Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

An error in my logic (in the Mountain thread) came to me while watching the Hendrix at Woodstock DVD (Disk 1).
Even though I could hear Havens while driving down Route 17B and he was no longer on the stage once I got to the site doesn’t mean, naturally, that he played less than three hours or played less than ten hours for that matter because I don’t know when he started playing.
I thought he had started sometime in the mid to late afternoon but I don’t know for certain.
I apologize for the leap to assumption.

Havens himself in at least one interview (Broadside) has said he played for three hours. Who knows. Did he know three hours worth of material? It is true that there were two ad hoc sets after him (Country Joe and Sebastian) so maybe they were in a bind getting people on stage.

PS: The Incredible String Band performed on Saturday instead because they were concerned about the effect the Friday night rain would have on their instruments.

Does anyone know what is on disk 2 of the Hendrix Woodstock DVD from NetFlix? Disk 1 ends with his set, so what else could there be? “Bonus” stuff? Thanks.

http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/music0_woodstock.html

I don't know how long it took, but this site says:

Richie Havens

1. High Flyin' Bird
2. I Can't Make It Anymore
3. With A Little Help
4. Strawberry Fields For Ever
5. Hey Jude
6. I Had A Woman
7. Handsome Johnny
8. Freedom

I have these songs from Haven's set on audio and/or video. High Flyin' Bird and I Got A Woman are performed as one song, as are Strawberry Fields Forever and Hey Jude. This is about 25 minutes of music. If he played for three hours, where's the rest of his set? I find his claim of a three hour set improbable, with all the acts to follow him, and still have Joan Baez finish Friday night around 2:00 A.M. (as most sources state).

Mark - Do you recall if Country Joe and John Sebastian did indeed play Friday night? I had always heard this was so, but most people who track Woodstock info these days now claim they both played Saturday afternoon.

Please stand by . . .

Kris,

It is interesting that you ask.
I have actually thought about this for a long time … since the original film came out in fact.
(Though the question of the length of Haven’s set came up much, much later.)

So, I decided to ask Artie Kornfeld, one of the organizers of the ’69 Woodstock festival.

My initial instincts were correct. Havens did not play for three or four hours. Artie says Havens performed a somewhat normal set of about an hour and a half. (Though, under the pressure of the moment and the hot summer sky it may have seemed like three or four hours.)

Sebastian did indeed perform on Friday afternoon. Artie and John knew each other from the early 60s in NYC. Kornfeld borrowed Tim Hardin’s guitar and asked Sebastian to go up on stage and perform. Sebastian reportedly declined but Kornfeld talked him into it.

I couldn’t get a straight answer about Country Joe however. But since he is seen wearing a festival logo jacket I suspect he performed on Saturday. Friday was a beautiful sunny day * and there would have been no reason for McDonald to have been wearing a nylon jacket that afternoon.

Hope this helps.

*In reality the weather was gorgeous all four days except for the rain Friday night and the thunderstorm.