#woodstock
August 12 - August 14 1994 - Woodstock 94
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the famed Woodstock music festival in 1969 another outdoor festival was held in upstate New York. Held in Saugerties New York, Woodstock 94 was initially being billed as a two day concert but a third day was added as it gained more interest and more artists.
>In total 68 acts played the festival on two stages, including Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Aerosmith, Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Spin Doctors, Live, Joe Cocker, Melissa Etheridge and Red Hot Chili Peppers. But perhaps the most memorable performances came from Green Day. More on that soon.
There are so many parallels between the 1994 concert and the 1969 concert that it’s a little hard to believe organizers made so many of the same mistakes. Both concerts were not held in Woodstock (though ‘94 was considerably closer), both concerts attendance swelled to the point of uncontrollability causing people to just climb over, or cut through fences to attend, and both concerts lost money for the promoters.
It should be worth nothing that Woodstock 94 was not the unmitigated disaster that was Woodstock 99. There were no riots. There was no one electrocuted on stage. No one died. Sure people were covered in mud because it rained the first day (and my cousin lost his wallet there) but for the most part was pretty tame.
This account of the festival is the only one I could find that wasn’t written by a larger publication. We definitely didn’t have the word “blog” in 1994, but this guy blogged the hell out of Woodstock 94. And he photographed the event with disposable cameras.
Whenever I think of Woodstock 94, I think of Green Day on stage throwing mud at people in the crowd. It’s engrained in my mind. After raining on the first day a select group of people, dubbed “Mudpeople,” took to the mud like it was a religious rite. As Green Day played their set people were throwing mud at them on stage. Billy Joe Armstrong , not one to fuck around, started throwing mud back as their performance started to wind down. Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt kept playing providing a great soundtrack for the all the mud slinging.
But aside from the Mud war, Green Day played an absolutely killer performance. If the release of Dookie wasn’t enough to escalate them to full on rock stars, their performance at Woodstock 94 did.
It’s unfortunate that Woodstock 94 was succeeded by Woodstock 99. It seems to taint everyones memory of the festival. Woodstock 94 was a peaceful music festival that really celebrated music. It was a great mix of bands that played in 1969 and popular artists of 1994. It captured the spirit of Woodstock perfectly.
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A couple at Woodstock (48 hours after they met) and the same couple 50 years later.
Twiggy and Justin de Villeneuve <3
