Woodstock '94

Woodstock '94 was a music festival organized in order to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock Festival of 1969. It was promoted as "2 More Days of Peace and Music." The famous poster used to promote the first concert was revised to feature two birds perched on a guitar (instead of one).

The concert was scheduled for August 13 and 14 of 1994, but a third day (August 12) was added.

The event took place on a large field in Saugerties, New York, about north of New York City. The site is only from Woodstock, New York and it was originally proposed as the location for the 1969 concert. Permission to use the property was not granted the first time around, so the first concert was instead held in Sullivan County, much farther from the namesake town of Woodstock.

The crowd at Woodstock '94 was estimated at 350,000. A much smaller crowd, estimated at 30,000, attended a competing unofficial concert at the site of the original Woodstock Festival. In 1994 the weather was similar to that in 1969: rainy. By Saturday much of the entire field had turned into mud.

The festival was followed by Woodstock 1999.

Performer List

Friday, August 12

North Stage

Blues Traveler

Candlebox

Collective Soul

Jackyl

James

King's X

Live

Orleans

Sheryl Crow

Violent Femmes

South Stage

3

Del Amitri

Futu Futu

The Goats

Huffamoose

Lunchmeat

The Paul Luke Band

Peacebomb

Rekk

Roguish Armament

Ravestock

Aphex Twin

Deee-Lite

DJ Spooky

Doc Martin

Frankie Bones

Kevin Saunderson

Little Louie Vega

The Orb

Orbital

Scotto

Soul Slinger

Saturday, August 13

North Stage

Joe Cocker

Blind Melon

Cypress Hill

Rollins Band

Melissa Etheridge

Crosby, Stills, & Nash featuring John Sebastian

Nine Inch Nails

Metallica

Aerosmith

South Stage

Nenad Bach

The Cranberries

Zucchero

Youssou N'Dour

The Band featuring Hot Tuna, Bruce Hornsby, Roger McGuinn, Rob Wasserman, and Bob Weir

Primus featuring Jerry Cantrell

Salt 'N Pepa

Sunday, August 14

North Stage

Country Joe McDonald

Sisters Of Glory featuring Thelma Houston, CeCe Peniston, Phoebe Snow, Mavis Staples, and Lois Walden

Arrested Development

Allman Brothers Band

Traffic

Spin Doctors

Porno For Pyros

Bob Dylan

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Peter Gabriel

South Stage

John Sebastian and the J-Band

Country Joe McDonald

Gil Scott-Heron

WOMAD

*Xalam

*The Justin Trio

*Geoffrey Oryema

*Hassan Hakmoun & Zahar

Green Day

Paul Rodgers Rock and Blues Revue featuring Slash, Neal Schon, Andy Fraser, and Jason Bonham

Neville Brothers

Santana

Jimmy Cliff's All Star Reggae Jam featuring Rita Marley, Eek A Mouse and Shabba Ranks

Notes on performers

Performers from the original Woodstock appearing at Woodstock '94 were the Band, Santana, Joe Cocker, Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash. Additionally, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane, and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, all Woodstock alumni, also appeared at the latter festival, performing with the Band on guitar; bass; and guitar and vocals, respectively.

Nine Inch Nails were considered to have the largest crowd density at the event, overshadowing many of the more mainstream bands of the time.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss were offered 1 million dollars to reunite with Peter Criss and Ace Frehley to headline the show, but they declined.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers performed in lightbulb costumes for the first few songs of their set. Later in the set they would all dress up as Jimi Hendrix had at the original Woodstock. The lightbulb costumes are now on display at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Surviving Nirvana members were offered a large sum of money to get back together, with a new singer to replace Kurt Cobain, but turned it down.

Several of the artists, including Green Day and Cypress Hill, skipped at least one Lollapalooza tour date in order to appear at Woodstock '94.

Peter Gabriel headlined and closed Woodstock '94.

Pepsi was the presenting sponsor, distributing millions of free Woodstock '94 guides nationwide.

Blind Melon frontman Shannon Hoon played Woodstock in his girlfriend's dress, while completely inebriated. In the interview after their performance, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor claimed he thought his band's performance was "terrible". Reznor admitted that while he disliked playing at such a large show, it was done for the money: "To be quite frank, it's basically to offset the cost of the tour we're doing right now." Aphex Twin's performance was cut short when promoters "disconnected" him mid-show for forging his signature on a contract, which would forfeit the rights to his performance.

Aerosmith's Joey Kramer, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler were at the original Woodstock festival in 1969.

After being injured in a traffic accident in 1966, and his subsequent disappearance from the popular music scene, Bob Dylan declined to go to the original Woodstock Festival of 1969, even though he lived in the area at the time and the festival had been put in his backyard to try and get him to come out and play. He set off for the Isle of Wight Festival the day the Woodstock festival started, and performed at Woodside Bay on 31 August 69. Dylan, however, did accept an invitation to perform at Woodstock '94, and was introduced with the phrase: "We waited twenty-five years to hear this. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bob Dylan". According to various critics, Dylan's performance was one of the greater moments of the festival, and represented the beginning of another one of the new phases in his lengthy career. During Primus' performance of the song "My Name Is Mud" the audience responded by pelting the band with mud, which singer /bassist Les Claypool ended by informing the crowd that "Anyone who throws things on stage has small and insignificant genitalia." Claypool claims that he still has mud in his bass cabinets to this day. Rumors circulated during the festival that The Rolling Stones were to make a surprise appearance because they were scheduled to play a concert in New York that weekend. Woodstock '94 has also been referred to as Mudstock, or Mudstock '94, in part because of Green Day's performance. During the group's final song, "Paper Lanterns", frontman Billie Joe Armstrong joined in the mudfight and began throwing mud back at the crowd as the band continued playing the song. The band soon became covered in mud, so much so that when some fans jumped on stage at the end of their set, security mistook the band's bassist Mike Dirnt for one of them and tried to throw him off the stage, breaking several of his teeth. After Green Day's time on stage was over, the fans continued to throw mud.

Johnny Cash, the only living person at that time to be inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was also invited to perform but, after learning that he would not be performing on the main stage, declined to appear.

Alice in Chains were on the initial bill of the festival. However, the band pulled out due to the continuing drug problems of lead singer Layne Staley. Guitarist Jerry Cantrell made a special guest appearance with Primus on the song "Harold Of The Rocks."

Todd Rundgren had a multimedia performance in the festival's "Surreal Field" several times during the course of the entire festival.

Recordings

- a film directed by Bruce Gowers with the highlights of performances

References

See also

Woodstock Festival (1969)

Woodstock '79 (1979)

Woodstock '89 (1989)

Woodstock '99 (1999)

External links

Woodstock '94 @ The WELL Notes and messages from festival attendees, generated on-site in 1994.

Woodstock Museum

Saugerties, NY - Town where Woodstock '94 was held

Category:Music festivals in the United States Category:1994 in the United States