I watched Woodstock the other day. It's been a while since I sat and watched it through, and I thought I'd put up a highlight or two. I have met several people in my life who were there, and their memories tally up on one count, at least - the stupid old saw that claims, "If you remember it, you weren't there" is just plain wrong.
As images of the construction of the stage, and the various tensions within the Aquarians involved, we hear Crosby, Stills, and Nash sing "Long Time Gone", one of David Crosby's better political songs (much better than "Almost Cut My Hair"):
One career that got jump-started by the festival was Santana. They closed with the rousing, Coltrane-influenced "Soul Sacrifice". I read one commenter who was disappointed to hear the band had all dropped acid before their set; I tend to think it pushed this particular number in to the stratosphere. The kind of heightened awareness gives this number a noumenous quality, especially Mike Schreve's drum solo (he was about 18 or 19 years old at the time). Incidentally, that's Greg Rolie on the organ, who would leave Santana with Neal Schon and form Journey in the early 1970's.
There are disagreements among those to whom I've spoken about many things, but one thing most agree, Sly and the Family Stone's rousing 4 a.m. set blew the roof off the festival. It was probably the best single performance of their career, and as Sly himself developed a reputation for failing to show (Yes got a big break because they were literally called out of bed to replace them at one gig), his "decision" to go on after much hemming and hawing managed to give the weekend a highlight.
