Live Gigs: Woodstock 1994

I don’t know why? But I’ve been watching some old gigs on YouTube lately so here’s a whole blog post about one of them, I guess we’ll see if I do anymore? OK, this has most likely talked/blogged about before more than 100’s of times? But here’s my version today and I guess, you might have seen that Netflix just released a doco on the huge unbelievable fuck-up that was Woodstock 99 but really I don’t think that has nothing I would want to re-blog. 94 that’s different that was pretty good, sometime even great so why NOT blog about it?

So I should say I wasn’t there but remember seeing on TV sometime or something like that? Now you can find it all on YouTube so that’s what is below today plus some setlists and a few photos tooo! Like I was saying some reason I’ve been watching a lot of stuff over the last couple of weeks since last time I was blogging. What I’ve done is picked out my top five set including full whole set to go with them plus then one track from another dozen acts who played there. So here’s what I would call my top five acts from Woodstock 1994:

I’m going to kicking off with the Rollins Band, yeah the hardcore punks finally came to Woodstock! Playing almost all brand new album songs at the time, that’s called Weight plus one outtake from the very same album entitled Right Here Too Much which was hit single Liar B-Side. Also that live version did find a home on the various artist comp album called Woodstock 94, linked here if you wanna see/know what songs made it on to the official 2-CD version of this gig? Worth to note in he and his band played earlier daytime Saturday set and the heavens opened pored down, if you watch the set below you can see crew with mops pushing all the water off the stage, wiping the rain off the cameras etc. At this point in the crowd the mud started but didn’t make it onto the stage yet. This festival was off course nickname Mudstock, you know? Great Rollins quote live on stage: “All the hippies are cashing in now because they were toooo high in the 60’s” Highlight would be closing song of the setlist, his power ballad Liar but full set below:

B&W Rollins before the rain came down!

Rollins Band setlist at Woodstock Festival 1994, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, USA on Saturday, August 13:

• Step Back
• Wrong Man
• Right Here Too Much
• Alien Blueprint
• Civilized
• Fool
• Disconnect
• Shine
• Liar

Nine Inch Nails off course, stole the whole festival so they can be next in my little write-up! It’s Saturday and nighttime by this point, I think, they were sandwich in-between old bloody hippies Crosby, Stills, & Nash and then bloody metalheads Metallica. Just before going on stage NIN wrestled each other in the mud and went on to perform completely wet and covered in mud, Trent Reznor quote: “I remember saying to the guys, it would be great if you guys were like the mud men, like all the crazy kids out there covered in mud. So time passes, and then the stage manager was like, How do we get these guys muddy? They started getting these [ice buckets] and filling them up with mud from around the dressing room trailers. Sitting right across from us while they were doing that were like Henry Rollins and the guys from Alice in Chains. And [Nine Inch Nails] were all like, “Those guys are gonna totally know what we are doing.” So in between all that someone found a mud pit at the edge of the stage. So we all got in a sixteen-passenger van and went down to the stage and the band jumped in the mud. It was this big cathartic thing, and then they went onstage.” Worth to note this was the the final date of the Self Destruct tour, promo tour from then new album/now classic The Downward Spiral album. My ultimate highlight of the whole set would be a song called Burn which Trent intros as totally brand new song at the time from the Natural Born Killer soundtrack, so much for peace, love and fuckin’ all that stuff:

Reznor singing covered from head to toe in mud!

Nine Inch Nails setlist at Woodstock Festival 1994, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, USA on Saturday night, August 13:

• Terrible Lie
• Sin
• March of the Pigs
• Something I Can Never Have
• Closer
• Reptile
• Wish
• Suck (Pigface cover)
• Burn
• The Only Time
• Down in It
• Dead Souls (Joy Division cover)
• Help Me I Am in Hell
• Happiness in Slavery
• Head Like a Hole

OK, I don’t hate all hippies so here’s my fave old motherfuckin’ hippie: Bob Dylan. Off course Dylan was playing Woodstock fest for the very first time because back in 1969 he was in the UK playing for the Isle of Wight Festival, you know? We’re now are jumping to Sunday night and I’m just going with the audio only because it’s the best sound I can find on Youtube. Playing full-on rock n’ roll set mainly of his 60’s song but a couple of curve balls were thrown in like 80’s Jokerman which was his opening song and then 90’s God Knows are both the new-ish tracks in his setlist. My highlight with visuals has to be when he change to acoustic guitar for the eight mins. It Ain’t Me Babe closing song of the set:

BD finally plays Woodstock in the 90’s!

Bob Dylan setlist at Woodstock Festival 1994, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, USA on Sunday, August 14:

• Jokerman
• Just Like a Woman
• All Along the Watchtower
• It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
• Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
• Masters of War
• It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
• God Knows
• I Shall Be Released
• Highway 61 Revisited
• Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
• It Ain’t Me, Babe

Primus played in sunsetting time slot on the Saturday, sorry I’m jumping all over the place. Worth to note when Les Claypool began the opening riff of My Name is Mud, he knew straight away he had made a mistake, totally stopping the song and stating “Boy, I just opened a big old can of worms, didn’t I”. People started throwing mud onstage, to which he replied “Keep the mud to yourself you son of a bitch. Ya know, people who throw mud show a lack of significant genitalia.” At which point the band continued the song but people listen to him and didn’t cover the stage in mud amazingly. Another great on stage quote from Claypool was some like: “I’m not very good at maths but I would say this is a shit load of people” Anyway here’s My Name Is Mud:

Primus setlist at Woodstock Festival 1994, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, USA on Saturday, August 13:

• To Defy the Laws of Tradition
• Here Come the Bastards
• Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers (with Star Spangled Banner)
• Bob
• My Name Is Mud
• Jerry Was a Race Car Driver
• Seas of Cheese
• The Air Is Getting Slippery
• Nature Boy
• Harold of the Rocks (with Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains)
• Master of Puppets (Metallica cover but the intro riff only)

Around out my top five sets is going to be the Porno For Pyros playing in day light hours on the Sunday, it seems just before Dylan. PFP did bring out female topless fire-breathers and kind-of Joker look-a-like who covered himself with fake blood but those video will not embedded because of age-restriction rules so full set just below is the audio only again. Here’s them doing Pets plus Perry Farrell goes crowd-surfing plus then predict aliens with arrived by the year 2000:

Porno For Pyros setlist at Woodstock Festival 1994, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, USA on Sunday, August 14:

• Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) (Jimi Hendrix cover)
• A Little Sadness
• Meija
• Bad Shit
• Porpoise Head
• Packin’ .25
• Tahitian Moon
• Cursed Female
• Pets
• Dominator
• Blood Rag
• Earth
• Porno for Pyros

OK, now on with culled highlights from everyone else’s setlists over the whole weekend, well some because I’m missing a lot of acts, I’ve picked out a dozen of the best or the ones I like the most. Starting the band everyone talks about from Woodstock 1994: Green Day. Sorry to say, I could never really totally get into them, I don’t know why but I don’t mind them so here’s When I Come Around. Playing in the daytime on Sunday and worth to note: during the entire set, singer Billie Joe Armstrong encouraged the audience to throw mud onstage. This in turn resulting in a huge mudfight during Paper Lanterns which ended with Billie Joe telling the audience “Just tell us to shut the fuck up and we’ll stop playing.” Ironically, after the band stopped playing, people started rushing the stage, which resulted in one of the security guards mistaking bassist Mike Dirnt for one of them and they tackled him, resulting in 2-3 of his teeth being knocked out:

So for now on we’re going in right kind-of chronological order of bands/artists playing their sets over that weekend! Violent Femmes played very late on Friday night or very, very early Saturday morning even if it was sold as only couple of days. Here’s two songs in one with Dance Motherfucker Dance/Kiss Off:

James also played sometime on that Friday night, here’s Laid:

Saturday in the daylight hours was The Cranberries so here’s Zombie:

So the rappers made it to Woodstock, it’s daytime on Saturday with Cypress Hill with Insane in the Brain:

Next is Salt ‘N Pepa with their song Push It also it seems they played at nighttime Saturday:

What does Metallica do following NIN? Not much just your pretty normal Metallica gig but here’s Harvester of Sorrow. Just look at James Hetfield mullet there so the rednecks made it to Woodstock tooo:

Fun fact: Steven Tyler as a teenage or even a kid, I don’t know his age? But he says he when to see/watch the original 1969 Woodstock as part of the crowd. Aerosmith was closing act Saturday night but were playing more like early Sunday AM hours, I’ve picked out Janie’s Got a Gun:

On to the Sunday in daytime hours with Gil Scott-Heron with his epic 15 mins. jam version of The Bottle:

On to Sunday night with Jimmy Cliff who sung his wicked anthem song Vietnam:

Red Hot Chili Peppers in those crazy light blubs with a jamming intro Give It Away also outro while trying to get out of those silly costumes live on stage:

Did you know? Peter Gabriel was the closing headlining act on the Sunday night so here’s Sledgehammer:

So I’ve skipped some or well, a lot of artists which mainly are almost all the hippies so feel free to tell me off below, who I missed out and how really good/great they were? On the Friday night, maybe could be more like Saturday AM hours they did do something called Ravestock but I can’t find anything online so maybe, it wasn’t filmed? But this could go on and on forever or a lot longer so I’m stopping here, OK?

I’m going out on a very thin twig and call it the very best Woodstock fest of all-time because well, it was all bloody fuckin’ hippies the first time in 69 and yeah, 99 really doesn’t count because it was a fuckin’ nu-metal cock-up! So wanna share who would be your own fave/the best act at Woodstock 94 with me? Were you even there? Please tell me about it, if you wanna? Anyway hope you enjoy something on my this Sunday morning flashback live show blog post?

Woodstock 94 poster/flyer! Worth to point out Johnny Cash refused to play on the day because the reason he given at the time was he wasn’t on the main stage! Everyone did play on that list just above and then some more!

Cheers! 🙂