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THE STORM Joe Cocker finished his set and, all of a sudden, the clouds started to come up and wind started blowing... it was incredible. I have since lived in Miami and experienced hurricanes, but what happened at Woodstock seemed more like a monsoon. It wasn't just some rainstorm up in the Catskill Mountains of New York. This was ominous and something that we had feared during the planning stages of the Festival. The clouds came from all over and all of a sudden this sunny day became this dark, ominous, threatening situation. The winds were blowing and I remember the tarp that covered the stage, in case of rain, coming loose and blowing all over the place. I remember stagehands running around and disconnecting electricity wherever they could find it. I recall hearing Chip Monck's calming voice, and it was at this moment that I believe his voice really became the voice of Woodstock, soothing the crowd. There were others whose ego drew them to the mike but Chip had the spirituality and calming effect that was exactly what was needed. I heard his voice calming people down saying, "The rain's coming, try to protect yourselves, try to cover up and let's just ride this out together." His comments seemed almost a follow up to Richie's "Freedom" song earlier in the Festival. We had the freedom to ride out this threat together. No one instructing us how to go about it except for the love of the person who was sitting next to you on the field. We cared about what happened to everybody, not just ourselves. It illustrated just how different that Woodstock community was from the world that we had all just come from for that weekend. Ours wasn't a self-centered world. This was a moment when I actually thought the dream might end but instead it turned out to be as if the rain was an act we'd booked to bring the crowds together. Chip Monck was on the mike saying, "Please keep off the towers," because a lot of people had climbed up on the light towers to get a better view of the stage. "Please get off the towers, it's very dangerous, and for those of you on stage, please keep away from all electric wiring because the storm's about to hit." And the rain did hit, and it hit with a fury, it hit like an invasion. It was frightening. It could've meant the whole show would end. The question going through my mind was, "Are we going to be able to recover when this storm is done and continue to put this show on?" Thankfully the rain started to slowly go away. But I think it must have been a downpour for an hour or so. I looked off the stage and I saw that mudslide, that you see in the movie, where there were a lot of percussion people just banging each other's heads...or banging their own heads...or hitting guitars or whatever else they could find. It was incredible to watch these people sliding down the mud with smiles on their faces and laughing just waiting for the show to continue. In my mind I vicariously tripped out and went down the mudslide with them. Finally the sun came out and people seemed happier than before the rain had hit, as if the mutual threat they had shared together had drawn them into being one being. |
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