Reviewed by Andy Gill
Friday, 7 August 2009
With the 40th anniversary of the original Woodstock Festival looming,
various commemorative releases are being prepared to markthe occasion.
Sony, for instance, is offering a series of five double-disc packages
pairing the complete Woodstock sets of Santana, Sly&The Family Stone,
Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and Johnny Winter with each act's
contemporary studio album from 1969. The six-disc box set from
Warnersrecapitulates the bulk of the original triple-album
soundtrackandfollow- up doublealbum, with a bonus 38 tracks.
Themost welcome of the new material derives from the hippie scene's
San Francisco cohort, particularlyTheGrateful Dead's "Dark Star", a
soaring 20 minutes of essential psychedelia. There are also extended
sets from the Airplane, Janis Joplin, Country Joe & The Fish and
Creedence Clearwater Revival. Also welcome are the contributions from
The Incredible String Band and the expansion of The Who's set,
including the priceless moment when Pete Townshend tells Yippie
figurehead Abbie Hoffman to "get off my fuckin' stage!" after the
latter had grabbed a microphone to seek the crowd's support for
jailed White Panther Party leader John Sinclair. But it's hard to see
how the experience is improved by the inclusion of also-rans such as
Quill, Sweetwater and Bert Sommer, each surprisingly afforded more
than a token track apiece.
Their inclusions are all the more baffling given the continuing
non-appearance of anything byTheBand, only one track of whoseset has
ever been released, andby the removal of Ten Years After's "I'm Goin'
Home", one of the show-stopping performances of the film.
Couldnospace be found for either among these 95 tracks particularly
given the inessential indulgence of an additional 20-minute Canned
Heat boogie? Likewise, whoever decided to separate the crowd's
celebrated "Rain Chant" from its former segue into Santana's "Soul
Sacrifice" has thoughtlessly jettisoned one of the original album's
greatest coups de théâtre, also decoupling the sense of collectivity
between audience and performers. Sometimes, chronological accuracy
tells only half the story.
Similarly, far too much time is given over to the pompous-hipster
stage announcements about births, marriages, medical emergencies
("Bring Scully his asthma pills!"), and the various warnings about
the sub-standard quality of the brown and green strains of LSD. Grace
Slick knew better: "Sorry about those who got the green," she
sympathises at the start of the Airplane's set. "We got a whole lot
of orange, and it was fine. It still is fine. Everybody's vibrating!"
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