History was not only recreated, but also significantly enhanced,on August 12, 13, and 14 at the Woodstock 1994 festival held inSaugerties, NY. 30+ bands: every single one played their hearts outand put on great performances. Mud: there was tons of it and peoplesimply wallowed in it. People: Les Claypool (Primus' lead singer) described itaptly when he said "I am not very good with numbers; I can tellthere's a sh*tload of people here." Powertripping securityoverwhelmed! What an event! I sit here trying to describe whatexactly happened in the hopes of giving people who weren't there afeel for the experience, and invoking vivid memories for those were.All I can seem to come up with are blanket superlatives,informationless adjectives, and standard cliches. Yet I try, for itwas the greatest rock 'n' roll party ever.
And on the third day, we still rocked...
GreenDay's performance on stage was undoubtedly the best, visually.A punk band, I don't think their music is anything spectacularcompared to the innovative punk along the lines of the Levellers and Fugazi. In fact, they are sostereotypically punk that it almost seems like they are parodying it:the lead singer and drummer had brightly coloured blue and green hairand their lyrics are whiny. But they were tireless on stage andpushed the momentum to its limits. The best thing about their showwas that they had a mud fight on stage with the audience. The firstmud pack was thrown at vocalist Billy Joe Armstrong. He promptlycaught it and put it in his mouth. This simply encouraged people tothrow more! The crew of the band came on stage and started throwingstuff back. Wavy Gravy, the announcer for the South stage, alsofollowed suit by doing the same thing (throwing mud back and eatingit).
Things got really out of control as audience members climbed up onstage and security people tried to stop them. It was a futile effort;there was total and utter chaos. One little kid ran on to the stage,hugged Armstrong, and started running away, but the singer chasedafter him and brought him back to sing a few lines! I bet that madethat kid's day. Running around on stage had its problems however, asbassist Mike Dirnt discovered. As the show ended, the securitypeople mistook Dirnt running around for one of the stage crashersand tried to kick him out, very much against his insistence that hebelonged to the band:
"Hey man! I'm the bassist!""Yeah right, we've heard that one before." Dirnt being kicked out by the Peace Patrol?
It was the most out-of-control show I saw, yet nothing violenthappened and the security people and the audience made peace afterward(though I hear Dirnt lost 3 of his teeth). Their set consisted ofsongs from their latest release Dookie, such asBurn Out, Chump, Long View,Welcome to Paradise, Pulling Teeth,When I Come Around, and Basket Case.
Before seeing GreenDay however, we had to spend around 3 hours listening to the WOMADperformers. I say "we had to" because it seemed to takeforever---they were listed as one group, but it was actually a wholeslew of perfomers including Xalem, the Justin Trio, Geoffrey Oryema(who was truly brilliant), and Hassan Hakmoun. The crowd didn't thinkmuch of them and when one of the performers asked people to sing alongwith him, the chant that was heard was "Green Day!" Wavy Gravy andPeter Gabriel had to ask the crowd to show some respect, but thatrequest went unheeded. The wait was made worthwhile during Hakmoun'sperformance, when Peter Gabriel joined him on stage and sung a coupleof songs with the troupe.
After the Green Dayshow, people tried to get back to the North stage, except that therewas a fence around the concert area and it slowed things down. In aspectacular moment of cooperation, the people (including me) at thefence yelled: "everyone step back!" and the whole crowd stepped backin unision. The fence was down in a minute. Contrastthis behaviour to what happens when people in front are gettingcrushed and the audience is asked to step back: no one does. I guesswe have our priorities straight, eh?
As I walked away, I could hear the Paul Rodgers band (who I choseto miss since Brian May from Queen didn't show) with Slash asthe guitarist and Jason Bonham as the drummer covering Bad Companytunes. They sounded pretty good! One of themes of the festival was"feel like making love."
Taking down the fence paved the way forme to get something to eat and then I rushed to the North stage inorder to catch the SpinDoctors. Again, this was an example of a group I don't reallylike, but someone who put on a good show. They said it was thelargest crowd they had ever played in front of, and I think this holdstrue for most performers there. The lead singer was funny when hetried to do acrobatics on stage (like tumbling and jumping high) andfailed clumsily. The crowd really got into them as they finished upwith Two Princes.
After the Spin Doctors, it was PerryFarrell and p*rno forPyros, who put on one of the better performances. They played alot of stuff from their self-titled album, including p*rno for Pyrosand Sadness. Two scantily clad female dancers on stage, who werereally erotic, made out with each other during the performance. A female acrobat spiced up an already quirkyshow.
Perry Farrell got my attention when he started talking about cropcircles. I thought he would then start talking about UFOs, butinstead he talked about Chaos which I thought was truly brilliant,since it is believed that crop circles are an instance of chaoticbehaviour in natural systems (yes, some education for the crowdhere). He ended up by saying "Chaos is beautiful". Amen.
Bob Dylan was simply amazing! He was 1.5hours late but it was worth the wait. He came on stage, and jammedhis stuff in an irreverent manner (including tunes like Allalong the Watch Tower, Highway 61, Masters of War, Don't thinkTwice, and It's all Right) and walked out. No "hello" or "thank you".I was only tangentially familiar with his music before I saw him live,but he got everyone rocking and his guitar playing was what stood outthe most. He was one of two surprises for me at the festival in termsof how good he was (the other was Aerosmith).People were even moshing and crowd surfing to him! Heck, people weremoshing and crowd surfing when there was no music being played!
The crowd roared when he sang "everybody must get stoned." Therewas tons of drugs floating around, ranging from marijuana to variouscoloured versions of acid. I was offered to try some out, but Ideclined). The girl behind me during the entire Sunday night show wastripping. She was one of the people who lived across the river andgot in for free and I bet her entire experience was living in the"peace and love" dream (mine was all about the music).
A few lightbulbsappeared on stage and they weren't dim-bulbs either! Red Hot ChiliPeppers really livened up what must've been a tired crowd with theirlightbulb costumes (which they took off after the first couple oftunes) and their charismatic funky sound. Another theme for thefestival was "give it away" which happened a lot when water bottleswere thrown from the TV towers (which was where I hung out most of thetime), food was shared, and a helping hand was given whenever needed.People showed concern when I cut my leg (I was barefoot) on a piece ofglass and when I had to crouch down for a minute with my flashlight inorder to get rid of the piece of glass.
The Chili Peppers came back for an encore dressed in white, JimiHendrix-style, complete with Afros, and a little girl (Flea'sDaughter) sang the first minute of the national anthem.
The strains of Zaar heralded the arrival ofPeterGabriel, who put on the best performance both visuallyand musically. He played exactly the same set that he did at the WOMAD concert (Talkto me, San Jacinto, Solsbury Hill, Shaking the Tree, Sledgehammer,Steam, and Digging in the Dirt.) but he seemed to put a bit moreeffort into this one. This was the last performance and the crowd wasa bit tired, but they still cheered when he said "this is yourwoodstock, this is your mud."
It was incredible to listen to the crowd chanting "In Your Eyes"at around 1a in the morning with thousands and thousands ofbrightly-lit candles waving around. The flashing lights and the lightpatterns created by his massive floating light projector, the steamcoming out in front of the stage, and the entire field brightly litdue to the candles was a spectacular sight! The encore was a bitextended as the crowd chanted along to Biko. The daring andinnovative performance is the reason why Gabriel was the headliner forthe entire show.
"All my instincts, they return. The grand facade, so soon will burn. Without a noise, without my pride, I reach out from the inside." ---Peter Gabriel, In Your Eyes
On the second day, we rocked even more...
The festival appropriately was renamed Mudstock when the thunderstorms cameSaturday afternoon. I had to go across the North stage in order toget to the Wiz so I could get a couple of disposable cameras tocapture this event on film (and you can see the evidence here). Ittook me a couple of hours to get back and forth, during which Imanaged to see Joe co*cker (who is the person on the screen in thesecond crowd picture shown up at the top), who really worked up thecrowd for the rest of the day with tunes like Feeling Alright, Whenthe Night Comes, You are so Beautiful, and Up Where We Belong. Beforehe did the classic With a little help from my Friends, he said"everyone needs some to get through the night and day" and I amgreatly indebted to everyone who helped me out (including my campingpartners, Adam and Fritz). co*cker: "See you in 2019!"
Next on line was Blind Melon who also put on a great show.Vocalist Shannon Hoon resembled Joplin a lot,complete with a white dress and barrettes. After their show, TomArnold of TrueLies was one of the surprise guests there. He introducedhis costar Arnold Schwarznegger, who turned out be Chris Farley fromSNL flexing his muscles.
Cypress Hill were next and the singer smoked a joint on stage forall the people getting high. Pigs was definitely a popular tuneamong the crowd; even I was amazed at the crowd response for thistune. One Saturday Night Live writer said they probably had the bestmessage among all the Saturday bands. They were one of the few bandsactually promoting aggression. The singer remarked that the sight hesaw when he flew down was amazing.
Henry Rollins' tattooed body was theobject of admiration by many. The tight-fisted renditions of songssuch as Step Back, Alien Blueprint, Liar and Disconnect (all from thealbum Weight) really worked up the crowd. Rollins was stronglyanti-drug and anti-alcohol and this surprised a lot of people, buthe's amazingly clean cut, even though he doesn't appear so. Nihilismmixed with reason: another theme for the fest.
I was busy navigating my way across to the South stage duringRollins' performance in order to catch Primus and thus I sacrificedseeing Melissa Etheridge and CSN live in order to see Primus perform,but I made up for it by seeing their videos Saturday night. One ofthe things that characterises Etheridge is her low growl which wouldgreatly complement Rollins'. Etheridge is no Joplin, but she did do agood cover of Piece of My Heart. I was ecstatic when Iheard her perform Like the Way I Do, which is myfavourite tune by her.
I was totally unfamiliar with the Band (whose members includedpeople from the Dead (Bob Weir) and Jefferson Airplane (Jorma Kaukonenand Jack Casady)), but it was great watching them. They played somany tunes I was familiar with. They covered Springsteen'sAtlantic City and Dylan's Knocking on Heaven'sDoor. The Band consisted of Bruce Hornsby on the keyboards,Roger McGuinn (exByrd), Hot Tuna, John Sebastian, and Country JoeMcDonald (who played rock and soul music). Other tunes includedThe Weight, I don't want to Hang up my Rock 'n'Roll Shoes, Life is a Carnival, and HandJive.
The Band's vocalist was really impressed with the festival andrepeatedly said this festival was a lot better than the Woodstock 1969one (which he was there for). And this is true, since the otherfestival didn't have water and food all around: I never had problemswith food and it was quite cheap---I spent $5 on 2 hot dogs which wasa decent meal. Pepsi? Well, I drank a lot of water and on my wayback to the buses, I was offered free food and drink, but I turned itdown since I didn't feel like carrying it! Commercialisation? Not awhole lot---in fact, I am happy there was some provider giving us foodwhenever we need it. I am happy for the toilets and the fact theywere cleaned regularly. The Peace Patrol were really cool people(except for a small fringe who always try to ruin it for others withtheir power tripping), just like you and me, who were simply hiredjust for this festival. In fact, the whole festival was manned bystudents and other youngsters who were not professionals of any sortand simply agreed to work for a free ticket and extra spending money.I got into an altercation with one of the professional security peopleand his behaviour was completely different compared to the peoplewearing the Peace Patrol shirts. I appreciate some of the crowdsupport on this and while I hope this guy was having a bad day and ishaving a good life, what goes around...
Rick Danko, the bassist for the Band, at the end, played some veryfunky stuff, which would've given Claypool a run for this money. Itwas interesting that as the Band finished, a really younger crowdstarted seeping in to await the arrival of Primus and they jammed tothe Band. I made my way up to the front row.
Musically, Primuswas the best band of the festival, and they had the privilege oflooking over the largest mosh pit I've ever seen. The pit extendedall the way back and beyond the soundboard and it wasn't like therewas pockets of moshing---every single person was slamming (contrastthis to NIN's pit, which only extended back to the camera towers).Claypool was amazed at the crowd and encouraged everyone to do a wavejust so he could see what it would be like. They started off byplaying a couple of their old tunes (pre-Sailing the Seas of Cheese:To Defy the Laws of Tradition and one other) and I hardly got tolisten to them since I was busy trying to keep myself from gettinghurt. This is one of the reasons I dislike moshingand crowdsurfing, because if you really like a band and want tolisten to their music, it's impossible to be up in thefront. And I don't believe any mosher who claims they can listen andmosh at the same time. I will admit though, that Primus' music,starting off slow and suddenly pounding in violently, makes for agreat mosh pit.
Claypool was dressed in a shirt that resembled the U.S. flag,wearing dark glasses and sporting sideburns. Tunes from Pork Sodaincluded Bob, The Air is getting Slippery, Nature Boy, and My Name isMud. When the latter tune was played, people started throwing mud onstage! Claypool immediately stopped the show and said (as he hasbefore) "people who throw things on stage have small penises."Contrast this to GreenDay's attitude. Still, a mud fight among audience members ensued.Tunes from Sailing the Seas of Cheese were Jerry was a Racecar Driver,Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers, Here Come the Bastards (Claypool saidsomething about joining him and guitarist Larry LaLonde in being abastard), and the title track.
They also played some new stuff (Claypool said something about"old stuff being boring") and a bass-drenched version of theStar Spangled Banner. In what was one of the coolest encores at thefestival, they came back and slammed out a minute of Metallica'sMaster of Puppets. What a band! Their set was too short as far as Iwas concerned.
"When the going gets tough and the stomach acids flow. The cold wind of conformity is nipping at your nose. Some trendy new atrocity brings you to your knees. Come with us and we'll sail the seas of cheese." ---Primus, Sailing the Seas of Cheese
I made my way back just in time for Nine InchNails' electrifying performance, by far the most aggressive one.Again, I do not like NIN's music: I think Trent Reznor doesn't have asingle original idea in his head. For all the crap about being an"industrial" band, NIN rely heavily on the melody which backgroundstheir songs, and this is why they are so popular among the mainstream.Reznor never is abrasive enough, even though that is the impression heprojects and people who want this watered-down abrasiveness go to him.They are a mellow cross of thrash metal and early dance industrial(like Kraftwerk). This isclearly evident in their keyboard haven in The Only Time. Other tunesthey played included Pinion, Terrible Lie, Sin, March of the Pigs,Something I can Never Have, Closer, Reptile, Wish, Suck, Burn, Down inIt, Dead Souls, Help me I am in Hell, Happiness in Slavery, and Headlike a Hole (which rocked the crowd).
Reznor gave his seal of approval to the festival when he saidsomething like "When we first agreed to play this thing, I was kindaworried about it, but this is pretty cool. You're all right." Ithink his excessive portrayal of angst was done to shock the, what hemight have assumed to be a predominantly yuppie, crowd, but then herealised the people were simply taking it all in and enjoying it. Heportrayed his angry self by smashing keyboards and other equipment onstage, but I really find it hard to get into this attitude given thathe was paid $250,000 for this performance. The good move on his partwas that he appeared on stage covered with mud, just like the rest ofus.
Compared to NIN, Metallicasounded mellow. I think their show attracted the largest number ofpeople (judging by crowd density at the front). They were very goodand played tunes like So What, Sad but True, Wherever I May Roam,Harvester of Sorrow, Enter Sandman, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Master ofPuppets, Nothing else Matters, One, and Seek and Destroy. There was alot of pyrotechnics going on, but I was finding it a bit hard toconcentrate since I was occupied with other things. Hetfield saidsomething about us having our having our own Woodstock: "So f*ckin'what?" as an introduction to So What.
Last was Aerosmith, who played a set tothe rain. I do not like Aerosmith's later stuff, but they wereamazing on stage! I was once again blown away by the intensity ofTyler's stage antics and the amazing tunes. I had forgotten how goodAerosmith was and this was a great reminder. They played a lot oftheir older stuff in a set which included Janie's got a Gun, Dude(Looks like a Lady), Walk this Way, Sweet Emotion, Love in anElevator, Living on the Edge, Eat the Rich, Crying, and Dream On.
As Aerosmith winded down, we witnessed an amazing fireworks display andthis was an excellent way to wind things down for the day.
In a somewhat communist sense, the rich were indeed eaten at thefestival. Friday night, the fences went down and the concert becamefree, but I doubt many people took advantage of it (at least not atonce). I think there were about a 100,000 or so more people thanexpected, but estimates ranged from 300,000 to 500,000. I didn't mindpaying since I didn't have to walk anywhere in order to get out: thebus was right there and on time. I have a neat ticket, and moreimportantly, I got to see all the Friday evening bands!
On the first day, we rocked hard!
We got in around 5, and got to see Jackylperforming Mental Masturbation (from the Beavis and Butthead CD).Jesse James Dupree got naked on stage. This was simply a sign ofthings to come. Halfway through the set, we decided to set up camp inthe woods (and this was a wise idea since it was not crowded and ourtents survived the rain easily). I ended up missing Del Amitri, but Igot back in time to see Live play sh*t Towne,Selling the Drama and a lot of tunes from Throwing Copper. Again,their set was very similar to the one they played at the WOMADfestival. I think this was a trend seen for most bands who were onthe bill---they played sets that resembled their current tour (wouldmake sense, wouldn't it?).
After Live, a barrage of incredible upcoming bands were showcased,each trying to outdo the other. This was the only time I really wasup in the front rows for all the bands, and got to do some moshing andcrowd-surfing (which is why my recall of these shows is vague). Thecrowd was much nicer (it got a bit rowdy Saturday and Sunday) and itwas mostly a young crowd and we all had a good time.
James' singer Tim Booth hoped that we would all get laid. He wasextremely active on stage and endeared the crowd with Sometimes andSit Down. King's X were simply brilliant! They played tunes such asIt's Love, Manic Depression, and Dogman. Sheryl Crow, the first femalesinger I saw, was next, and she too put on a great show, though I amcompletely unfamiliar with her music.
Collective Soul's name belies their music. They played somehard-hitting rock and warmed the crowd up for Candlebox. I have seenCandlebox live and my general opinion is that they suck, but again Iwas blown away with the way they played their tunes, most of them fromtheir self-titled release (including Don't You, Change, Cover Me, You,and Far Behind) and one new one. The most interesting thing was thatthey did a medley of Hendrix tunes, which comprised of Kiss the Skyand Purple Haze, and it was all performed quite well. Hendrixwould've been proud of the homage paid to him at this concert by allthe artistes.
An announcement was made that Mick Jagger would be taking thestage, but it turned out to be Larry Bud Melman from the Lettermanshow who advised people to love the one they are with. Violent Femmesfollowed and it seemed like the crowd never get enough! The announcerasked us to pace ourselves, but I don't think that was necessary. Thehighlight of their show was when Held her in my Arms was played
Miscellaneous
The raves were on Friday and Sunday and I caughtmost of it between the two days. The Orb, Orbital and Dee-lite wereplaying, though I never figured out who was who. The Orb (which Iassume went first) were excellent---they were really wild to dance toand I indulged in it for the first hour on Friday night and then Iwent to sleep for 8 hours. Sunday night, I got to hear the entirerave since I missed my bus to DC and had to wait until 6a to catch thebus to Baltimore. It was worth the wait and I got in more music. Thetechno they were playing was extremely innovative. My opinion oftechno is that it is the music that counts and not the vocals, buthere the vocals were excellent and the bass line, which could be heardresounding throughout the camps, augmented the vocals perfectly.
There were paintings done by artist Dennie Dent in-between sets.He did a couple of pictures of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison(to the music of the person he was painting). The Hendrix one,depicting him playing the stratocaster with his teeth, was cool. Itstarted off in a frontal view and then it appeared as though he hadscrewed up, but suddenly he turned it around and there it was---a sideview! (Flip the picture around with your viewer and you'll see what Imean.)
The crowd was mostly nonblack, even though the acts werereasonably diverse. I say nonblack because there were indeed a fewAsians and Orientals around. I did not meet a single black person,but I did meet people from South America, Canada, Europe, Asia, theMiddle East, and Australia. In fact, I ended up sharing a piece ofcardboard to shelter myself from the rain with some guy and his familywho thought it was great that I was from India and so we took thispicture to show the amount of multicultural peaceand love that could happen (I personally don't think it's a big deal,but apparently they had never talked to someone from India before, andI am happy for them). This family was from Ohio and was also amazedthat I went to Ohio WesleyanUniversity for my undergrad. It's a small world.
The security was really lax. While almost all security guards werecool, I encountered exactly one powertripping security guard and one cop who obviously didn't get the"peace and love" telegram; I only felt sorry for them since they hadallowed the pressure to ruin their experience. I often think aboutpeople like that, who lord it over others when given the small amountof contextual power: I sincerely hope they are happy and fulfilled butmy experience is that such bitterness and pettiness only leads to moreof the same - karma!
Other than that, all the hype about people being friskedcompletely was BS. On the bus, we were all warned about the drugs(this bothered my new found friend Adam) and that if drugs were found,we would be handed over to the state police. Once we got out of thebus, entrance into the site was unhindered. We passed through themetal detectors and that was it. Regarding the other rules: once thefences went down, nothing else mattered. It was good no alcohol wassold---I don't care what people do, but they need to be reasonableabout it and in my case, I never had a problem. But some people didand if you were being a jerk, shame on you!
Unlike the media portrayal, the majority were not among the "mudpeople". I was a mudperson for a couple of hours Saturday afternoon and it was great whileI was rolling in it, but the mud feels weird once it dries up. Thestorm washed me off and I didn't go back. The mud people had a directline to the front of the stage---people would separate whenever theywanted to go through. There were a lot of boys who were naked and alot of girls who were top less.I have thus included one obligatory picture.
The show cannot be compared to the 1969 one, and by this I mean wesimply had a bigger and a better party. Thanks to commercialisationof modern technology. There was no way anyone in 1969 could've put ona light show that Gabriel did or have the clear and lucid sound,complete with huge video screens to make sure no one missed out, bothaurally and visually, a single moment on stage. The sets were allswitched within five minutes, again thanks to technology. And some ofthe performances were in the same legendary category as Hendrix'srendition of the Star Spangled Banner (the performance by Green Day will probably neverbe witnessed again). We showed all the cynics that we can rock, androck hard, in the most adverse of conditions (heck, the mud and rainmade it all the more fun).
What else can I say? A lot more, but this is getting toolong-winded. I have to now learn to stop saying "man" in everysentence I utter. The music was non-stop and the only respite we hadfrom it was between the hours of 6a and 10a. This was the time youwent and got cleaned up and got ready for the next day. The best wayto handle such festivals is to not sleep the entire time and takeclose to nothing with you (I think my tent was a hindrance since I hadto carry it). Nowhere else have I seen such uninhibition displayed.There wasn't any explicit sex going on from what I could tell, but alot of people were hooking up and making out in the heat of themoment. They should have one of these every year: sex, drugs, androck 'n' roll. As Wayne of Wayne's World would say:Party On!
My peace sign was a bit different from others: instead of twofingers and a thumb, I joined my forefinger and middle fingers, and myother two fingers. It's the Star Trek livelong and prosper (which is my saying for this festival, instead of"peace") sign and I leave you with that:
Live Long and Prosper!
Shameless plug: check out the TWISTED HELICES (myband) page while you're here! 
Notes
All pictures were taken with disposable cameras, which were soakedin mud when I finished. This is an account of what I saw and heard (Ididn't get to see all the bands). Feel free to distribute this aswidely as possible.
Music ramblings ||Ram Samudrala ||me@ram.org|| August 13-15, 1994