Dateline August 16, 2009
I went to a Woodstock 40th Anniversary Reunion show last night. It was here in Tampa at a place called Skippers and was put on by the local community radio station WMNF.
The idea was a bunch of local bands would “cover” all the Woodstock bands in the order that they performed at the actual Woodstock Festival. So each band would play roughly a 20 minute set and play songs by each Woodstock artist. So the first act would play Richie Havens songs and the last act would do Jimi Hendrix. They would play in the same order as the actual Woodstock bands played.
It all started at 2:00 PM on Saturday and went until the bands were done. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? How would they fit it all in between 2:00 and midnight. Anyway, it looks like they did it. I wasn’t there for the whole time but when I left at 11:00 PM there was only a couple of bands before Jimi was to go on.
Anyway, the show was packed and I was lucky to even get tickets. And it was also a gas. The bands did an amazing job. The highlights that I saw were the bands that did Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, The band that did the Band, and the band that did Melanie… whoops that was Melanie.
Melanie Shows Up
Yes Melanie showed up and played herself. Turns out she lives in the area. She was suppose to perform at an actual show at the original site in Bethel New York, but I guess the show fell through.
Marty Balin also showed up and played with the band that did Jefferson Airplane.
Both Melanie and Marty Balin were surprise “show ups” and the crowd loved them both.
Now I admit I didn’t see everything, so I’m going to depend on my local friends to add to this post and fill in the rest of the details. Come back for more to hear the whole story.
