Woodstock: The good, the bad, the ugly

I bought a ticket and was ready to go to Woodstock; however, my ride chickened out and I missed the seminal musical event of the 1960s.

The thing is, over the course of those three days in August 1969, I, even a 20-year-old, was glad I missed it.

Sure, three days of peace and music sounds nice, but Woodstock was an instant media legend. Granted, great bands were there by the helicopter load; but the sound, as best as I could tell, was awful for the crowd gathered. Unlike today's high-powered concert sound systems that can easily play sound loud enough to cause hearing loss, the Woodstock system was probably pretty low intensity volumewise. Then again, I'm sure most of the 500,000 Woodstock Nation attendees were grooving under their own power.

That, combined with the rain, mud, and less than stellar lavatories would have made me pretty miserable.

I bought the "Woodstock: Music from the original Soundtrack" LP when it came out, and I saw the film--in 70mm in Manhattan. For me, those were a lot better than being there. I listened to the best music of the three days and didn't have to endure the rest of ordeal.

Think about it: The edited, perfected versions of the event are the ways most folks have experienced Woodstock. Most people were either too young to go in the first place, and most boomers, like myself, didn't get there. For us, Woodstock is the movie or music.

I just wonder for those who were there, have the movie and soundtrack albums replaced their memories of the actual event? There seems to be an endless stream of Woodstock titles coming out.

The recently released full Woodstock performances of Sly and the Family Stone, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and Johnny Winter are--for the first time--available on CD. I bought the Sly set and it's pretty terrific.

Committed fans will probably enjoy the "Woodstock" Blu-ray Disc that has remixed and remastered sound, and it offers two and a half hours of "new" music.

Were you at Woodstock or have you watched the Blu-ray Disc? Tell us about it!

[feverboy777]

Hey Steve,
Picked up some promo's CD's of the remastered Woodstock soundtrack 1 & 2 and thought at least they could by remastering the tracks squeeze every bit of sound quality out of them, I was I wrong, it was god awful to listen to, I found myself as fatigued as if I had just spent 3 days in the mud. Don't get me wrong I guess the original tapes were in such bad shape that there wasn't much they could do for them and as far as buying the Bluray.... Hum ...I'll have to think about it. I didn't go because I live on the west coast I think we are about the same age, although I don't mind peeing on a tree. :)

[soundman45]

That's too bad that the master tapes were in such bad shape. Under normal circumstances they can bake the tapes for a day or so that the binder re-adheres to the oxide and they can be played for transfer, no problem even if they are stored poorely. I wonder if someone tried to play them over the years without performing this step ??? In that case they could be severely, irreparialby damaged. I know in some intances if master tapes are unplayable or don't exsist anymore, they'll sometimes pull the audio off the film mags that were copied for the movie. In this case the audio is probably not very good. I'd be interested if anybody has more information on this. if you do, please share.

[stattube]

@soundman45.

I'm pretty certain that Eddie Kramer who recorded it, and all the other people involved are hip enough to know about sticky shed syndrome, just like anyone who has worked remastering old tapes.

Other reports I've read say that the remastered audio is a revelation compared to what was originally released, but I won't pass judgment until I hear more of it myself. Having said that, Kramer's 5.1 mix for the Hendrix at Woodstock DVD (which I have heard), sounds terrific.

The main audio limitations were probably due to the basic equipment used, as there's only so much you can do with a 16 into 8 mixer feeding an 8 track Scully recorder (7 tracks for audio plus 1 for film sync). With no soundchecks, any adjustments had to be made on the fly, and pretty much every microphone used was a Shure 565, hardly the typical recording engineer's first choice.

By the way, the film sound for the musical numbers was taken from the same 7+1 track tapes.

[Herbal Ed]

Your assumption of a terrible sound system at the original Woodstock is way off. Why speculate about what you don't know? Of course, it was not as good as the sound tech today ... after all, it is 40 years later ... but I found the WS sound system quite adequate indeed.

And you're glad you didn't go??? Really? You know, the experience was way much more than merely bands and their music .... much, much more.

[tedtks]

Know what u feel steve. I was all ready to go and a guy quit a few days before so I had to
work. I used to have the LP's and just about wore them out LOL.
I was mostly a weekend smoker so figured it would be a hellava bing LOL, and then
I saw some of the news takes on it - the rain and mud and some nasty fights - which the
news said was due to some really wacked outs - so... not so dissapointed at missing
that long drive.

[brownstown18]

I took the brown acid. It really wasn't that bad.

[gerrald666666]

I totally agree, i was 15 and wanted to go very much , but after seeing the movie not going was the smartest thing that i never did.