkeepsie got their hands on a bunch of original Woodstock tickets back in the day. They were doing promotions and I ended up with one. Still have it. Not worth anything but it is still pretty cool to own.

Janis was not with Big Brother at Woodstock. She was with the Kosmic blues band.