were climbing the stairs to the stage. She wasn't coming. Shit.
Alan, right in front of me, said over his shoulder: "Forget it, bandito. Dead end street, man.''
"No way, man. I am inspired. She is beautiful.''
"She's a virgin. And I bet she stays one. I know her. We used to play in the same sandbox.''
"I want to play in her sandbox,'' I said.
I liked Alan too much to add what I was thinking: I don't take advice on my love life from the only rock star in the world who is too uncool to get laid anywhere.
In the chaos backstage, we ran into people we knew, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the Holding Company. Chip Monck, the emcee, asked Skip when we wanted to go on, since we had just gotten there and the roadies were just opening up the truck.
"We'll go next," Skip said, looking at the sun. We all sort of flinched, except maybe The Bear, because by now the acid was kicking in. Also, he still felt pretty good over throwing all those guys off the helicopter.
"I'll go get our check," Skip said. "I also have to talk to some guy about a contract--film rights and shit. You guys get out there and kick ass."
We had no idea that we were about to play the single most famous gig of our lives, for the biggest paycheck the band had seen up to that point, and right there behind the stage, shouting over the music, our manager was hammering out a contract for our part in one of the most famous, lucrative music movies of all time. Movie rights, something we had no experience with. He wound up making a deal that was followed by all the bands that appeared in the movie and on the sound track album.
And he was on acid.
We were high up above the crowd, on the highest stage I've ever seen, three stories. As we were setting up, a voice said softly behind me: "Okay, so what's my job?"
Fucking great. Diane had gotten up there with us. She and Linda.
"Oh, hey, terrific. Thanks for coming. This is easy but it's important. Here, take my watch and my wallet. And go get anything valuable from the other guys, watches, rings, money, stuff like that, and guard it for us, okay?"
"Okay. But why?"
"You ever seen us play?"
"I've got some of your records."
"We really get it on when we play. We get into the music pretty good. Sometimes watches fly off into the crowd, guys lose their wallets. I break drumsticks if I'm wearing rings."
"You really need me to do this?"
Well, actually a roadie would usually hold our stuff, but it sounded like she wanted to be needed and I was ready to do anything to keep her around.
"Yeah. We probably can't play if you don't. They'd have to call off this whole incredible scene. All these people would have to go home and it would be all your fault."
She smiled. It was a beautiful smile.
"Okay. Here I go. Little Miss Responsible." She and Linda started collecting stuff from the guys and found a place to stand behind us.
As usual, we had no set planned, nothing coordinated. The Bear simply announced that "We're going to go up the country a little bit now," because "Goin' Up The Country" was number one then in a lot of cities, including New York. It was the perfect song for the moment, just what all these people had done. And in an intuitively brilliant moment, Alan took the mike and, without his harmonica, began playing the opening notes on a guitar, then improvised lyrics to fill in for the flute lines.
I rolled in behind on the drums, Larry slammed into the beat, and we came out tight, Alan sighing out that long, cool, opening line:
I'm going up the country, baby don't you want to go?
Our view from the stage; the rain didn't dampen the spirit of Woodstock '69
Good touch, Alan. A long, slow cheer rolled over the hills, as half a million people came to their feet in joyful celebration.
I'm going to some place where I've never been before.
I'm goin' where the water tastes like wine.
I'm going where the water tastes like wine.
You can jump in the water stay drunk all the time.
- Photo: Elliot Landy
The crowd was ours. We could feel it and we punched it, hard. You guys wanna rock? You wanna hear the real boogie, the genuine blues? Here it comes.
Alan knew how to improvise and how to make it happen in spite of us messing up because Harvey didn't know our songs yet. It wasn't Harvey's fault but he had to sort of play outside the music and jump in with a lead guitar solo whenever he thought one would fit.
We were wailing and cooking through a boogie when I noticed a guy's head and shoulders slowly rising over the tall plywood fence that separated us from the crowd.
Suddenly he stood up, and now he was above us, and jumped, swooping down on the stage like Batman. He hurtled into The Bear.
What the hell? Are we under attack?
A roadie tried to grab the guy, a short, wiry kid about 19.
The Bear, flying on acid, is still singing. He is like a little kid reunited with a lost puppy. He pushes the roadie away from the kid, who fishes a cigarette out of the pocket of Bear's yellow T-shirt. He then sat down cross-legged at Bear's feet and watched the rest of the show, head bobbing away.
This was Woodstock '69; this kind of incident could never be repeated under today's stringent corporate control of concerts. Just try to get up on any festival stage nowadays…you are likely to end up in jail, beat up, or dead.
I am banging away on my drums, still trying to figure out what the hell is going on, but the audience has picked up on it. All of a sudden, one of the audience is up here with the musicians, and he's being treated like a royal guest, a long lost pal. They're on their feet, cheering.
The enthusiasm of the crowd washed over us on the stage, waves of grungy, bare-chested, tie-dyed, granny-glassed, weed-ripped, crotch-bursting, rain-soaked, incredulous enthusiasm.
Bear looked over at me. "Man, we could start a revolution right now, this minute, if we wanted to," he said.
This audience, these at least were my people, my adopted tribe, the emerging America of the Woodstock Generation. Canned Heat people. A change from the weird concerts some pinheaded promoters who knew nothing about our music--much less us--had stuck us into as our records started going gold.
Here at Woodstock nobody cared if The Bear said "fuck." We took that stage and we kicked ass. Our heavy music, Bob's energy, that was just what that crowd wanted to hear. We could feel them and they could feel us.
