The Rockologist: Woodstock Forty Years After - Page 2

It's all enough to make your world-weary Rockologist seek out some of that infamous brown acid for himself. Well almost.

One thing they don't appear to be doing this year — thankfully — is another concert. Although I didn't attend either of them, the last couple of big Woodstock reunion shows (in 1994 and 1999) actually bothered me quite a bit. To me, that sort of legacy is simply something that is not to be screwed with.

I mean did they honestly think they could feature bands like Nine Inch Nails and Metallica playing on some god-forsaken mudpit of a farm out in the middle of upstate nowhere and not have the fans riot and generally go ape-shit? Who were they kidding?

This, after all, was not the same group of peaceful, pot smoking hippies decked out in flowers, beads and patchouli oil. Nor was it artists like mellow sixties lefties Joan Baez, John Sebastian, or for that matter, even Grace Slick inciting the faithful to revolution with the Jefferson Airplane in 1969.

Hell, even if Grace herself were there, had she sang such incendiary lyrics as "Up against the wall, motherfuckers" (as she did back in 1969), you can't help but think that these knuckleheads would have taken it as an invitation to burn down the campground. As it turns out they didn't need Grace after all; they did it anyway. It's like, what were they thinking, ya' know?

Anyway, this brings us back to that brand new deluxe boxed set from the original 1969 concert and subsequent film. The challenge here being, how do you improve upon the perfection of the original without completely screwing it up? In most cases, the answer would be that you don't.

Which is why you've got to give the folks at Warner Video some credit for this set, which is billed as the "Ultimate Collector's Edition" of Woodstock. Not that there won't be another one of these things ten or so years down the line, because there probably will. But for what it's worth, they actually did a pretty nice job here.

Start with the box itself. It comes in a faux leather/suede sort of package, complete with the prerequisite fringe. Because as anyone who has ever seen the Woodstock film already knows, everyone who was anyone back then — from Roger Daltrey to David Crosby to Sly Stone — wore them some fringe. Nice touch, there.

Article Author: Glen Boyd

You'll find Blogcritics assistant music editor Glen Boyd sharing his Thoughtmares on his personal blogs The World Wide Glen, and The Rockologist. In a previous life, Glen was a music professional and journalist whose work has appeared in The Rocket, SPIN, Pulse!, and The Source. …

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