“Hey, it’ll happen. All in good time,” he said. “It’s gonna be a very long evening.”
Just not long enough for me.
Woodstock
Day Three
Sunday, August 17, 1969
2:00 a.m.
While the stagehands switched out the band gear, the Woodstockers who were awake chanted “We want Janis; we want Janis” over and over until she finally showed up at two in the morning.
Wearing a velvet tie-dyed pantsuit with a flowy jacket and a foot’s length of bangle bracelets on her arms—and an equal number around her neck—Janis Joplin strolled onto the stage. The clamor must have woken the rest of the sleepy crowd, because the audience went ballistic. The volume sounded like a rocket launch.
“Sorry about those who got the green,” she said, once the screams had died down. “We got a whole lot of orange. And it was fine. And it’s still fine. Everybody’s vibrating.”
Leon leaned toward my ear. “She isn’t yelling or crying. See the difference?”
Janis floated around the stage, dancing like she was one of the Woodstockers—not a superstar. She even talked to the audience like we were her family. “Look to your left. That’s your brother. Look to your right. That’s your sister. What I have is yours; what you have is mine. Irelate differently to the human family around me.” A few minutes later she asked if everyone had enough water and a place to sleep.
Watching Janis Joplin was like witnessing a cosmic explosion. Her energy roused every person there. She took us on a wild ride, her raspy voice reaching places only available to a few freaks of nature.
Amid a thunderous roar, the supernova ended with “Ball and Chain,” and I thought the producers might just call it a night. In my mind, the festival had reached its zenith. But in Leon’s mind, the best was yet to come.
Now it was three in the morning. Despite the energy flowing through our bodies only minutes prior, exhaustion settled in. We dozed while the roadies switched out the band gear. But we woke up thirty minutes later to an energetic mania. Sly and the Family Stone had arrived.
They were decked out in cool white fringed costumes, bringing along a new energy the minute they stepped onstage. The band started with a song called “M’Lady,” but when they got to “Everyday People,” followed by “Dance to the Music,” the crowd went berserk. My idiotic three-year gap in music had caused me to miss this band. Judging by the screams, I was willing to bet I was the only person there who didn’t know the words. But they were easy to learn; I picked them up right away.
The ground rumbled underneath while every person on Max Yasgur’s property—all 450,000 of us—bounced up and down like tennis balls. I had never danced so hard in all my life.
“Now what is happening here is we are gonna try to do a sing-along,” Sly Stone said. “Now a lot of people don’t like to do it because they feel that it might be old fashioned. But you must dig that it is not a fashion in the first place; it is a feeling. If it was good in the past, it’s still good! We’d like to sing a song called ‘Higher,’ and if we can get everyone to join in, we’d appreciate it. What I’d like you to do is sayhigherand throw the peace sign up. It will show you no harm.”
Every time Sly threw up his arms in a peace sign, with a xylophone of fringe hanging from his sleeves, the audience responded by holding up their own peace signs.
Sly and the Family Stone was the first racially integrated band I’d ever heard. While I stood there, absorbing and loving every note of their music, something dawned on me. Like atoms and molecules, music binds people together, no matter what kind of family they grow up in. Or what they look like. Black, white, brown, yellow, or red. Music is the golden thread of commonality that joins us all. It’s our universal language, our perfect form of communication.
And we sure had it that night in Bethel, New York.
5:00 a.m.
The Who showed up at five o’clock Sunday morning. As soon as Roger Daltrey—whom I found extraordinarily beautiful—walked onto the stage, Leon’s face lit up like a torch. He wore a jacket with white fringe like Sly’s, but unlike Sly, he was rock solid, bare chested underneath. Like Leon, he wore a chunky silver cross around his neck.
“He’s copying you,” I said, fingering Leon’s cross.
“I think it’s the other way around.” Leon’s shiny white smile mirrored his euphoria, which made me beam, too, just looking at him.
No doubt about it, the band’s voices were far out, but the music didn’t keep me grooving the way Sly’s had. As much as I tried, I struggled to keep my eyes open. I wanted to lie down but was afraid someone might step on me. So I bit down on the insides of my cheeks, trying desperately to stay awake.
Just after “Pinball Wizard,” this crazy dude rushed out from the side of the stage, taking over Pete Townshend’s microphone when his back was turned.
“Is he part of the band?” I asked Leon, who’d been mesmerized ever since the Who took the stage.
“I don’t know who that guy is.”
“Hey, all you people out there having fun while John Sinclair is being held a political prisoner,” the guy said with a heavy Boston accent, then proceeded to berate the audience, like we should all feel guilty about it.
“Who’s John Sinclair?” I asked.
