The Band - Woodstock (2019)

Broadcast Recording Of The Band s Full Set At The Legendary 1969 Festival The half million people at Woodstock in late August 1969 had endured a lot by the time The Band took the stage at 10 p.m. on the final night of the three-day festival. The traffic jam, rain, mud and notorious bad acid made for some tough times, as did the basic fact that organizers weren t nearly prepared for a crowd of that size, subsequently food, water and medical care were in short supply. You kind of felt you were going into a war zone, remembers Levon Helm in his biography. After three days of people being hammered by weather and music, it was hard to get a take on the mood, Robbie Robertson told Rolling Stone in 1989. We played a slow, haunting set of mountain music. We lived up there, near Woodstock, and it seemed kind of appropriate from our point of view. We did songs like Long Black Veil and The Weight , and everything had a bit of reverence to it. Even the faster songs sounded almost religious. The Band s set was not included in the Woodstock Movie, thus many folk don t realise they even appeared at the festival. But appear they did, and this CD, for the first time, features the group s full set from this historic event, providing fans with a late opportunity to complete their collections with a superb recording of one of the legendary quintet s best ever performances.