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Thread: On the merits of the bands alone......

  1. #1
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    On the merits of the bands alone......

    ....given that all the conditions were right:
    1/you were a teenager in '69
    2/you had the oportunity to get a free ride
    3/you could get in free


    ....would you have had incentive to ATTEND WOODSTOCK?

    Myself, no.

    Although I was aware of the majority of the 32 Woodstock acts back then, most did nothing for me.
    Some I actually abhored:Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker,Canned Heat,Creedence Clearwater Revival,The Band,Blood Sweat & Tears,Ten Years After.


    Quill and Keef Hartley Band I would have wanted to see - HAD I KNOWN THESE BANDS.

    The only ones that enticed me back then were: Santana,Hendrix,CSN&Y,and Incredible String Band (But can not say with certainty that I was aware of ISB as early as this.)

    ......


    Yes, this is a Woodstock-depreciating thread.

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    On second thought, I likely did NOT know of CSN&Y so early on.

    (I had the Young "Everyone Knows This is Nowhere" lp long before I had CSN-same lp - and both were released in '69.)


    .....

    That could be another thread: how many of those 32 Woodstock acts were you MUSICALLY aware of back in '69.

  3. #3
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    I would answer "yes." At 14 I was aware of MOST of the announced performers -- except Richie Havens, Sha Na Na, Quill, & Bert Sommer -- and at 14 I was not yet "progressive" enough to look down on The Who, Santana, Mountain, et al. I would've LOVED to go.

    Plus, it was the "Summer of Love" and I was stuck in backwater Seattle being 'just a kid'. I couldn't wait to grow up

  4. #4
    I was 15 then and had seen The Who and Joe Cocker live already. Had heard some of the other bands' music. My answer is oh yea!

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    I'm going out on a branch here but I venture to say that if you knew of Santana PRIOR to Woodstock, that would have been something.

    Woodstock MADE Santana.

    Consider this: the major acts were paid $5000 all the way up to $18,000 (Hendrix).

    Quill was at the bottom - something like $275.

    Santana were paid, I believe around a mere $500 ( near what Keef Hartley Band were paid.)


    (Yeah - I know. It took a decade for most of the "costs" to be finally paid off by the money-men.)

  6. #6
    ^^^ I had heard Santana (the guitarist, not the band). He was on "The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper" album, which was released a few months before Woodstock.

  7. #7
    If I'd been alive then I would have wanted to see it, the Hendrix set in particular would have been unique enough to make it worth it. Although if I could see the Incredible String Band or Grateful Dead in 1969 I would probably rather see a different show.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Deacon Beaker View Post
    Some I actually abhored:Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker,Canned Heat,Creedence Clearwater Revival,The Band,Blood Sweat & Tears,Ten Years After.
    Hell yeah I would have gone. I am not crazy about any of these bands either (exc. the Band; love them). But I just listened to over 50% of the whole Woodstock on the WXPN broadcast that just finished this morning.

    I caught at least partial shows of all those bands' broadcasts, and I was damn impressed with every one of them. They all put on well rehearsed enthusiastic shows. I may actually become a fan of Janis and Cocker as a result of this. The others, no, but still I would have really enjoyed seeing them live in their heyday. The only act that was totally not to my taste, to the point where I had to turn it off, was Country Joe and the Fish.

    What an amazing time that must have been. Maybe almost as good as Nearfest Apocalypse...

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    I think I would have been totally into going.

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    I was 10 in '69, so no idea that it was even happening then. As a 15 year old I was into prog and maybe ten years after was the only band I really knew, and CSNY from the radio. At 15 I also don't know that I could have gone (parents). However, as an 18 year old in the first year of college I definitely would have tried to attend.
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    I'm here for the moosic NogbadTheBad's Avatar
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    My free ride would have had to have been from England, the USA was still a strange exotic place for me through my teens. But if I'd been a teen then I'd have sure as hell wanted to go.
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    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Deacon Beaker View Post
    I'm going out on a branch here but I venture to say that if you knew of Santana PRIOR to Woodstock, that would have been something. Woodstock MADE Santana.
    Their debut album got plenty of airplay. It was released on August 30, while Woodstock was August 15-18. Santana appeared in concert fourteen times in 1967 (all in San Francisco), 73 times in 1968 (all in the bay area except one trip to Reno), and 130 times in 1969 (including Seattle (3 times!), Las Vegas, NYC, Boston, Atlanta...) They were getting plenty of exposure before Woodstock.

    Santana's first single, "Jingo"/"Evil Ways" was released August 1969, but apparently only after Woodstock?
    Santana made a huge impact at the Woodstock festival, where they included "Evil Ways" in their set. They hadn't released their first album yet, but had made a name for themselves playing live shows on the West Coast. Their manager, Bill Graham, got them on the bill, playing the same day as their San Francisco cohorts The Grateful Dead. Their first album, Santana, was released two weeks later amid the raft of positive press from Woodstock. The rhythmic chant track "Jingo" was issued as the first single from the album, reaching #56 in the US. "Evil Ways" was the next single, and it climbed to #9.
    Source
    Last edited by rcarlberg; 08-19-2019 at 09:37 AM.

  13. #13
    Are we working with the knowledge that we now have the performances?!

    For instance, if I was a teenager in August of 1969, I might have known what the Dead were doing in January-April of 1969/ let's say I might have seen them at the Avalon, or the Fillmore West, or in Boston or Chicago), so I might have said "I'd like to see something like that again". But we now know by August of 69, they were already dispensing with a lot of the psychedelic stuff that Jerry had decided was "uncomfortable" to play, and as has been noted, the Dead weren't that great at Woodstock.
    Although if I could see the Incredible String Band or Grateful Dead in 1969 I would probably rather see a different show.
    If you go over to that "Interesting Quote from Greg Lake" thread on the main forum, I sorta hijacked the thread, as we started talking about the Dead (someone said that Greg was once goaded into explaining "the difference between the Dead and the ELP"). Anyway, I posted a list of my favorite Dead shows. If you look at the shows from 1969 (all from January, February, and April), any of those would be the ones I'd want to see, particularly the 2/27/69 and 3/1/69 Fillmore West shows (the former includes the Dark Star that was used in Live/Dead and the latter has a full That's It For The Other One seguing into New Potato Caboose).



    But the bits I've heard of Ritchie Havens, The Who, Santana, Sly And The Family Stone and of course that epochal Voodoo Child (Slight Return)/Stepping Stone/Voodoo Child/Star Spangled Banner/Purple Haze/Villanova Junction suite that ended Jimi's set...well, who wouldn't want to witness that?!

    But yeah, I have access to a TARDIS, one that operated reliably, I'd certainly go back to Yasgur's Farm and check it out.

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    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rarebird View Post
    No, far too many people.
    ..
    Quote Originally Posted by Yogi Berra
    Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

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    I would definitely have wanted to go and not just for the music but for the whole experience. The only thing that would have made me hesitate other then the traffic jam, mud and uncomfortable circumstances would be the unsavory prospect of having to listen to Sha Na Na while tripping.

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    Definitely. I was not quite 16 but knew almost all the bands. If I could have sat up front, stayed dry, had food, and had not had to use the toilet, it would have been great. Within a couple months after Woodstock, I saw Canned Heat (with Harvey Mandel on guitar as he was at Woodstock) and Quill. Both were fan-fargin'-tastic. I did see Tim Hardin shortly after, too, and although good, I think the drugs were taking their toll. The only acts I really didn't know beforehand were Quill, Sha-Na-Na, and Bert Sommer. I've come to love Bert in recent years, though his last album is quite forgettable.
    Last edited by Lopez; 08-20-2019 at 06:23 AM.
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    When you have -what?- 550,000 people in rain,muck,hot sun,sweaty,having to plan the hour and a half it takes on average to attain shit-relief; music becomes subordinate to survival.

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    No way, Jose.

    Hell on earth.
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Buddhabreath View Post
    The only thing that would have made me hesitate other then the traffic jam, mud and uncomfortable circumstances would be the unsavory prospect of having to listen to Sha Na Na while tripping.
    For what they were doing, I bet Sha Na Na weren't that bad, it's just not the version of 1950's rock n roll I'd want to revisit. At the time Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley etc were still out and still kicking ass on tour, that would be the 1950's rock n roll I'd want to see, not a doo wop covers group.

    I remember back in the late 80's, reading an article written by a guy who was in the audience. I remember in the article he says something like, "Unlike certain 'authorities on the subject' (like, say, Joni Mitchell) I was actually there". Anyway, he's talking about the Hendrix set, and how brilliant it was, and how it was seen by so few people, and then he adds, "Even if you stayed, you still had to sit through Sha Na Na". He then describes the people around him were literally plotting ways to "dispatch [the group], particularly the three turkeys in the gold lame suits, to kingdom come!". He also mentions he didn't remember much about Quill, and that one of the best things in the movie was the bit with the Port-O-San man.

  21. #21
    Before answering, do I get to make my decision based on hindsight?

    Because if I knew about the conditions (weather, lack of food, lack of outhouses, lack of water, etc), I would say no. Plus, I was too young.

    Besides The Who, Mountain, Santana, Ten Years After, Hendrix, there weren't that many bands I would have been into.

    I guess a case could be made that simply being there and part of the 'history' surrounding the event, would have been worth it.

    On a side note, just to show how faulty human memory is, well over 1 million people sincerely claim they were there, yet less than half a millions people actually were.
    And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell

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    I was 15 in San Antonio, and I heard nothing on radio or TV until that weekend. I was familiar with most of the bands, including Santana (my brother had that first album). My parents wouldn't have let me go anyway...

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    Progga mogrooves's Avatar
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    I have no real recollection of Sha Na Na; either I was asleep or prowling the grounds, waiting for Jimi.

    re: Sha Na Na : https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-...t-unlikely-act

    Quote Originally Posted by soundsweird View Post
    I heard nothing on radio or TV until that weekend.
    This, I've always suspected, was precisely the problem. A LOT of people who knew nothing of the festival, and heard of it only at the last minute, jumped into their cars with only the clothes on their backs and $3 in their pockets and headed to Bethel in droves, clogging the roads, thinking they'd catch the show on Friday night and then go home. They got there and got stuck.

    Most everyone I knew who made it to the festival had a great time. I do know some, though, who were miserable pretty much the whole time. As we walked to the site, there were plenty of people coming the other way.

    I'd been to large anti-war demonstrations and, by extrapolation, figured there were a lot of "us" out there. But Woodstock clinched it. I heard more then one person say, "Just think of how many people didn't make it!"

    There's no way to understate the siege mentality that existed in Nixon's Amerika. For detractors who insist that Woodstock was just apolitical escapism for middle class (mostly white) kids, I submit--in full recognition of the contradictions in the counterculture of the Sixties, and the exploitative role of corporate capitalism--that there is a "politics of pleasure," and that our very togetherness was not only inherently political... it was a threat.
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  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by simon moon View Post

    On a side note, just to show how faulty human memory is, well over 1 million people sincerely claim they were there, yet less than half a millions people actually were.
    The question to ask is, how many people who were at Woodstock have absolutely zero memory of it, and don't even realize they went?

    There was a gag in Doonesbury once, where it was revealed that Zonker didn't go to Woodstock, he simply saw the movie. Someone wrote into the website and asked how that could be, something to the effect of, "How could Zonker not be at Woodstock?! He's the quintessential hippie! He had to be there!" Gary Trudeau's response was something to the effect of, 'You know how they say if you remember the 60's, you weren't there? Trust me, Zonker was there!"

  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by mogrooves View Post
    I have no real recollection of Sha Na Na; either I was asleep or prowling the grounds, waiting for Jimi.

    re: Sha Na Na : https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-...t-unlikely-act



    This, I've always suspected, was precisely the problem. A LOT of people who knew nothing of the festival, and heard of it only at the last minute, jumped into their cars with only the clothes on their backs and $3 in their pockets and headed to Bethel in droves, clogging the roads, thinking they'd catch the show on Friday night and then go home. They got there and got stuck.

    Most everyone I knew who made it to the festival had a great time. I do know some, though, who were miserable pretty much the whole time. As we walked to the site, there were plenty of people coming the other way.

    I'd been to large anti-war demonstrations and, by extrapolation, figured there were a lot of "us" out there. But Woodstock clinched it. I heard more then one person say, "Just think of how many people didn't make it!"

    There's no way to understate the siege mentality that existed in Nixon's Amerika. For detractors who insist that Woodstock was just apolitical escapism for middle class (mostly white) kids, I submit--in full recognition of the contradictions in the counterculture of the Sixties, and the exploitative role of corporate capitalism--that there is a "politics of pleasure," and that our very togetherness was not only inherently political... it was a threat.
    Thanks for this post. Nothing more to add.

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