WOODSTOCK
Pretty much everything but Day 2
The film's "next day" commences with an interview segment featuring a young couple who give some perspective about their personal lives, including their relationships with their families, and challenge preconceptions about hippies by emphasizing that they're not into drugs.
We then belatedly get the invocation by Swami Satchidananda from Friday afternoon, which immediately followed Richie Havens (7:10 p.m. – 7:20 p.m.).
The film then jumps way forward to the penultimate act from the festival's extended last night, Sha Na Na, who performed a 7:30am - 8:00am twelve-song set on the morning of Monday, Aug. 18. This set is represented by its tenth song, "At the Hop". Note that while we've come to associate '50s retro primarily with the '70s, if there was already a market for Sha Na Na in 1969, then it must have been very much a thing by that point.
An inter-performance segment shows us some on-site yoga classes...one brief clip of a mass class directed from the stage, then a longer one down in a group of attendees. There's more antidrug sentiment here, as the instructor presents yoga as an alternative to getting high.
Performances continue with a segment from Sunday, Aug. 17--None other than Joe Cocker iconically belting out the last number in his eleven-song 2:00pm – 3:25pm set, "With a Little Help from My Friends"...like a man possessed by a Beatles-loving demon:
Goddamn, that sort of thing is what this immersive retro experience is all about.
Noteworthy cameo: While the Doors weren't at Woodstock, drummer John Densmore can be seen among those standing on the side of the stage in that clip, most clearly at around 4:15, on the left.
We then get a substantial segment devoted to the Sunday afternoon thunderstorm, which did indeed follow Cocker's performance, and its aftermath. This includes the crew battening down the stage and equipment, a stage-led attempt to chant the rain away, and some attendees getting naked to take an impromptu shower. One kook thinks that the government has been flying planes over the festival to seed the clouds. Following the storm is some impromptu audience drum-chant jamming and the famous playing in the mud, as well as a helicopter that's said to be dropping flowers and dry clothes.
The Sunday chronology on what should be Saturday continues with the actual act that followed the thunderstorm, Country Joe and the Fish, performing the opening number of a thirteen-song 6:30pm – 8:00pm set, "Rock & Soul Music". Note that Country Joe had also performed a solo set on Saturday, which the film will be getting to.
Then...TGIF again...Arlo Guthrie is just now arriving and talking about the Freeway being closed! His "Coming into Los Angeles," the first of a seven-song 11:55 p.m. – 12:25 a.m. Friday night set, initially plays over a segment of footage focusing on marijuana smoking, then segues into the performance:
The film's "second night" continues with Crosby, Still & Nash, who performed a total of sixteen numbers in the wee hours of Monday morning (3:00 a.m. – 4:00 a.m.), part acoustic and part electric. Neil Young was with them, mostly skipping the acoustic set and refusing to be filmed. As the movie's choice selection is the acoustic "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," the announcement for the band is edited to "Crosby, Stills, Nash...," dropping the "and Young" (though the clip below includes it). As mentioned onstage in the film, this is CSN's second-ever live performance. And IIRC, the numbers with Young were the overall debut of the CSNY combo.
Then we go back in time to earlier the same night for Ten Years After, who performed a six-song 8:15pm – 9:15pm set on Sunday. The performance shown in the film is the last song of the set, "I'm Going Home," an uptempo blues rocker featuring a long jam that includes a '50s rock & roll medley.
I didn't think I was familiar with the group offhand, but it turns out that I have one of their songs, 1971's "I'd Love to Change the World".
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Its a good example of why managers/agents trying to jump on the bandwagon of sticking British Invasion acts in films was largely a bust.
I hope you're not including the Beatles in this bunch, as the general consensus, including from Roger Ebert, is that they did just fine. And you should have a little more appreciation for the film and group that brought you the Monkees.
I'm not the guy in that pic, pal!
Well, I see no reason for you to bring
RJ into this....
Funny thing is, that Rafelson and Schneider claim they had the idea of a quartet of folk musicians living on their own and getting into trouble before the release of AHDN, but saw another way of presenting that after seeing the movie.
Whatever the initial concept may have been, there was no mistaking what the end product was aping in multiple ways.
the most important rock movie of the era
Maybe...certainly up there, but the one I've been watching this weekend is kinda big, too.
George and Ringo were naturals.
George is particularly surprising, being the "quiet one" and all. And overall they kept him quiet in the film, but he really nailed that solo scene.
Yeah, George had always played one of those big Gretch guitars so seeing him with the very thin bodied 12 string Rickenbacker was a surprise. It sounded great, all jangly and crisp. Youtube has some videos that tell a story about just about all of George and John's guitars, including the classical accoustic, and the 12 string Rick, George plays.
I'm not much of a guitar man, I'm afraid.
The only one I can identify by sight and name is Paul's Hofner bass.
Along with the lead singer on the Bread and Butter song, this is another one of those odd sounding falsettos that popped up back in the day.
He doesn't sound as nasally here, plus I think it's a better song:
It doesn't sound like the 50s to me. It didn't strike me as evoking any particular time as I listened to it, but when I think about it now it sounds a little bit like early 70s to me.
I just find him to be a throwback to the Four Seasons era (which he was part of), and that sound came out of doo-wop...so it seems really passe in 1969.
Over the years these guys have been chided for singing songs that had kind of a creepy pedo vibe to them. If this song slightly fits that description, "Young Girl" might be grounds for arrest.
In "Young Girl"'s defense, the narrator was fooled about her age, and was pushing her away after he found out.
This song's arrangement has it sounding a lot like Marvin's version of I Heard It Through the Grapevine.
I noticed that, but still a classic.
What we really need is Woodstock: The Series, with all the performances in full and in chronological order.
I hear that there is a ridonculously expensive mammoth audio box set out there.
Extensive research indicates "orange robe."
Well, I tried.
And you know that The Monkees owe their existence to AHDN, right?
