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Although an old format the music quality superb.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The next best thing to being there. You can feel the atmosphere. Great music, great highlights. Ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee. Brilliant!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Brilliant cd , brilliant music , not a lot else can be said really but well worth the money .
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Great album recorded at the world's greatest rock concert. Highly recommended.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The very name Woodstock conjures up all sorts of images of different kinds for different people, and should need no introduction here. Along with the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, the 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Festival became an icon for the late sixties generation. Any self-respecting rock fan updating his or her old vinyl or tape collection should regard this as an essential item for their CD rack. Remember the film? Playing this music again conjures up all the great images from that footage. Arguably the best track is one of the less well known ones. When Richie Havens stepped onto the stage at short notice to face an impatient and increasingly hostile crowd and immediately won them over with his intense performance of Freedom. That number, perhaps more than any other, sums up the Spirit of Woodstock. An apposite title too. Canned Heat’s great rendition of their good time rock-boogie number Going Up The Country, with Alan Wilson’s hauntingly strange vocal sound, also features, and precedes Freedom on the album compilation. Then there’s the memorable Fish Cheer (so called) from Country Joe McDonald, with over a quarter of a million people responding to the prompts, before the band breaks into the protest Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag. Woodstock was apparently only the second time Crosby Stills Nash & Young had played to a live audience, but their Suite: Judy Blue Eyes is another great performance included on the album. The track chosen from The Who’s set is one of their less boisterous numbers, We’re Not Gonna Take It, an appropriate choice following on from the melodic CSNY songs in the album running order. Joe Cocker’s animated performance of With A Little Help From My Friends, which went a long way to attaining his legendary status, closes the first disc of the double compendium. The opening track on disc two is another classic in its own right, featuring Mike Shrieve’s great drum solo in the extended version of Soul Sacrifice played during a scorching set which launched Carlos Santana to worldwide fame. An extended good time rock n roll jam follows, with Alvin Lee (Ten Years After) playing guitar licks late into the night on I’m Going Home. Jefferson Airplane opened the second day of the festival, and their first number, Volunteers, was chosen for the album release. Remember the self-effacing and slightly bemused Max Yasgur? A cut from his short oratory to the crowd follows, which opens with the best introduction from any of the voiceovers in the entire film footage of the concert: “I’m A Farmer” (!!). On the disc his words about the vast crowd being well behaved and having a good time break almost straight into the music of one of the bands that really got the crowd on their feet and jumping about, Sly & the Family Stone’s long dancealong medley, closing with I Wanna Take You Higher. The second disc ends with the master of the stratocaster, Jimi Hendrix, holding the audience spellbound with his protest version of Star Spangled Banner before launching into Purple Haze, followed by a long instrumental. All those great moments, and many more, are captured here on this double CD. For those whose memories of the film have faded with the passing of the years, this CD will bring them flooding back. One of the classic live albums of all time, an essential addition to anyone’s collection, whatever their tastes in music. Reviewer: MGB0147Read full review
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