David Crosby, a legendary figure of the 1960s, was asked about the pivotal moment that defined the era during an interview with Stereogum. When asked when he knew “something was going on”, he confidently replied that it was “obviously Woodstock”. According to him, the festival was the first time they realized the sheer number of people involved in the counterculture movement, which spanned the entire country.
He continued:
“That there was a definite new set of ethics and morals and values being proposed, and that there was something else going on. It was gigantic. You couldn’t quite cope with it when you were faced with it right here because your mind trips out. But that’s when we knew. The exact point.”
CSN member David Crosby had strong negative feelings about the 1994 Woodstock revival festival, stating that it was “awful” and “absolutely fucking awful.” Crosby believed that the group’s slot was completely wrong, as they went on after Nine Inch Nails. He found it difficult to imagine them performing their folk rock hit “Helplessly Hoping” to a mosh pit. Crosby considered it one of the worst lineup decisions the promoters could have made, adding that it was a highly inappropriate setting for their performance.
David Crosby had a strong disdain for the 1994 Woodstock revival festival, which he described as “awful” and “about as inappropriate and as bad a setting as you could possibly think of for us” due to CSN being slotted after Nine Inch Nails. Crosby saw the commercialization of the festival as a sign of its destruction and felt that the spirit of the original Woodstock was gone. Moreover, the festival encountered another problem when a high-power cable fell on their bus, which could have killed someone. Crosby stated that the attempt to recreate Woodstock was doomed from the start and compared it to Altamont, saying that “it was shitty” and “they screwed it up.”
“It was a very bad scene anyway,” he continued. “Everyone was trying to capitalise on it. A bottle of water was five dollars or some shit. It was not funny, not good. I didn’t like any part of it at all.”
“And then a high power cable, a power line fell on our bus. If you touch that, you died. Cute, fun. It was a bad experience.” All in all, Crosby felt that the whole recreation of Woodstock was doomed from the off.
“It proves you can’t really try to duplicate something like that and have it work,” he concluded. “Everybody tried to take advantage of it, and they screwed it up. It was a descendent of Altamont, not a descendent of Woodstock. It was shitty.” Just as well CSN didn’t play the widely-publicised travesty that was Woodstock ’99 then.