Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band played The Long Island Community Hospital Amphitheater in Farmingville, Long Island, to a sold out crowd on Saturday, August 17, 2019. Although the members have changed throughout the years, 2019 marks the 30th Anniversary of The All Starr Band. The current band consists of Steve Lukather (founding member of Toto), Gregg Rolie (Santana, Journey), Colin Hay (Men At Work), Hamish Stuart (AWB), Gregg Bissonette (David Lee Roth Band) and Warren Ham.
The setlist was a combination of hits from the band members including Men At Work’s “Down Under” and Toto’s “Africa” plus some Beatle songs that Ringo Starr sang lead on including “I Wanna Be Your Man” and “With A Little Help From My Friends.”
Setlist: Matchbox, It Don’t Come Easy, What Goes On, Evil Ways, Rosanna, Pick Up the Pieces, Down Under Boys, Don’t Pass Me By, Yellow Submarine, Cut the Cake, Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen, You’re Sixteen, Anthem, Overkill, Africa, Work to Do, Oye como va, I Wanna Be Your Man, Who Can It Be Now?, Hold the Line, Photograph, Act Naturally, With a Little Help From My Friends
Friday left the crowd exhausted, but looking for more. A motionless field was peppered with life around 8AM, hippies making friends with neighbors as they awoke, ahead of the second day of Woodstock.
According to Robert Spitz’s Barefoot in Babylon, Director of Operations Mel Lawrence, would wake the crowd up with a rousing “GGOOOOOD MOOOR-NINGGG” followed by:
Sorry about that. Let’s try that one again. Good Morning. Thank You. Listen, last night was incredible, and we just wanted to let you know that everything’s okay. No hassles. We’re going to have another groovy day today and into the night and tomorrow.
I just need your help with one small favor. We’re going to pass out these bags now so that we can keep our home clean. We’ll hand them out to those of you on this side of the bowl, and I’d appreciate it if all of you over there will toss your junk in and pass the bag on until it gets over to the other side of the field. Some of the guys from the Peace Service Corps will pick them up over there and get rid of that stuff for tyou.
We’ve gotta keep this place liveable so we can prove to the rest of the world that we can make it to together in peace and comfort. And we’re gonna do it too.
Mel Lawrence, with intermittent cheers from a quickly awoken crowd.
A day of heavy-hitters would perform on Saturday, including The Who, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Santana among them.
Santana’s appearance has always been regarded as one of the highlights of the festival. According to Spitz, with 92′ heat and 97% humidity, the bowl had turned into a sauna, and emotions, fueled by boredom from early performances from Quill, Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian, and Keef Hartley Band, were heating up. Santana jolted the crowd to their feet, making his mark on the festival and providing an electrifying bridge to the rest of that day’s performers.
The Who would not perform until 3:30AM on Sunday, playing well into the morning. The set was famously interrupted by activist Abbie Hoffman who stormed the stage to say:
This festival is meaningless as long as John Sinclair’s rotting in prison!
Abbie Hoffman at Woodstock
Hoffman was dispatched from the stage by Pete Townshend, who used his guitar to escort Hoffman into the photographer’s pit.
Jefferson Airplane hit the stage at 8:30AM on Sunday, with a set that paralleed the exhausted corowd. Much of the audience was passed out even as the hits “Volunteers” and “Somebody to Love” rounded out the set. At 10AM on Sunday, the music would take a break, for a few hours.
Watch performances from 13 of the 14 artists who performed at Woodstock on August 15, 1969.
Quill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfH18WqJuY8
Country Joe McDonald
John B. Sebastian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnsB4Ck__OE
Keef Hartley Band
Allegedly, Hartleyâs manager demanded payment up front for the rights to record or film the band. Thus, they were never included in any Woodstock footage until 2019, when the full Woodstock set was released.
Even now, 51 years to the day, the performance by Grateful Dead at the legendary Woodstock Music Festival still leaves a mark. Although, for a variety of reasons, it’s a mark that the band and any eyewitnesses that evening may not wish to remember fondly. Weather, electrical and all the other ever-sprouting issues that arose during Woodstock all played factors that resulted in what many deem a less than memorable performance put forth by the Western newcomers that many had heard of but few had seen before.
Due to scheduling issues and incessant rain, the band’s set on August 16, 1969 had already been pushed back from Saturday late afternoon to a 10:30 pm start time. By then, rain and the resulting mud had conquered the Bethel, NY festival grounds. The giant throng of spectators splayed across the hillside were getting soaked and restless waiting for the next act to start. Up until this point, the Grateful Dead were still only a band “on the rise” that was very much new to an East Coast crowd, by and large.
The inauspicious start began when the band’s notoriously heavy gear caused the rotating stage that was being used to sink completely into the mud – something they had warned the event staff about beforehand. Phil Lesh’s bass monitor was somehow picking up the on-site helicopter’s radio signal. And the Dead’s sound technician, Owsley “Bear” Stanley, was making alterations to what he considered an inadequate in-house PA system. It resulted in him improperly grounding the stage equipment and giving new meaning to the term “electric rock.”
Band members recall feeling a “light tingle” whenever they would touch their instruments. This all culminated with a now famous story about guitarist Bob Weir being thrown across the stage, supposedly during the “Saint Stephen” that began the show.
It was raining toads when we played. The rain was part of our nightmare. The other part was our sound man, who decided that the ground situation on the stage was all wrong. It took him about two hours to change it, which held up the show. He finally got it set the way he wanted it, but every time I touched my instrument, I got a shock. The stage was wet, and the electricity was coming through me. I was conducting! Touching my guitar and the microphone was nearly fatal. There was a great big blue spark about the size of a baseball, and I got lifted off my feet and sent back eight or 10 feet to my amplifier.
~ Bob Weir, Rolling Stone interview
Audio recordings only contain the first two minutes of the opening number, likely a result of this mishap. Things immediately lighten up a little afterwards with “Mama Tried,” a Merle Haggard song that the Dead had started covering earlier that year.
The awkward start-and-stop rhythm of the show then rears its ugly head again thanks to another ten minutes of delay in order to deal with the sound setup. A “spirited” Ken Babbs from the Merry Pranksters takes to the MC role during this part of the show as he tries his best to entertain a crowd of hippies growing increasingly damp and restless. This also gives Country Joe McDonald the chance to pop up onstage and warn everyone about the “green acid” that was going around.
After all the sound issues are resolved, the band launches into a moody “Dark Star” that serves as one of the musical highlights of the night. The near 20-minute rendition stretches out and descends into near ambience before rounding back into form. It features wonderful fills and textures provided by early keys player Tom Constanten who seems to be turned up abnormally high in this recording.
Once the “Dark Star” burned out, the band trotted out another new number with “High Time” – a sentiment that was no doubt shared by many this evening. Garcia’s vocals come through aptly but this isn’t exactly a song to get a crowd up and dancing. The slow, drab composition seemed to be reflective of the current atmosphere.
The band seems to cut their losses and ends theit set with a “Turn On Your Lovelight” that stretches out to almost 40 minutes. However,it starts with even more mayhem thanks to another “spirited” individual who jumps on stage and exclaims to everyone about “seeing the sun rise over the lake” and a “third Coast.” All this while the band is quietly playing the instrumental open to the song underneath it all.
While it does seem to finally inject some life into the set, not even a Pigpen rap would be enough to save this show. The extensive jam meanders and shifts from pscychedelia to blues and back with little direction in between. It marked the end of a set that had high hopes at first but falls flat in its delivery thanks to the weather, sound issues, lucid ramblings from MCs and stage crashers alike, and one of the guitarists getting visibly electrocuted on stage.
Grateful Dead Woodstock Music Festival Bethel, NY 8/16/69 St. Stephen (cut), Mama Tried -> High Time (false start), Dark Star ->High Time, Turn On Your Love Light
The historic Woodstock Music and Art Festival took place 51 years ago this weekend in Bethel, NY in 1969. Billed as “an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music,” promoters Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld brought together an all-time classic lineup of artists that spanned genres and put an exclamation point on a decade of change.
Much has been written on the festival, and the (pre-COVID) thriving music festival scene in America owes a debt to the original Woodstock, adding a festival (and city name) to our collective lexicon and providing a template by which to measure all future music festivals.
With today marking the anniversary of the first day of Woodstock, revisit performances from the eight artists who took the stage, including Richie Havens, who hurriedly took to the stage when Sweetwater was held up arriving to the site by helicopter.
When asked by Lang to perform earlier than planned, Havens was initially resistant, thinking that he couldn’t get ready in time. With encouragement from John Morris, and learning that Tim Hardin was “scared shitless” to open the festival, Havens laughed and said,
What can I say? OK, give me a couple minutes to get ready and to round up the rest of the group. I’ll do it.
Richie Havens
The stage crew was alerted and at 5:01pm, and once sound was set, Morris strode to the stage and announced,
Well, it’s time for the music to begin. Let’s welcome, Mr. Richie Havens”
John Morris
And with that, the greatest music festival ever was off and running into the history books. Watch a performance from each of the eight artists who performed at Woodstock on August 15, 1969
Richie Havens
Sweetwater
Bert Sommer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA-NPCq_Jd8
Tim Hardin
Ravi Shankar
Melanie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2l9inAryQ
Arlo Guthrie
Joan Baez
Watch performances from every Woodstock artist with our full playlist
On August 14, 1997, Phish performed for the second time at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center. Just one stop was left on Phish’s Summer Tour – The Great Went in Limestone, ME. And, as is bound to happen, some bozos and pranksters showed up in the parking lot before the show, leading to history being made and generations of jam bridged together.
photo via Kevin Shapiro
A fluid first set was chock full of jams, and an early “Fluffhead” was reportedly punctuated with a roller-coaster climbing to its peak just as “Fluffhead” was peaking. The first “Tela” since fall 1996 and a raging “Antelope” set closer are among the other highlights.
Fans reported seeing the famous Furthur bus in the parking lots that day, which had a Grateful Dead feel to them with Furthur Fest on tour that summer as well. Not many would expect Trey to bring out the head Prankster himself, Ken Kesey, later that night. Following an often overlooked segue out of “Harry Hood” in the second set, just as Anastasio started the narration part of “Col. Forbin’s Ascent,” their special guest came to the stage.
So here we are again, standing at the base of the mountain, and this is a very different and interesting time for Col. Forbin here. Col. Forbin realizes on this particular day, he is not going to find the great and knowledagble Icculus at all, but instead he is going to find (laughs) Ken, Uncle Sam, Bozo, E-Z-Kesey standing there.
Trey Anastasio, introducing Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, August 14, 1997
Out walked Kesey dressed as Uncle Sam, and the crowd erupted.
Ken Kesey with Phish
Kesey – author, LSD advocate, founder of the acid tests and a key figurehead of sixties counter-culture – took hold of the moment and in a rambling, hilarious and surreal art performance, referenced the loss of Jerry Garcia, the Bozos, and the Wizard of Oz. Kesey spoke and sang to the beat of his own drum:
My heart is sorely beset because from out amongst the tidbits of these vehicles moving through the nation we have lost an important part of us. For two years no one has seen high nor heard of the bozos. For two years the bozos have been missing. Where are the bozos? Well, what we heard was they were gonna try to make it hear to the Phish concert. We couldn’t catch them up at the Furthur Festival so we decided to come to the Phish concert.
Ken Kesey
Around the stage and audience were costumed Pranksters in key roles, making for one of the most infamous sit-ins in Phish history. Two years after Jerry Garcia’s death, Kesey had symbolically passed the torch to Phish
Kesey began a “Wizard of Oz” narration, mentioning that his brother in Oz usually handles finding the bozos. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” begins and out walks a helper, dress as the Scarecrow, to give a “Bozo Report.” At that moment, the band switched to an instrumental version of “If Only I Had a Brain”, ahead of The Scarecrow saying “We know they were at the Grateful Dead concert and the rumor was they went Phishing.”
The Tin Man followed, reporting that he has a ‘foolish heart,’ with Kesey and Fishman singing “Has anyone seen the Bozos?” Instead of the Cowardly Lion following next, Frankenstein walks out with his master, and naturally, Phish breaks into Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein” with the volume a little lower for Kesey to continue his narration.
The Cowardly Lion was leading a paramilitary group in Northern Idaho and you brought me this? Wonderful!
Ken Kesey
Then, as Kesey and four other pranksters began to come up with lyrics for the Bozos, about 20 Bozo Clowns came running through the pavilion and found their way to the stage. Meanwhile, Kesey and the Pranksters continued to sing while Phish improvised over a funk groove. To close this collective hallucination, Kesey attempted a segue of his own:
I see a bird. Out comes a bird. Could that possible be Mockingbird? What kind of bird can it possibly be in the nest when the Pranksters sing? I know it. I see it. I hear it. It’s a Mockingbird.
Ken Kesey
Alas, as Kesey and the Pranksters exited the stage, Trey remarked “See what happens if you take too much acid? 30 years later…” much to the audience’s approval. Trey then declared that because “the funk was too deep,” and they couldn’t stop the funk, the typical “Fly Famous Mockingbird” that follows “Col. Forbin’s Ascent” was passed over for “Camel Walk,” an early funk-filled Phish song, and a rarity at the time. Tune into the show via Phishtracks, and don’t sleep on the set closing “Taste.” At Superball IX, Phish shared a pro-shot clip of the show, footage of which can be seen above.
Soundcheck: Buffalo Bill, The Old Home Place, Funky Bitch, Crosseyed and Painless
Set 1: Ya Mar, Funky Bitch > Fluffhead, Limb By Limb, Free, Cars Trucks Buses, Tela > Train Song > Billy Breathes, Run Like an Antelope
Set 2: Chalk Dust Torture, Love Me, Sparkle > Harry Hood -> Jam > Colonel Forbin’s Ascent -> Merry Pranksters Jam[1] -> Camel Walk, Taste
Encore: Bouncing Around the Room, Rocky Top
[1] Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.
The second set featured a remarkable jam after Harry Hood ended and before Forbin’s began, as well as an appearance by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. The Merry Pranksters Jam contained a Somewhere Over the Rainbow tease from Trey, an If I Only Had a Brain tease, a Spam Song quote, and a Frankenstein jam.
Megaforce Records, of course, was the great east-coast underground metal label from the gods. Technically, Megaforce was a New Jersey label, not a New York label, but its founders, Johnny and Marsha Zazula, were New Yorkers, and later in the 80s when the label became associated with Atlantic Records, they became more New York-based. Like the UK’s Neat Records which defined the northern British metal scene in 1980-83 or Minneapolis’ TWIN/TONE or Seattle’s SUB POP later in the 80s, Megaforce was the label that defined the East Coast, North American (and beyond) underground/thrash scene.
In the early years, almost every release was flawless, you could buy the record based on the label alone: Metallica’s ‘Kill ‘Em All’ and ‘Ride The Lightning’, Raven’s ‘All For One’ and ‘Live At the Inferno’, Anthrax’s ‘Fistful of Metal’, Exciter’s ‘Violence & Force’, Overkill’s ‘Feel The Fire’, the great ‘From The Megavault’ compilation, and S.O.D.’s all-powerful ‘Speak English or Die’, just to name a few. Classic after classic after classic.
By 1988, when this gig happened, Megaforce had expanded well beyond the literal mom-and-pop operation that had organized gigs by bands like Anvil and Brooklyn’s Riot, brought Venom and Raven over from the UK for the first time, brought west-coasters Metallica out east and released the first Metallica records and first Raven records in the States. By now they were bigger-time, associated with major label Atlantic for most of their acts (except New Yorkers Anthrax, were on Megaforce-Island Records). I was doing a college radio show at WCDB up in Albany and we played piles of new and old Megaforce stuff and the Megaforce folks who serviced college radio were very cool gals. So this show – a Megaforce 5th Anniversary party with a bunch of bands – I had to go.
I remember I drove down to NYC in whatever crappy old car I was driving in ’88, and met my buddy Steve K, a Brooklyn-ite who did the radio show in Albany with me but had a summer job in Manhattan. I think we got food and drinks at some place Steve knew that would serve underage kids like us, and then found a parking spot and went to the Ritz – and saw Scott Ian from Anthrax walk by with his guitar case. A good start.
There were numerous bands – see the flyers attached. I think New York legend and KISS guitarist Ace Frehley, who’d just become a solo Megaforce act, was going to play but didn’t, which was fine with me. I love Ace, but it didn’t really fit in my mind what “Megaforce” was. The band all played short sets – either 3 or 5 songs, I think. I was hoping there’d be a surprise Metallica set or something, or maybe Raven or something, but it was not to be – the bands were as advertised, and S.O.D. was playing, which was unusual enough.
I don’t remember first band Prophet, but they were a bit more lightweight, commercial metal than the usual Mega-bands from what I recall about them, so we either missed or ignored them while getting beer. We managed to figure out how to get served, despite being underage – I’d just turned 20, Steve was younger – and blagged our way up to the balcony “V.I.P.” section. Beer was free up there, and you’d look around and see Danny Lilker from Nuclear Assault over here, Billy Milano from M.O.D./S.O.D. over there, Doug Pinnick from KING’s X walking by (I stopped him and told him how great their debut record was, he could not have been cooler), Rob “Wacko” Hunter who’d just left Raven at a table over there, and most memorably, Joey Ramone, hammered as the day is long, staggering by with a couple of punk rock chicks on each arm. I had to go over to Wacko and let him know I’d always considered Raven one of the great bands ever and he testily said “yeah … USED TO BE,” but was cool and shook my hand.
Anyway, the bands. Recollections are dim and general, as the ale was flowing, but I remember being blown away by King’s X. This was my first time seeing them, heavy rock with melodic vocal harmonies everywhere, I loved that debut ‘Out of the Silent Planet’ record, and they didn’t even slightly fit on this bill. I recall them opening with “King” and closing with “Visions” and playing one other song. Fantastic band, and one I’ve loved since.
West Coast thrashers Testament are a great live band, and I’d seen them play with Anthrax the summer before, but they sucked this night. I think they made it through not even two songs before having sound problems, having hissy fits onstage, knocking over their amps mid-song and stomping off. Lame.
M.O.D. played either before or after Testament (or maybe even after Overkill), were a big Megaforce push in the ’87-88 years, and were good, but I always thought they were a poor-man’s S.O.D. And the real thing was playing later.
New Jersey thrash kings Overkill ruled, maybe the band of the night. I think they played a couple songs from the then-current ‘Under The Influence’ album, but they definitely played “Rotten To The Core” from the first record, and the place went off – I was down in the pit by then.
Queens band Anthrax were a very big deal by 1988, so seeing them in a club already seemed unusual and special, even though they’d just graduated to the bigger halls less than a year before. They stuck mostly to the hits (“Indians”, “I’m The Man” I think), but I recall they played “Metal Thrashing Mad” from their debut Megaforce record, if I’m not mistaken, which brought down the house.
And then: S.O.D. By now everyone in the house (including me), and the band probably too, were well into their cups. I remember Billy, Danny, Scott and Charlie walking on stage, starting with “March of the SOD” and the place exploded into a giant pit, bodies flying everywhere – S.O.D. had only ever played a handful of late ’85 shows when that record came out, and this was the first-ever show after the ‘Speak English or Die’ album had graduated to legendary status. It was like the crossover Beatles had reformed. “United Forces” had the whole place roaring. It went too quick and the gig was over.
We made it back up to Albany alive somehow. I think I asked Steve to get us out of the city and I’d drive the rest of the way, passed out, and I dimly remember waking up and seeing him driving manically up I-87 with a giant cup of coffee, a Budgie mix-tape that was in my car cranked, and all the windows open. So I left him in charge and passed back out until we reached Albany – I think I had to work in the a.m. anyway. A mighty night. All hail Megaforce Records.
It’s been 23 years since Garth Brooks rocked the Big Apple with a powerful concert dubbed “Garthstock” in Central Park, and people are still talking about it.
An estimated 980,000 people attended the 1997 Garth Brooks concert.
On August 7, 1997, Brooks decided to perform on the grounds that so many acclaimed musicians had as well. Among the stars to play there were Diana Ross, Elton John and Paul Simon, to name a few. Could Brooks pull off the same notoriety as the past shows?
Brooks tweets about the 20 year anniversary of the Central Park Concert.
The pop-country musician started making headlines in the late 1980s, so by 1997, the crowd for his show was expected to reach thousands. Brooks won Country Music Award ‘Entertainer of the Year’ seven times, a first for any artist.
The significance of this concert came from admittance being free and was broadcast live on HBO. He also had a couple famous special guests by the name of Billy Joel and Don McLean.
The largest concert held in Central Park.
The New York City Fire Department said that 980,000 people attended the concert, making it the biggest concert ever. Although there’s debate to whether that number was true, the crowd’s size surpassed all of the past artists.
On the 20 year anniversary of the Central Park concert, Garth Brooks sat down with ET.
“I never seen so many people in my life. Try to remember, in my hometown, when I grew up, [there were] probably 17,000 people. So, to look out and see 40 times your hometown out there, it’s like — it was crazy. It was so beautiful.”
