Posted on 06/30/2009 10:53:20 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
It was billed as three days of peace and music, but the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was really the culmination of months of planning, begging, borrowing and countless hours of hard work. To mark the 40th anniversary of that historic concert, the man at the heart of it all, Michael Lang — the producer who co-created Woodstock — peels back the curtain and reveals the stories and the passion behind one of rock's most powerful moments.
Lang and Holly George-Warren deliver The Road to Woodstock on June 30, but here they give RollingStone.com a first look at some of its revelations. Lang recounts his first meeting with Max Yasgur, the dairy farmer who invited a nation of music-hungry kids to his upstate New York farm. He recalls how he courted Bob Dylan, and why the legend didn't make it to the Woodstock stage that weekend. He also explains how he avoided losing the Grateful Dead and the Who at the 11th hour, and describes the moment that Sly and the Family Stone elevated the festival to another plane.
Read on for these and more personal stories from the man who took Woodstock from vision to rock history.
...The Who Cement Their Place in Rock History
It was three thirty in the morning and the Who were about to go on, so I said, "Look, Abbie, whoever you saw is gone, so let's just go watch some music and chill out for a few minutes."
He agreed and we headed back up to the stage to sit with musicians from various groups who'd gathered to watch. Abbie kept fidgeting next to me. He couldn't stop talking. "I've really gotta say something about John Sinclair! He's rotting in prison for smoking a joint!" Sinclair, the manager of the radical Detroit rock band the MC5 and the founder of the White Panther Party, was set up by the cops and sentenced to ten years in prison for the possession of two joints.
"Okay, Abbie," I tried to reason with him, "there will be a chance later on, between sets or something."
But he persisted. "No, I really gotta say something! Now!"
"Abbie, the Who is on," I reminded him — they were about halfway through performing Tommy in its entirety, so I don't know how he failed to notice. "You can't make a speech in the middle of their set — let them finish! Chill out!"
Just after "Pinball Wizard," Abbie leaped up before I could grab him and rushed to Townshend's mic, while Pete had his back turned and was adjusting his amp. Abbie started earnestly beseeching the audience to think about John Sinclair, who needed our help. He was in his element, berating everyone for having a good time. "Hey, all you people out there having fun while John Sinclair is being held a political prisoner . . ." WHAM! Townshend, turning back to the audience and seeing Abbie at his mic, whacked him in the head with his guitar.
Abbie stumbled, then jumped to the photographer's pit, dashed over the fence, and vanished into the crowd below. A pretty dramatic exit. That was the last I saw of him that weekend.
HENRY DILTZ: I was right in front of the Who, on the lip of the stage. There was Roger Daltrey, with his fringes flying. Abbie Hoffman ran onto the stage and Pete Townshend took his guitar and held it straight out, perfectly, with the neck toward the guy, just like a bayonet, and went klunk. I thought he killed him. Early in the set, Townshend had already kicked Michael Wadleigh in the chest while the director crouched in front of him with his camera. Now Townshend was over the top with fury. "The next f***ing person who walks across this stage is going to get f***ing killed!" he yelled as he retuned his Gibson SG. The audience at first thought he was joking and started laughing and clapping. "You can laugh," he said coldly, "but I mean it!"
PETE TOWNSHEND: My response was reflexive rather than considered. What Abbie was saying was politically correct in many ways. The people at Woodstock really were a bunch of hypocrites claiming a cosmic revolution simply because they took over a field, broke down some fences, imbibed bad acid, and then tried to run out without paying the bands. All while John Sinclair rotted in jail after a trumped-up drug bust. The Who continued with their exhilarating performance of Tommy, and just as the sun rose, they played raucous rock and roll classics from their days as mods: "Summertime Blues," "Shakin' All Over," and "My Generation." They were astonishing. Later, I couldn't believe the band thought they were subpar and that the audience didn't get into Tommy.
PETE TOWNSHEND: Tommy wasn't getting to anyone. By [the end of the set], I was about awake, we were just listening to the music when all of a sudden, bang! The fucking sun comes up! It was just incredible. I really felt we didn't deserve it, in a way. We put out such bad vibes — and as we finished it was daytime. We walked off, got in the car, and went back to the hotel. It was f***ing fantastic.
BILL GRAHAM: The Who were brilliant. Townshend is like a locomotive when he gets going. He's like a naked black stallion. When he starts, look out.
ROGER DALTREY: We did a two-and-a-half-hour set . . . It made our career. We were a huge cult band, but Woodstock cemented us to the historical map of rock and roll.
--- Rolling Stone article of excerpts from the forthcoming The Road to Woodstock by Michael Lang with Holly George-Warren, Ecco/HarperCollins, © 2009 (used with permission)
This is great stuff-—I just finished writing some of this in my newest book, “Eight Events That Changed America.” It’s noteworthy that Daltry said Hitler was “right for the German people at the time,” and was “really marvellous.” Of course, he went “mad” later, but at the time he was fine. LOL.
2 1/2 hours set = a lot of work especially in the middle of the night. The rest of the groups at Woodstock were largely sh*t.
“The rest of the groups at Woodstock were largely sh*t.”
Well, three days is an awful lot of time to fill. So naturally, you wind up with a lot of filler. Looking at the list of performers at Woodstock, it seems for every legendary act like the Who, there are two acts nobody remembers or cares about anymore.
Frankly I’ve found Michael Lang to heavily overstate his role in this fiasco. He parlayed his “fame” into operations on the subsequent Altamont Speedway Rolling Stones fiasco and the riotous 1999 Woodstock.
There was arson and looting at the 1969 “peace and love” fest too.
I may get around to reading this account some day but may have gotten my fill from reading:
“Young Men With Unlimited Capital: The Story of Woodstock” by Joel Rosenman, John Roberts, Robert Pilpel (the men who originated and invested in the Woodstock project)
and
Woodstock: An Inside Look at the Movie That Shook Up the World and Defined a Generation by Dale Bell (about the filmcrew that shot the footage)
Famous radicals (Abbie Hoffman and the Black Panthers) engaged in savage thugary to exort many dollars out of the promoters (they threatened to riot and cause problems if they weren’t given $10,000 and booth space, well look what happened, they were paid off and the fences were trashed anyway, the burger guy had his booth burned down by hippies, and someone who’s name elludes me tried to forcibly steal the film crews’ borrowed equipment)
All in all, the history of this event is overstated (while other music festivals have been cast to the dustbin of history). It changed the way the MUSIC INDUSTRY looked at bands and led us to the current path of $85 tickets and stadium shows. Yeah, wooooo!
Ever wonder why you don’t hear anything good on the radio anymore? It isn’t the talent pool, it’s the suits.
The Who put together such a kick ass set that night. The rest of the time, the crowd had to listen to crap like Country Joe and the Fish.
We are all for peace, luv and understanding...except if you interupt my set!!!
The Who also got dosed on acid (someone put it in their drinks without telling them).
Pete Townsend has said it was the worst show they ever had to play.
And it was the Monterey Pop Festival (1967) that put them on the map in America.
The people at Woodstock really were a bunch of hypocrites claiming a cosmic revolution simply because they took over a field, broke down some fences, imbibed bad acid, and then tried to run out without paying the bands.
...Substitute “Hope and Change” for Cosmic Revolution...
... and it sounds like a bunch of Obama Voters....
I hope in 2012, We won’t get Fooled Again!!!!
Would have been a great place for a tactical nuke.
Santana recalls his own experience (at Woodstock) taking LSD. "My guitar is like - like (an) electric snake. So that's why you see my face, you know, like making all these ugly faces, like, 'Stand still,' you know." "Intuitively I just said, 'God, please help me. I'll never do this again," he says.
CARLOS SANTANA: We got to Woodstock at eleven in the morning. We'd heard it was a disaster area. They flew us in on a helicopter. We hung around with Jerry Garcia and we found out that we didn't have to go on until eight at night. They told us just to cool out and take it easy.
One thing led to another. I wanted to take some mescaline. Just at the point that I was peaking, this guy came over and said, “Look, if you don't go on right now, you guys are not going to play.” I went out there and I saw this ocean as far as I could see. An ocean of flesh and hair and teeth and hands. I just played. I prayed that the Lord would keep me in tune and in time. I had played loaded before, but not to that big of a crowd. Because it was like plugging into a whole bunch of hearts — and all those people at the same time. But we managed. It was incredible. I'll never forget the way the music sounded, bouncing up against a field of bodies. For the band as a whole, it was great.
Frank Zappa made the same observation, he basically said before Woodstock, it was the old guys with the cigars who basically said, "let's take a chance on these guys, who knows, maybe it will sell."
But after Woodstock, the record companies decided to try to use younger people to determine who to sign, because they were "hip" and "knew" what the kids wanted, and they were much more conservative than the old guys.
But is was the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 that made them legends.
Incomplete list of performing artists/songs and sequence of events
Friday, August 15
The first day officially began at 5:07 p.m. with Richie Havens and featured folk artists.
Richie Havens
Swami Satchidananda - gave the invocation for the festival
Sweetwater
The Incredible String Band
Bert Sommer
Tim Hardin, an hour-long set
Ravi Shankar, with a 5-song set, played through the rain
Melanie
Arlo Guthrie—order of set list unknown
Joan Baez- she was six months pregnant at the time
Saturday, August 16
The day opened at 12:15 pm, and featured some of the event’s biggest psychedelic and guitar rock headliners.
Quill, forty minute set of four songs
Keef Hartley Band
Country Joe McDonald
John Sebastian
Santana
Canned Heat
Mountain, hour-long set including Jack Bruce’s “Theme For An Imaginary Western.”
Janis Joplin with The Kozmic Blues Band
Grateful Dead
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Sly & the Family Stone
The Who began at 4 AM, kicking off a 25-song set including
Tommy
Jefferson Airplane
Sunday, August 17 to Monday, August 18
Joe Cocker was the first act on the last officially booked day (Sunday); he opened up the day’s events at 2 PM. His set was preceded by at least two instrumentals by The Grease Band.
Joe Cocker
Country Joe and the Fish resumed the concert around 6 p.m.
The Band - Set list confirmed in Levon Helm’s book “This Wheel’s On Fire”
Blood, Sweat & Tears ushered in the midnight hour with five songs.
Johnny Winter featuring his brother, Edgar Winter, on two songs.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young began around 3 a.m. with separate acoustic and electric sets.
Neil Young skipped most of the acoustic set (the exceptions being his compositions “Mr. Soul” and “Wonderin’”) and joined Crosby, Stills & Nash, but refused to be filmed during the electric set; by his own report, Young felt the filming was distracting both performers and audience from the music. Young’s “Sea of Madness,” heard on the album, never occurred at the festival, it was recorded a month after the festival at Fillmore East.
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Sha-Na-Na
Jimi Hendrix
Message to Love
Hear My Train A Comin’
Spanish Castle Magic
Red House (Hendrix’s high E-string broke while playing, but played the rest of the song with five strings.)
Mastermind (written and sung by Larry Lee)
Lover Man
Foxy Lady
Jam Back At The House
Izabella
Gypsy Woman/Aware Of Love (These two songs written by Curtis Mayfield were sung by Larry Lee as a medley)
Fire
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)/Stepping Stone
The Star-Spangled Banner
Purple Haze
Woodstock Improvisation/Villanova Junction
Hey Joe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival
Ultimately I think it was the filmed accounts of them at Monterey, Woodstock, and Isle of Wight that made them legends.
Millions saw the movies. Thousands saw the performances.
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