Grateful Dead tribute band Splintered Sunlight gets the crowd dancing with a rousing Dead tune. 
C.C. Coletti and her band mates run through the late, great Janus Joplin’s hits
at the “Let It All Hang Out Festival” at Waterloo Village.
The Woodstock tribute band Back to the Garden rocked out with classic rock tunes from
The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival
and other acts that performed at the Woodstock Arts & Music Festival a half-century ago.
Woodstock Revisited
Fifty years ago, a crowd of more than 400,000 descended onto a dairy farm in upstate New York to become part of what is now considered the most famous of all rock festivals–Woodstock. The festival, held three days under a sweltering August sun, was the ‘60s counterculture’s last gasp of that tumultuous decade. There have been previous attempts to relive the magic of this extraordinary event, but none have yet succeeded.
The era’s top rock acts Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, The Grateful Dead, Joe Cocker, Jefferson Airplane and many others gave stunning performances that are permanently etched in the memories of those who were fortunate enough to witness this historical period in the annals of rock music.
Incidentally, I have a connection with this seminal event, though very remotely. My parents rejected a request, without hesitation, from a friend’s older siblings if they could take me to Woodstock. My folks felt that I was too young to be exposed to “hippie music.” Well, if I couldn’t go, they asked to borrow my sleeping bag. Permission granted. Upon their return, the sleeping bag was covered with dried mud, leaves and who knows what else. Looking back, perhaps I shouldn’t have thrown away the sleeping bag, as I might have been able to sell it on e-Bay.
Anyway, back to the blog topic.
During the last week of August this year, a three-day music festival paid tribute to Woodstock Nation, called the “Let It All Hang Out” festival, on the outskirts of Stanhope, NJ. While there were no mud-sliding concert-goers donning watermelon headgear or stage announcements warning the crowd not to “eat the brown acid”, the festival’s spirit was alive and well.
I attended the third and final day of the event. Like the original festival, there was no evidence of violent behavior among the festival-goers, many of whom plunked down on lawn chairs and blankets and swayed with the music. At the site, there were food trucks and other vendors hawking everything from hot dogs to CBD products.
All in all, it was a very peaceful and relaxing day and night. Was it successful? That depends on who you talk to. But at least it happened, which the same can’t be said for the over-hyped 50th anniversary Woodstock celebration-which signed up a few of the original acts and others (Jay Z and Miley Cyrus)-that went bust.
I missed the festival’s first act, a Santana tribute band, though I heard the strains of “Black Magic Woman” as I pulled into the parking lot. By the way, that song was originally performed by Fleetwood Mac, which, for some unknown reason, was not on the first Woodstock’s festival’s bill.
The next act was Splintered Sunlight, a Philly-area Grateful Dead tribute band. The band admirably performed several of the Dead’s biggest hits including “Box of Rain”, “Mexicali Blues”, “St. Stephen” and a couple of covers including The Rascals’ “Good Lovin’” and Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried”. Their last song “Deal”, from Jerry Garcia’s first solo album, not only paid homage to a bygone musical era but to the Dead’s late leader, guitarist and vocalist.
For those who didn’t attend the first two days of the festival, the band Back to the Garden covered many of the acts who performed at Woodstock. And they crushed it. They whipped through performances by Richie Havens, The Band, Melanie, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and a host of others. One of the band’s guitarists even emulated The Who’s Peter Townshend’s wind milling-arm chord bashing on “Pinball Wizard”. In my opinion, Back to the Garden was worth the price of admission alone.
Next, C.C. Coletti (formerly a singer with Meatloaf) and Anthony Krizan (formerly the guitarist for The Spin Doctors) and their band mates took to the stage to perform blues-rock singer Janis Joplin’s greatest hits. C.C. ‘s appearance not only uncannily resembled Joplin, but her vocal work on songs like “Piece of MY Heart”, “Ball and Chain” and “Try” was spot-on and downright mesmerizing, conjuring up the spirit of the late singer who died tragically at the height of her short-lived career. I also enjoyed the band’s reworking of “Mecerdes Benz” which turned the song from its original country-inspired vocal solo into a full-blown rocker.
Unfortunately, I didn’t stick around to see the last set of the evening, a Jimi Hendrix tribute. But I’m sure the band did justice to the Master of the Stratocaster. When Hendrix played at Woodstock, it was in the early morning hours and many of the festival-goers had already departed. But for those who stuck around to watch the guitar god perform, they were not disappointed. Hendrix’s classic version of “Star Spangled Banner” alone blew people’s minds, making his guitar sound like an all-out aerial assault. The music of Hendrix and the other acts during those three days in August 1969 is representative of the kind of music that the Woodstock generation and, perhaps, future generations will always remember and cherish. Hopefully, the organizers of the Woodstock tribute will repeat the festival annually.
Peace & Love.