Thursday, June 27, 2024

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 3, Part 1: John Sebastian

The first act of Day Three of the Woodstock ‘94 Festival was John Sebastian. He was one of the stars of the 1969 Woodstock Festival. My guess is that he was invited to this festival to help provide a link to the original festival. In terms of his musical career, he didn’t have much success after having a number one song in 1976 with “Welcome Back,” the theme from the “Welcome Back Kotter” TV show. He often went many years between albums, which came out on minor record labels. He had many hits in the 1960s as the leader of the band the Lovin’ Spoonful. However, he chose to only play one well-known song by that band, “Daydream.”

This album is 15 minutes long.

01 Harmonica Solo [Instrumental] (John Sebastian)
02 Mornin' Blues (John Sebastian)
03 Mobile Line [Gonna Carry Me Away from the Bull Frog Blues] (John Sebastian)
04 I Want My Roots (John Sebastian)
05 Daydream (John Sebastian)
06 talk (John Sebastian)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16761002/VA-WODSTCK94_8-14-1994_01JhnSbastin_atse.zip.html

Alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/foufziA6

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Monday, June 24, 2024

Limitations

 Note that I can’t seem to log in to Google to post replies to comments, even though I can still make new posts. So please be patient until I return from my vacation when I will be able to apply to some comments. Also, I noticed that two more albums have been removed in recent days due to copyright issues. One of them is a joint concert between the Allman Brothers Band and Eric Clapton, and the other is an acoustic version of All Things Must Pass by George Harrison. A Kirsty MacColl stray tracks album also suffered the same fate just before I left. I will try to fix those, as well as any dead links, but that also will have to wait until I get back home.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 14: Aerosmith

The final album from Day Two of the Woodstock ‘94 Festival features a set by the band Aerosmith. It was the final set of Day Two.

Aerosmith was one of the biggest acts of the festival. Not only had they been a popular rock since the early 1970s, but their most recent album “Get a Grip ,” sold 20 million copies worldwide.

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 Eat the Rich (Aerosmith)
02 talk (Aerosmith)
03 Toys in the Attic (Aerosmith)
04 talk (Aerosmith)
05 Fever (Aerosmith)
06 talk (Aerosmith)
07 Draw the Line (Aerosmith)
08 Rag Doll (Aerosmith)
09 talk (Aerosmith)
10 Cryin' (Aerosmith)
11 Crazy (Aerosmith)
12 talk (Aerosmith)
13 Monkey on My Back (Aerosmith)
14 Mama Kin (Aerosmith)
15 Boogie Man (Aerosmith)
16 Shut Up and Dance (Aerosmith)
17 talk (Aerosmith)
18 Stop Messin' Around (Aerosmith)
19 Walk on Down (Aerosmith)
20 talk (Aerosmith)
21 Janie's Got a Gun (Aerosmith)
22 talk (Aerosmith)
23 Love in an Elevator (Aerosmith)
24 Dude [Looks like a Lady] (Aerosmith)
25 talk (Aerosmith)
26 Sweet Emotion - Dazed and Confused - Peter Gunn Theme (Aerosmith)
27 Come Together (Aerosmith)
28 Dream On (Aerosmith)
29 Livin' on the Edge (Aerosmith)
30 talk (Aerosmith)
31 Mother Popcorn - Walk This Way (Aerosmith)
32 talk (Aerosmith)

https://www.imagenetz.de/ap8xa

Alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4Sz8iZbH

The cover photo of lead singer Steven Tyler is from this exact concert.

Friday, June 21, 2024

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 13: Metallica

I’m writing this at the airport so I hope this works. I also am likely to keep my write-ups short while I am on vacation.

Metallica was one of the headliners for Day Two of the festival, going on stage late in the evening, ending their set near midnight.

In 1991, the band released an album simply titled “Metallica.” It was still heavy metal, but it had a more accessible sound. It went on to be one of the best selling albums of all time, selling 30 million copies worldwide and 17 million just in the US. They would not release another studio album until 1996. The album was so big that they were still touring to support it at the time of the Woodstock ‘94 Festival. It was reported that the audience responded positively to their set, even though they were one of the few heavy metal acts at the festival.

There was one musical act to come after Metallica. Then it is on to the third and last day of the festival.

This album is an hour and 37 minutes long.

01 Breadfan (Metallica)
02 Master of Puppets (Metallica)
03 Wherever I May Roam (Metallica)
04 talk (Metallica)
05 Harvester of Sorrow (Metallica)
06 Fade to Black (Metallica)
07 For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica)
08 talk (Metallica)
09 Seek and Destroy (Metallica)
10 Nothing Else Matters (Metallica)
11 Creeping Death (Metallica)
12 talk (Metallica)
13 Whiplash (Metallica)
14 Sad but True (Metallica)
15 One (Metallica)
16 Enter Sandman (Metallica)
17 So What (Metallica)

https://www.imagenetz.de/miKXT

Alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QfVgaBGi

The cover photo of James Hetfield is from this exact concert.

Thursday, June 20, 2024

Announcement: Vacation Plans and More Woodstock '94

With summer rolling in, I'm taking a big vacation, as I usually do around this time of year. I'm going to Europe, specifically northern Italy, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. (If anyone lives in those places and wants to meet up, let me know. I like meeting people as I travel.) I won't be back until late July.

I still have a lot of the massive Woodstock '94 Festival to post. But that turns out to be a good thing, because I'm hoping I can still post that while I'm on my travels. I have all of the 20 or so remaining albums uploaded with the album covers and set lists and so forth. The only thing I don't have, which takes so time, is the write-ups. So my goal is to write those up here and there as I have down time during my travels. But if I suddenly disappear, I probably lost my phone or got logged out here and can't log back in or something like that.

There's a fair chance that at least some of these albums I still have to post from the festival could run into copyright violation issues. Or I could simply make mistakes. So to cut down on the potential problems, I'm going to include pixeldrain.com links too. That's a really excellent download service, so I may be converting to that by and by anyway.

I probably won't be able to comment much, and I won't have the ability to fix broken links and the like until I get back. Until then, please be patient, and I hope you're having a nice summer.

Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 12: Nine Inch Nails

The twelfth album from Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival was set by Nine Inch Nails. (Note there are two more Day Two sets after this, and Day Three has 17 in total!)

Nine Inch Nails sounded drastically different than the folkie vibes of the act on stage right before them, Crosby, Stills and Nash. Their sound is abrasive, with Wikipedia calling it "industrial rock" or even "industrial metal."

Nine Inch Nails released their second album, "The Downward Spiral," in March 1994. It was a critical and commercial success, going on to sell four million copies in the U.S. Most of the songs in this set are from that album.

A pre-show incident between band mates Trent Reznor and Danny Lohner left Nine Inch Nails covered with mud for their entire performance. Reznor later explained in an interview, "On the way to the stage, there was a little accident. It turned into kind of a mud wrestling thing that escalated into a full-scale mud riot. I accidentally tripped Danny and pushed his face into the mud. And then he retaliated by body-slamming me."

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long.

01 talk (Nine Inch Nails)
02 Pinion [Instrumental] (Nine Inch Nails)
03 Terrible Lie (Nine Inch Nails)
04 Sin (Nine Inch Nails)
05 March of the Pigs (Nine Inch Nails)
06 Something I Can Never Have (Nine Inch Nails)
07 Closer (Nine Inch Nails)
08 Reptile (Nine Inch Nails)
09 Wish (Nine Inch Nails)
10 Suck (Nine Inch Nails)
11 Burn (Nine Inch Nails)
12 The Only Time (Nine Inch Nails)
13 Down in It (Nine Inch Nails)
14 talk (Nine Inch Nails)
15 Dead Souls (Nine Inch Nails)
16 Help Me I Am in Hell (Nine Inch Nails)
17 Happiness in Slavery (Nine Inch Nails)
18 Head like a Hole (Nine Inch Nails)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16765060/VA-WODSTCK94_8-13-1994_12NinInchNils_atse.zip.html

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long.

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pBt3w9UK

The cover shows lead singer Trent Reznor in this exact performance.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 11: Crosby, Stills & Nash

The eleventh album from Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival is a set by Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN).

CSN were one of the stars of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, playing then with Neil Young as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. It was reported that the promoters of this festival offered Young a large amount of money to reunite with CSN and play this festival. CSNY had last played a concert together in 1991, and wouldn't do so again until 2000. However, Young objected to the commercialization of the festival, for instance there were corporate sponsorships by the likes of Pepsi and Apple. He also felt it besmirched the reputation of the original Woodstock. So he refused to participate.

CSN was promoting their 1994 album "After the Storm," which by coincidence was released on August 16th, just a couple of days after this concert. That album was not well received. In my opinion, it was too slick and overproduced. They played five songs from that album (tracks 8, 12, 14, 16, and 20). In my opinion, the songs sound a lot better here, where the overproduction was largely avoided.

John Sebastian, the main singer-songwriter from the 1960s band Lovin' Spoonful, introduced CSN. He also played harmonica on the song "Deja Vu," just as he did on the original recording. He would have his own set at the festival a day later. An interesting fact is that Sebastian was strongly considered as a potential addition to CSN in 1969, but ultimately Neil Young was chosen instead.

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long.

01 talk by John Sebastian (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
02 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
03 Military Madness (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
04 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
05 Helplessly Hoping (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
06 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
07 Deja Vu (Crosby, Stills & Nash with John Sebastian)
08 Only Waiting for You (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
09 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
10 Marrakesh Express (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
11 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
12 It Won't Go Away (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
13 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
14 Unequal Love (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
15 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
16 In My Life (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
17 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
18 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
19 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
20 Street to Lean On (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
21 For What It's Worth (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
22 Pre-Road Downs (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
23 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
24 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
25 Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
26 Carry On (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
27 Woodstock (Crosby, Stills & Nash)

NOTE: Unfortunately, the download link had to be removed due to a copyright issue. Sorry.

The cover photo shows Crosby, Nash, and Stills, from left to right. I moved Stills closer to the other two in Photoshop.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 10: Melissa Etheridge

The tenth album from Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival is a set by Melissa Etheridge.

In 1994, Etheridge was probably at her commercial and creative peak. She had three albums from 1989 to 1992 that sold at least a million copies in the U.S. each. Then in 1993, her album "Yes I Am" was her biggest seller, selling six million in the U.S. 

The first half of the concert consisted of Etheridge's original songs. But then she did no less than four songs in a row originally made famous by Janis Joplin. Joplin was one of the stars of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, so Etheridge thought the 1994 Woodstock was a good occasion for a Joplin tribute.

As usual, the sound quality is excellent. (I don't remember why I added "[Edit]" to "Silent Legacy." Probably I patched a gap in the song.) However, the versions I found of this were missing the final song, "I'm the Only One," because it was the only song from this set that appeared on the festival's official double album. But I fly close to the sun when it comes to copyright issues, so I included that one too. As Janis Joplin used to sing, get it while you can.

The album is 55 minutes long.

01 Come to My Window (Melissa Etheridge)
02 If I Wanted To (Melissa Etheridge)
03 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
04 Silent Legacy [Edit] (Melissa Etheridge)
05 Bring Me Some Water (Melissa Etheridge)
06 Like the Way I Do (Melissa Etheridge)
07 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
08 Try [Just a Little Bit Harder] (Melissa Etheridge)
09 Cry Baby (Melissa Etheridge)
10 Move Over (Melissa Etheridge)
11 Piece of My Heart (Melissa Etheridge)
12 I'm the Only One (Melissa Etheridge)

NOTE: The download link has been removed due to a copyright issue. But check the comments.

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 9: Blind Melon

The ninth album from Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival is a set by Blind Melon.

For some, Blind Melon is a one-hit wonder time of band, due to their one big hit, 1992's "No Rain." But their debut album, simply titled "Blind Melon," sold over four million copies, showing fans wanted to hear much more than just that one song.

At the time of this festival, that was still the only album that band put out. They would release a second one, "Soup," in 1995. But later in 1995, the band's charismatic lead singer Shannon Hoon would die of a drug overdose, causing the band to disband.

Hoon's behavior during the concert was controversial for some. Before going on stage, he took acid, put a barrette in his hair, and smeared on mascara. Then, as the band's lead guitarist Rogers Stevens later recalled, "As we’re going up [to the stage], I turned around and Shannon was completely fuckin' naked in the crowd. He told his girlfriend to take off her dress and give it to him. She did, and he put it on. He looked so fuckin' cool."

But despite the LSD and everything, the band put on a solid performance.

As with nearly all the albums I'm posting from this festival, the sound quality is excellent despite this being unreleased. But I had some issues with the source material for this set. I found two sources, and there were flaws in each, like incomplete songs, short gaps of silence between tracks, and so forth. But because I had two sources, I was able to use one when the other had trouble, and vice versa. So this is likely better than any other version you're likely to come across.

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

01 talk (Blind Melon)
02 2 X 4 (Blind Melon)
03 talk (Blind Melon)
04 Tones of Home (Blind Melon)
05 talk (Blind Melon)
06 Soup (Blind Melon)
07 talk (Blind Melon)
08 Wilt (Blind Melon)
09 talk (Blind Melon)
10 No Rain (Blind Melon)
11 Time (Blind Melon)
12 talk (Blind Melon)
13 I Wonder (Blind Melon)
14 Working Class Hero (Blind Melon)
15 St. Andrew's Hall (Blind Melon)
16 Paper Scratcher (Blind Melon)
17 Change (Blind Melon)
18 Deserted (Blind Melon)
19 talk (Blind Melon)
20 Soak the Sin (Blind Melon)
21 talk (Blind Melon)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16751005/VA-WODSTCK94_8-13-1994_09BlndMlon_atse.zip.html

 The cover photo of Shannon Hoon is from this exact performance.

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 8: Joe Cocker

The eighth album from Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival is a set performed by Joe Cocker.

Cocker is one of the few stars of the 1969 Woodstock Festival to still be a big enough star in 1994 to get a full set in the 1994 Woodstock. The other big stars to do so were Santana, the Band, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. John Sebastian and Country Joe McDonald had less prominent sets. Bob Weir showed up as part of a duo instead of with the Grateful Dead. Finally, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassady played in the original Woodstock as part of Jefferson Airplane, but played in Woodstock '94 as Hot Tuna while guesting during the Band set.

At the time of this concert, he hadn't put out a new studio album since 1991. He would release one in 1994, "Have a Little Faith," but that wouldn't come out until a month after this concert. However, that was close enough for him to play one song from it, "Summer in the City," a cover of the 1960s Lovin' Spoonful classic.

There's not much else for me to say about the music here, so I'll point out a couple of basic facts about Woodstock '94. The maximum crowd estimated for the original Woodstock was around 450,000. For Woodstock '94, it was about 350,000, though some say more. This new Woodstock was definitely much more commercial. Tickets cost $135. However, only about 150,000 people paid to get it. The crowd swelled so much on the second day that people broke down the fences and streamed in. 

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

01 talk (Joe Cocker)
02 Feelin' Alright (Joe Cocker)
03 Hitchcock Railway (Joe Cocker)
04 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Joe Cocker)
05 When the Night Comes (Joe Cocker)
06 Summer in the City (Joe Cocker)
07 Up Where We Belong (Joe Cocker)
08 Shelter Me (Joe Cocker)
09 Unchain My Heart (Joe Cocker)
10 The Letter (Joe Cocker)
11 With a Little Help from My Friends (Joe Cocker)
12 talk (Joe Cocker)
13 Cry Me a River (Joe Cocker)
14 You Are So Beautiful (Joe Cocker)
15 High Time We Went (Joe Cocker)

NOTE: The download link has been removed due to a copyright issue, sorry. But check the comments.

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 7: Primus

The seventh album of music from Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival is a set by Primus.

One reason why I was pleased by a commenter's suggestion to post the entire Woodstock '94 Festival is because it gives me reason to post music from musical acts that I probably otherwise would never get around to posting. Primus is a case in point. I'd only known a couple of their songs prior to this.

It's hard to describe the musical style of this band. Wikipedia labels them as "funk metal," "alt metal," and "alt rock." But I'd add that it's unusually bass heavy, since the leader of the band, Les Claypool, sings and plays bass. Here's their Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Primus (band) - Wikipedia

The band's most recent album release prior to this concert was "Pork Soda," released in 1993. It contained the song "My Name is Mud," which turned out to be one of the band's biggest hits. It's actually about murder, but it had special resonance for Woodstock '94, because it rained off and on, and parts of the outdoor area containing the crowd of several hundred thousand people got very muddy.

Here's a quote from the Wikipedia entry about the song "My Name Is Mud":

During Primus's Woodstock '94 performance of "My Name Is Mud", the band was pelted with mud, which band drummer Tim Alexander noted was done "not in a mean way, but kind of a rock and roll way." About a minute into the song, the band stopped playing and [singer] Les Claypool told the crowd, "Well, I opened a big-ass can of worms with that one, didn't I? The song is called 'My Name Is Mud' but keep the mud to yourselves, you son-of-a-bitch." He also told them that throwing mud was a "sign of small and insignificant genitalia." At that point, "we got them to stop," Claypool explained in a 2014 interview, "and we were able to continue and do our show." In the same interview, Claypool joked that he "still [has] mud in those speaker cabinets."

The band Alice in Chains were on the festival's initial bill. However, they pulled out at the last minute due to lead singer Layne Staley's drug problems. The band's lead guitarist Jerry Cantrell still wanted to take part somehow. So he joined Primus for the band's long song, "Harold of the Rocks."

Since I'm on the subject of musical acts that almost performed at the festival but didn't, there are a few others worth mentioning. Guns N' Roses were asked to appear, but the band was slowly breaking up at the time and couldn't pull together. The promoters really wanted Nirvana to appear, but then lead singer Kurt Cobain died in April 1994. Johnny Cash was supposed to perform, but pulled out when he found out he was only invited to play on a second stage, not the main one.

This album is exactly an hour long.

01 To Defy the Laws of Tradition (Primus)
02 Here Come the Bastards (Primus)
03 Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweakers (Primus)
04 Bob (Primus)
05 My Name Is Mud (Primus)
06 Jerry Was a Race Car Driver (Primus)
07 talk (Primus)
08 The Air Is Getting Slippery (Primus)
09 Nature Boy (Primus)
10 Harold of the Rocks (Primus with Jerry Cantrell)
11 Master of Puppets [Instrumental Version] (Primus)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16751004/VA-WODSTCK94_8-13-1994_07Prms_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows band leader Les Claypool. This is a screenshot from a YouTube video of this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 6: Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman

As I mentioned in my write-up to the last album in the Woodstock '94 Festival, I believe this technically was a continuation of that set by the Band. For instance, I don't believe there was a separate billing for this. But as a practical matter, the Band left the stage and Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman took over, so I've made this a separate album.

Bob Weir is best known as one of the two main singer-songwriters in the Grateful Dead along with Jerry Garcia. At the time of this festival, the Dead were near the end of their long, strange trip due to Garcia dying, though nobody knew that at the time. 

Although was very busy with the Dead, he'd had occasional solo side projects since the early 1970s. Around this time period, he was doing some touring with bassist Rob Wasserman. In early 1994, Wasserman put out a studio album called "Trios" that had many famous guest artists on it. Weir was on it, singing his original song "Easy Answers." That's performed here. In 1998, Weir and Wasserman would release a live album as duo simply called "Live." It would feature many of the songs here.  

Bruce Hornsby guested on at least two songs during the Band set, and he guested on at least four more here. I say "at least" because it's very possible that he played on some others here in a low key way. He sang one of his hits with "The Valley Road."

It seems most of the musicians from the Band set returned for the encore here, "I Shall Be Released." I didn't carefully check the YouTube video to see who was on stage. But I could hear some lead vocals from Rick Danko of the Band, and Roger McGuinn formerly of the Byrds. Additionally, blues singer and guitarist Rory Block was mentioned by name and could be heard singing a portion of the lead on that song too. 

Weir and Wasserman mostly did cover songs in this set. The only well known Grateful Dead song performed here was "Throwing Stones." "Eternity" and "Easy Answers" were performed by the Dead a few dozen times in 1994 and 1995, but the band ended with Garcia's death before studio versions of those could be recorded.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Fever (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
02 Eternity (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
03 talk (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
04 Throwing Stones (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman with Bruce Hornsby)
05 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction [Instrumental] (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
06 Easy Answers (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman with Bruce Hornsby)
07 talk (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
08 The Valley Road (Bruce Hornsby with Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
09 Take Me to the River (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman with Bruce Hornsby)
10 talk (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
11 I Shall Be Released (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman, Rick Danko, Roger McGuinn & Rory Block) 

NOTE: The download link has been removed due to a copyright issue, sorry. But check the download link.

The cover photo shows Weir on guitar and Wasserman (with beard) on bass. It's from this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 5: The Band

The next act at the Woodstock '94 Festival is the Band.

The Band were one of the few acts that played both at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969 and at this 25th anniversary one. However, their popularity diminished somewhat in the intervening years because they lost two out of the five original members. Robbie Robertson, the band's main songwriter, left in the later 1970s. Singer Richard Manuel died in the 1980s. That left just singers Rick Danko and Levon Helm plus keyboardist Garth Hudson of the original five. Three new band members were replacements.

This is kind of a strange set because in my opinion it seems like a spot to put various acts from the original Woodstock era but weren't popular enough to have their own sets. Roger McGuinn joined in at least one song and sang lead vocals on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Hot Tuna then took over and performed the famous acoustic instrumental "Embryonic Journey" by themselves. (They first did it when they were a part of Jefferson Airplane.) Then they collaborated on the song "Java Blues" with the Band. Later on, Bruce Hornsby joined for at least two songs, "The Weight" and "Willie and the Hand Jive." Note that it's very possible that these guest artists stayed to take part in more songs. But I was too lazy to watch the YouTube video of this set to check. Perhaps someone else can tell me.

Then, from what I can tell, the Band left the stage and were replaced by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, along with bassist Rob Wasserman. But as far as I could tell, this was essentially a separate set led by Weir with the Band no longer there until the final song, even though it wasn't billed as such. So I've made that portion into a separate album. 

This portion works as a complete concert without the Weir and Wasserman part. In fact, at nearly two hours, it was one of the longest sets of the festival. I believe only the Santana and Aerosmith sets were longer.

This album is an hour and 49 minutes long.

01 talk (Band)
02 Caldonia (Band)
03 talk (Band)
04 Remedy (Band)
05 Blind Willie McTell (Band)
06 It Makes No Difference (Band)
07 Atlantic City (Band)
08 Rag Mama Rag (Band)
09 Caledonia Mission (Band)
10 Crazy Mama (Band)
11 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Band)
12 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Band & Roger McGuinn)
13 talk (Band)
14 Embryonic Journey [Instrumental] (Hot Tuna)
15 talk (Band)
16 Java Blues (Band & Hot Tuna)
17 talk (Band)
18 The Weight (Band with Bruce Hornsby)
19 Mystery Train (Band)
20 talk (Band)
21 Stuff You Gotta Watch (Band)
22 Stage Fright (Band)
23 Ophelia (Band)
24 Life Is a Carnival (Band)
25 talk (Band)
26 Willie and the Hand Jive (Band with Bruce Hornsby)
27 The Shape I'm In (Band)
28 The Genetic Method [Instrumental] (Band)
29 Chest Fever (Band)
30 talk (Band)
31 [I Don't Want To] Hang Up My Rock 'n' Roll Shoes (Band)

https://www.imagenetz.de/iviN3

I don't know all the people in the cover photo, but that's Roger McGuinn in glasses on the left, and Rick Danko of the Band on the right. It's from this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 4: Youssou N'Dour

Next up on Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival is Senegalese singer-songwriter Youssou N'Dour.

N'Dour is one of very few Third World musicians to become a star in the U.S. and Europe. That's all the more remarkable because he usually does not sing in English. That's the case for this concert.

In June 1994, just before this concert, he had the biggest hit of his career, "7 Seconds," a trilingual duet with Neneh Cherry. It was the Number One single in France for a record breaking 16 weeks. Surprisingly though, he didn't play that song at this concert. However, it's very possible that he didn't and I don't have his full set. (If this is the full set, it's a rather short one.) But if he didn't, it could be because he didn't have Cherry to sing it with.

N'Dour has collaborated with Peter Gabriel on multiple occasions, including on the songs "In Your Eyes" and "Shaking the Tree." During Gabriel's set on Day Three of this festival, N'Dour participated on those two songs.

Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Youssou N'Dour - Wikipedia

This album is 26 minutes long.

01 New Africa (Youssou N'Dour)
02 Undecided [Japoulo] (Youssou N'Dour)
03 Maybe Tonight (Youssou N'Dour)
04 Generations [Diamono] (Youssou N'Dour)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16750994/VA-WODSTCK94_8-13-1994_04YossurNDur_atse.zip.html

For the cover photos for this festival, I was able to find ones from this exact concert in nearly every case. But the sole exception to that is N'Dour, I think. I tried using a screenshot from a YouTube video of this concert, but I found the resolution too poor. So instead I went with this concert photo from this general time period.

Saturday, June 15, 2024

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 3: Zucchero

The next album from Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival features a set from the Italian singer Zucchero.

I must say I'm rather surprised Zucchero was included in this festival. He's a massively famous musician in his native country of Italy, as well as many other European countries. He's sold over 60 million records worldwide. He's also greatly respected by other musicians. He's collaborated with many famous musicians, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brian May, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, B. B. King, Sting, Buddy Guy, Bono, Bryan Adams, Dolores O'Riordan, Paul Young, and Peter Gabriel! However, despite all that, he remains virtually unknown in the U.S. None of his singles or albums have ever many any U.S. charts. 

A key problem for him is that while he performs an accessible Western style of music, mixing soul, rock, blues, and other genres, he sings most of his songs in Italian. U.S. audiences haven't been very interested in music sung in languages other than English, as a general rule. And that's the case here. There's some English singing, as well as banter in English, but it's mostly Italian.

Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to learn more about him:

Zucchero Fornaciari - Wikipedia

From here through the rest of the festival, everything has excellent sound quality, despite virtually all of it coming from bootlegs. If there are exceptions, I'll point them out. This set certainly has solid sound quality.

When I heard the first song here, "L'urlo," I thought, "Hey, that sounds like 'Everybody's Everything' by Santana, only sung in Italian. I looked it up, and it turns out "Everybody's Everything" is actually an adaptation of 1967 soul hit by the group the Emperors. "L'urlo" does sound to be mostly based on "Everybody's Everything" but with Italian lyrics, so I put that in as a subtitle.

 This album is 48 minutes long.

01 L'urlo [Everybody's Everything] (Zucchero)
02 I Go Crazy (Zucchero)
03 Dunes of Mercy (Zucchero)
04 Senza Una Donna (Zucchero)
05 Overdose [D'Amore] (Zucchero)
06 Con le Mani (Zucchero)
07 talk (Zucchero)
08 Diamonte (Zucchero)
09 Diavolo in Me (Zucchero)
10 Mama [Madre Dolcissima] (Zucchero)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16750836/VA-WODSTCK94_8-13-1994_03Zcchro_atse.zip.html

Here's an alternate download link I'm experimenting with:  

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CZwKwFnW

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 2: The Cranberries

The first full set I can offer from Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival is the Cranberries.

I was able to find virtually all of the full sets from Days Two and Three of this festival in excellent sound quality, but the Cranberries are a curious exception. Like the Sheryl Crow set, I had to cobble this together from several different sources. "Dreams" comes from the official Woodstock '94 double album, so that sounds excellent. Most of the rest are from various YouTube videos, with varying sound quality. I did some audio editing on some of the rougher ones.

The band released their debut album in 1993, "Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?" It included two hits, "Linger" and "Dreams." However, the band would have even bigger success with their second album "No Need to Argue" in 1994, which would go on to sell an astonishing 17 million copies worldwide. Much of that success was due to the song "Zombie," which is probably the band's signature song. However, "Zombie" wasn't released as a single until September, and the album didn't come out until October. But happily, "Zombie" was included in this set.

This album is 27 minutes long.

01 Sunday (Cranberries)
02 Pretty (Cranberries)
03 talk (Cranberries)
04 Wanted (Cranberries)
05 talk (Cranberries)
06 Linger (Cranberries)
07 Zombie (Cranberries)
08 talk (Cranberries)
09 Dreams (Cranberries)
10 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Cranberries)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16750835/VA-WODSTCK94_8-13-1994_02Crnbrres_atse.zip.html

Here's an alternate download link I'm experimenting with:  

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mejYNhnF

The cover art shows the band's lead singer Dolores O'Riordan. It's from this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 1: Cyprus Hill, Salt-N-Pepa, & the Sisters of Glory

The last album I posted from the Woodstock '94 Festival was a kind of leftovers album of all the musical acts from Day One where I only had a small number of songs. That's the case here as well, but for Days Two and Three combined. (I call this "Day 2, Part 1" in the title for organizational reasons.)

In the case of that Day One leftovers album, that was pretty much everything I could find that had worthy sound quality. But for this album, I have to admit I found the full sets for three of the four acts here, but I just don't like them that much, so this is all I included. I'm not really into rap or hip hop, and that's the style for the first two acts here, Cypress Hill and Salt-N-Pepa. Both of them performed on Day Two. I only included their best known songs. Cyprus Hill played a 47 minute long set. I included seven minutes. Salt-N-Pepa did a 44 minute long set, and I included 23 minutes. 

It's a bit different with the third act here, Country Joe McDonald. He was one of the stars of the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. I'm sure that's why he was invited to play Woodstock '94. But he was given only a short slot, as the first act on the morning of the third day. I think he played three songs, but I could only find the audio for one of them.

The fourth and final act here, the Sisters of Glory, were kind of a Traveling Wilburys of female gospel singers. Meaning a bunch of famous musicians got together and put out a studio album, but they didn't stay together long after that. The group was made up of Thelma Houston, CeCe Peniston, Phoebe Snow, Mavis Staples, and Lois Walden. All of them except for Lois Walden had big secular hits, and if they would have performed that kind of music, I would have happily included their full set. But instead they did almost entirely gospel songs. As a non-religious person, I can only handle that in very limited doses. So while they did a hour and five minute long set, I've only included 17 minutes. I picked the songs that I liked best, which also happen to be well known beyond the gospel genre. It so happened that most of these were sung by Mavis Staples of the Staples Singers, including the one secular song, "I'll Take You There," a number one hit in 1972. So I put Mavis Staples in the artist name, since she's pretty much the star here.

The Sisters of Glory came together for a short tour in April 1994. They only planned to stay together for that long. But they got together just for this concert, plus a concert for the Pope later in the year. Then they released a studio album called "Good News in Hard Times" in 1995 that was most of the same songs from their Woodstock set list. They really did disband after that.

Other than these, I've included all of the full sets from Days Two and Three of the festival, with six exceptions. One is that a Croatian musician named Nened Bach was the opening act for Day Three, but I haven't found any recordings of that set. Bach is not a well-known musical act compared to the others on Days Two and Three, so I'm guessing this set probably wasn't included in the pay-per-view broadcast. The second is a jazz percussionist and singer named Vinx. Similarly, I couldn't find any recordings of that set, probably for the same reason.

The third exception is that I did find the full set for the Rollins Band on Day Two. But I disliked it so much that I couldn't stand to even include one song from it. The Rollins Band, led by Henry Rollins, is described as "hard rock" by Wikipedia. I like a lot of hard rock, but this just seemed like angry screaming to me. I make these albums mainly for myself, and I couldn't stand to have any of that set in my music collection, sorry.

The fourth exception is Todd Rundgren. He did something very strange for this festival. Instead of giving a set on one of the two big stages like everyone else, he did no less than five sets a day every day of the festival! But he did it in a special section of the festival called the Philips Multimedia Village, and his performances were "multimedia" somehow. A couple of these sets have shown up on YouTube, but the sound quality is so poor I couldn't include them. If anyone has any of Rundgren's performances with good sound quality, please let me know. 

The fifth and sixth exceptions are the Justin Trio and Xalam from the WOMAD (world music) portion of the festival. I only found portions of their sets, and they are pretty obscure musical acts. I wasn't that impressed, so I left them out. (I did include two other WOMAD acts though.)

This album is a really weird mixture of rap, hip hop, folk, and gospel. It doesn't exactly flow well, but at least it's available here.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 How I Could Just Kill a Man (Cypress Hill)
02 Insane in the Membrane (Cypress Hill)
03 Push It (Salt-N-Pepa)
04 Whatta Man (Salt-N-Pepa)
05 Let's Talk about Sex (Salt-N-Pepa)
06 Shoop (Salt-N-Pepa)
07 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
08 Save the Whales (Country Joe McDonald)
09 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Mavis Staples & the Sisters of Glory)
10 Glory, Glory (Mavis Staples & the Sisters of Glory)
11 I'll Take You There (Mavis Staples & the Sisters of Glory)
12 Oh Happy Day (Mavis Staples & the Sisters of Glory)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16750837/VA-WODSTCK94_8-13-1994_01CyprsHillSltNPpathSstrsofGlry_atse.zip.html

Here's an alternate download link I'm experimenting with:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4ojTzz2T

The cover photo is of Salt-N-Pepa. It's from this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 1, Part 4: James, King's X, Violent Femmes, Etc...

This next installment of the Woodstock '94 Festival is a rather unusual one. As I mentioned previously, I couldn't find much from Day 1 of the festival. I did find the full sets of Blues Traveler, Live, and Sheryl Crow, but other than that, it was mostly scraps. That's because the festival was really planned to be a two day event, what became the second and third days, and the first day was a kind of bonus day for lesser known musical acts who wanted to play for a large crowd for little to no money. So the first day wasn't broadcast on pay-per-view cable TV like the rest, and there aren't many musical recordings. Thus, this album consists of all the other "scraps" I was able to find from the first day.

Here's a list I found at Wikipedia of all the acts that performed on the first day, in order of appearance:

Roguish Armament with Rekk
Master of None
3
Futu Futu
Abba Rage
Lunchmeat
The Paul Luke Band
Peacebomb
The Goats
Huffamoose
Orleans
Blues Traveler
Jackyl
Del Amitri
Live
James
King's X
Sheryl Crow
Collective Soul
Candlebox
Violent Femmes 

Note that this doesn't include "Ravestock," which was a techno oriented rave that took place overnight, and featured acts like Aphex Twin, Deee-Lite, the Orb, and Orbital.

Anyway, regarding the list above, I'd never even heard of the first names on the list until Orleans, but I knew all of them after that. Still, for 1994, these were not major stars. The only other full set I was able to find was Collective Soul, but it's an audience bootleg that isn't worthy of inclusion.

Pretty much everything I did find for this album came from the official Woodstock '94 double album, or from YouTube videos that probably come from the pay-per-view recordings. While the first day wasn't part of the pay-per-view, I suspect that some highlights from the first day were shown later. One of the James songs was sent to me by a commenter who recorded it off the BBC at the time.

I was particularly disappointed to not find the full sets to James and the Violent Femmes, since those are my favorite musical acts out of the "leftovers" included here. However, if the set lists at setlist.fm are accurate, I didn't miss much. I have four songs from James here, and only missed one for sure ("Honest Joe"). And I have three songs from the Violent Femmes, and only missed one. However, I found a mention at a James fan site that the set list is believed to be incomplete, so that likely would have been the case for the Violent Femmes as well, since they were one of the best known acts of the day.

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

01 Headed for Destruction (Jackyl)
02 Just like a Man (Del Amitri)
03 Crashing Down (Del Amitri)
04 Johnny Yen (James)
05 talk (James)
06 Sometimes [Lester Piggott] (James)
07 Laid (James)
08 Sit Down (James)
09 Black Flag (King's X)
10 Manic Depression (King's X)
11 Shine (Collective Soul)
12 Arrow (Candlebox)
13 Far Behind - Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Candlebox)
14 talk (Violent Femmes)
15 Dance, M.F., Dance  - Kiss Off (Violent Femmes)
16 Blister in the Sun (Violent Femmes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16758611/VA-WODSTCK94_8-12-1994_04JamsKngsXVilntFmmsEtc_atse.zip.html

Here's an alternate download link I'm experimenting with:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/enhgebgw

The cover art depicts Tim Booth, lead singer of James. It's from this exact concert.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 1, Part 3: Sheryl Crow

The third full set from the first day of the Woodstock '94 Festival features Sheryl Crow.

The situation with Sheryl Crow is very similar to that of the first two acts from the festival that I've posted, Blues Traveler and Live. All three of them were right on the cusp of stardom, but not quite there yet, which is why they were relegated to the middle of the first day of the festival. Crow's debut album "Tuesday Night Music Club" was released in 1993. However, it took a while to catch on. According to Wikipedia, it wasn't until July 1994 when "All I Wanna Do" was released as the fourth single. But it didn't soar up the charts until October 1994, after this festival. 

However, for Blues Traveler and Live, massive success wouldn't be sustained past one really big hit album. Whereas for Crow, "Tuesday Night Music Club" would eventually sell close to five million copies in the U.S. alone, but she'd keep going and going, eventually selling over 50 million albums worldwide.

Given all the success she'd had, I had a surprisingly difficult time putting her set together. One song, "Run, Baby, Run," appeared on the official double album for the festival, so that's here in excellent sound quality. A couple of the others were taken from videos of the pay-per-view, so they also sound excellent. But the rest comes from an audience bootleg. However, I ran that through two different audio editing programs to make different fixes (UVR5 and MVSEP), so at least those sound better than before, in my opinion, though still not as good as the others. But unfortunately I couldn't find the first song she played, "Can't Cry Anymore," in any condition, so that one isn't here.

This album is 35 minutes long.

01 All I Wanna Do (Sheryl Crow)
02 talk (Sheryl Crow)
03 Love Is a Good Thing (Sheryl Crow)
04 talk (Sheryl Crow)
05 Run, Baby, Run (Sheryl Crow)
06 Leaving Las Vegas (Sheryl Crow)
07 The Na-Na Song - I've Got a Feeling (Sheryl Crow)
08 talk (Sheryl Crow)
09 I Shall Believe (Sheryl Crow)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16754146/VA-WODSTCK94_8-12-1994_03ShrylCrw_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Friday, June 14, 2024

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 1, Part 2: Live

The second full set I was able to find from the Woodstock '94 Festival is a performance from the band Live.

In my opinion, this band has an unfortunate name, because it's easily confused with either common meaning of the word "live," as in "live and let live" or "live performance." Here's the band's Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

Live (band) - Wikipedia

Bad name or not, they had great success in the 1990s. Their biggest year was 1994, due to the release of their album "Throwing Copper" in April. It went on to sell eight million copies in the U.S. 

Due to the massive success of that album, I was surprised their set took place in the middle of the first day, which is where lesser known acts were getting placed. Even though their "Throwing Copper" album was released in April and this concert wasn't until August, I surmised that most of the album's success must have come after this concert. I believe I'm correct, because the band's biggest hit, "Lightning Crashes," wasn't released as a single until one month after this festival. That said, "Lighting Crashes" and other hits from that album, such as "I Alone," were performed in this concert.

As I mentioned previously, I didn't find much music from the first day of the festival. The Live set is the only one from that day that I was able to find as a bootleg with excellent sound quality. That's probably due to the band having much more success than most of the other acts from the festival's first day.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 Iris (Live)
02 Top (Live)
03 talk (Live)
04 The Beauty of Gray (Live)
05 Selling the Drama (Live)
06 talk (Live)
07 Shit Towne (Live)
08 talk (Live)
09 Lightning Crashes (Live)
10 I Alone (Live)
11 Operation Spirit (Live)
12 talk (Live)
13 White, Discussion (Live)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16750826/VA-WODSTCK94_8-12-1994_02Lve_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of the band's lead singer Ed Kowalczyk is from this exact concert. It's a bit low res because it's a screenshot from a video.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 1, Part 1: Blues Traveler

I haven't been posting much here in the past couple of weeks, but that certainly isn't due to a lack of blog related activity on my part. A commenter here suggested I should post the 1994 Woodstock festival, which was simply called "Woodstock '94." I thought that was an excellent suggestion. So here it is!

This has to be the biggest music festival I've posted here in terms of the amount of music, bigger even than the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. I've found 36 hours of music from this festival that's worthy of posting, divided into 35 albums! I think this festival has been generally overlooked. I certainly overlooked it. I didn't realize how many great musical acts took part. There were two really big Woodstock anniversary festivals. This one took place in 1994, on the 25th anniversary of the legendary 1969 Woodstock Festival. Another big one took place in 1999. The 1999 one was a fiasco, with violence and mayhem. I think this one tends to get confused with that one. That happened with me before I started gathering together the music for this festival.

I think another reason this festival gets overlooked is that there hasn't been much in the way of official releases for it. The original Woodstock was quickly made into a hit album and movie. More albums from it followed, as compilations and by individual musical acts. Eventually, the entire festival was released in a massive box set. 

By contrast, very little has been released from Woodstock '94. A double album was released later in 1994. But not only was that a tiny release for such a massive festival, but it wasn't well done, with the songs seemingly chosen at random. A film about the festival was released, but only direct-to-video on VHS and Laserdisc. It's never come out on DVD, Blue-Ray, or any digital format. In recent years, Green Day officially released their entire Woodstock '94 set as part of a deluxe edition of their 1994 album "Dookie." But that's the only full set to be released so far. 

Luckily for us, the vast majority of the festival is available on bootleg today, with excellent sound quality. This is mainly because most of it was broadcast on a pay-per-view format on cable TV at the time. However, much of this seems to have fallen into a memory hole. It took me hours of searching to find what I found. I hope by posting what I have from the festival, I'll play at least a small role in bringing the music from the festival to a larger audience.

Woodstock '94 was originally planned to be just a two day long festival. I'll write more about the festival in general in a later post. If you want to know more ASAP, Wikipedia has a good entry about it:

Woodstock '94 - Wikipedia

It turned out so many bands were eager to play at the festival that the organizers added a third date, which came before the other two. But the musical acts slotted for the first day were generally much less famous, and that day wasn't included as part of the pay-per-view. So while I was able to find virtually all the sets from the other two days, I only found a few full sets from the first day.

I'm posting the albums from the festival in the chronological order they were performed (with a couple of exceptions of partial sets I've bundled together). The first musical act to have a surviving full set is Blues Traveler. Here's their Wikipedia page:

Blues Traveler - Wikipedia

They put out their first album in 1990, and they're still in existence today. But their clear popular peak was in 1994, the same year as this festival. However, that happened after this festival. In late 1990, they released the album "four," which contained the two hits "Run-Around" and "Hook." It sold six million copies. Because that album hadn't been released yet, the band wasn't well known at the time of this festival. That's why it only got a slot on the first day of the festival and relatively early in the day to boot.

I only found this music as a video on YouTube. As I often do, I converted the video to mp3s. I deemed the sound quality worthy of inclusion. However, the lead vocals were relatively low in the mix, so I fixed that with the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 Crash Burn (Blues Traveler)
02 talk (Blues Traveler)
03 Support Your Local Emperor (Blues Traveler)
04 But Anyway (Blues Traveler)
05 talk (Blues Traveler)
06 Low Rider - Go Outside and Drive (Blues Traveler)
07 The Star-Spangled Banner [Instrumental] (Blues Traveler)
08 Optimistic Thought (Blues Traveler)
09 talk (Blues Traveler)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16750818/VA-WODSTCK94_8-12-1994_01BlusTrvelr_atse.zip.html

The cover shows John Popper, the lead singer and expert harmonica player in the band. It's from this exact concert.

By the way, the text and related artwork at the top and bottom of the cover is based on the promotional artwork from the festival. For instance, the guitar neck with two birds sitting on it was the festival logo. (It was similar to the logo from the 1969 Woodstock Festival, which only had one bird.) The font type, font colors, and red background all come from the promotional artwork too.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Sara Bareilles - What's Not Inside - Songs from the Musical Waitress (2015-2019) (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

Here's a special album posting, courtesy of guest poster Mike Solof. A few weeks ago, we posted an album of cover versions by singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles. That was just a warm-up, to get newbies to appreciate the fact that she has a great singing voice. Here's the album that Mike was most interested in sharing.

Bareilles is best known for her hits "Love Song" and "Gravity" in 2007 and "Brave" in 2013. In 2015, she released an album of songs meant for a musical version of the 2007 Hollywood movie "Waitress." It was called "What's Inside: Songs from Waitress." This post does not include that album, but it includes all the important music related to her involvement in that musical. 

Probably the central focus here is a concert. She never toured in a way that matched the "Waitress" musical. But in 2015, she did exactly one concert like that. It was held at the New York City Center in New York City, on November 5, 2015. That concert is included here. This first song list is from that concert. It remains unreleased, but it was broadcast on the Internet at the time and bootlegged, so the sound quality is excellent.

But that's not all. Bareilles is very talkative, and there is a ton of between-song banter from that concert. So Mike made a "Music Only" version of the concert without any of the banter.

But wait, there's more. He also included an exact version of the concert, but as one huge mp3 for people who would prefer that. 

And there's still more. He included an .mp4 track of video footage of the entire concert. That's the first time this blog has included any video.

But wait, there's even more than that! In 2019, Bareilles released an album of songs related to the musical that didn't make the album, called "What's Not Inside - The Lost Songs from Waitress (Outtakes and Demos)." Since that's very obscure to find these days, Mike included that too.

On top of all that, Mike made a PDF file with lots more information and plenty of nice photos. So be sure to check that out.

Everything is included in one zip file. It's the largest file ever posted here, mostly due to the video of the concert. The total size is over 1 GB.

The full concert is an hour and 33 minutes long. The "music only" version of the concert is one hour long exactly. The 2019 EP is 22 minutes long.

Here's the track list to the full 2015 concert discussed above:

Songs from the Waitress Concert, New York City Center, New York City, 11-5-2015

01 What's Inside (Sara Bareilles)
02 Opening Up (Sara Bareilles)
03 talk (Sara Bareilles)
04 Door Number Three (Sara Bareilles)
05 talk (Sara Bareilles)
06 When He Sees Me [Dawn's Song] (Sara Bareilles)
07 talk (Sara Bareilles)
08 I Didn't Plan It [Becky's Song] (Sara Bareilles)
09 talk (Sara Bareilles)
10 Soft Place to Land (Sara Bareilles)
11 talk (Sara Bareilles)
12 Never Ever Getting Rid of Me (Sara Bareilles)
13 talk (Sara Bareilles)
14 Bad Idea (Sara Bareilles with Drew Gehling)
15 talk (Sara Bareilles)
16 You Matter to Me (Sara Bareilles with Drew Gehling)
17 talk (Sara Bareilles)
18 She Used to Be Mine (Sara Bareilles)
19 talk (Sara Bareilles)
20 Everything Changes (Sara Bareilles)
21 talk (Sara Bareilles)
22 King of Anything (Sara Bareilles)
23 Love Song (Sara Bareilles)
24 talk (Sara Bareilles)
25 Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay (Sara Bareilles)
26 talk (Sara Bareilles)
27 Brave (Sara Bareilles)
28 talk (Sara Bareilles)
29 Gravity [Acappella Version] (Sara Bareilles)
30 talk (Sara Bareilles)

Here's the track list from the "music only" version of that same concert:

01 What's Inside (Sara Bareilles)
02 Opening Up (Sara Bareilles)
03 Door Number Three (Sara Bareilles)
04 When He Sees Me [Dawn's Song] (Sara Bareilles)
05 I Didn't Plan It [Becky's Song] (Sara Bareilles)
06 Soft Place to Land (Sara Bareilles)
07 Never Ever Getting Rid of Me (Sara Bareilles)
08 Bad Idea (Sara Bareilles with Drew Gehling)
09 You Matter to Me (Sara Bareilles with Drew Gehling)
10 She Used to Be Mine (Sara Bareilles)
11 Everything Changes (Sara Bareilles)
12 King of Anything (Sara Bareilles)
13 Love Song (Sara Bareilles)
14 Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay (Sara Bareilles)
15 Brave (Sara Bareilles)
16 Gravity [Acappella Version] (Sara Bareilles)
17 talk (Sara Bareilles)

Finally, here's the song list from the EP "What's Not Inside - The Lost Songs from Waitress (Outtakes and Demos)," released in 2019.

01 Happy Enough (Sara Bareilles)
02 Door Number Three (Sara Bareilles)
03 Knocked Up You (Sara Bareilles)
04 Without a Believer (Sara Bareilles)
05 I Can't Wait (Sara Bareilles)
06 Falling in Love Pie (Sara Bareilles)
07 She Used to Be Mine (Sara Bareilles)

https://www.imagenetz.de/kZwNW

The cover art is taken from promotional material related to the 2015 "Waitress" musical. That's Bareilles holding the pie. The text and artwork at the top and bottom of the image is mostly based on a playbill for that musical. 

Friday, June 7, 2024

Neil Finn - Acoustic Radio Sessions, Volume 3: 2002-2014

This is the third and final album I'm posting of Neil Finn's acoustic radio sessions. The title says 2002 to 2014, but note that all but the last song is from the 2002 to 2004 time frame.

Unfortunately, when I posted Volume 2 in this series, it got taken down to due a copyright issue. I have since restored that post without the download link... but you may find a useful link in the comments section there. We'll see if this lasts. I was surprised that one was taken down, because all but two of the performances were unreleased. For this one, all but three of the performances are unreleased. But I guess one never knows, so grab it while you can.

This comes from the same source of the kind person who sent me a bunch of Crowded House related music a few years ago. I'm sure Finn has continued to perform more for the radio, but this is all I have from that source. If I come across more, perhaps there could be a Volume 4 someday. If anyone has the material to help with that, please send it along.

As I mentioned above, only three songs here have been officially released. Those are tracks 1, 11, and 12. Track 11 ("Won't Give In (Acoustic Version)") was a B-side, while the other two are from various artists compilations. Most of the rest come from appearances on the radio shows "Morning Becomes Eclectic" and "World Cafe."

The vast majority of the songs are originals. But the last two are interesting cover versions of classic songs by Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley. "Persuasion" is actually sung by Richard Thompson, with Neil Finn and Tim Finn only playing guitar. The song was originally written by Thompson as an instrumental and included in a movie soundtrack in 1991. But Neil Finn liked the song, added lyrics to it, and included it in his 1993 album "Before and After." Since then, Thompson has performed the song a lot, and always sings the Finn lyrics, like he does here.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Private Universe (Neil Finn)
02 Faster than Light (Neil Finn)
03 Weather with You (Neil Finn)
04 Whaling (Neil Finn)
05 Secret God (Neil Finn)
06 The Climber (Neil Finn)
07 It's Only Natural (Finn Brothers [Neil Finn & Tim Finn])
08 Persuasion (Finn Brothers [Neil Finn & Tim Finn] & Richard Thompson)
09 Love Is All That Remains (Neil Finn)
10 Pineapple Head (Neil Finn)
11 Won't Give In [Acoustic Version] (Finn Brothers [Neil Finn & Tim Finn])
12 Sexual Healing (Neil Finn)
13 Waiting in Vain (Neil Finn)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cUvmyMU9

The cover photo is from a 2001 concert at the Palace Theatre (wherever that is).

Sunday, June 2, 2024

Various Artists - Uncovered Ladies, Volumes 1 and 2 (1973-2021) (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

You may be familiar with a series of Beatles albums guest poster Mike Solof has made of special mixes he's made to Beatles songs. Now, he's turned that same mixing talent to editing some of his favorite songs sung by women. At my advice, he's split these edits into two albums. The first one, called "The Knowns," consist of famous songs that he has mixed to strip down some of the music to expose other parts that often go underappreciated. The second album, "The Lesser Knowns," does the exact same thing, but for songs that probably many listeners are unfamiliar with. 

As is his usual style, Mike explains much more in his PDF file, which is included in the download files.

Volume 1 is 59 minutes long, and Volume 2 is one hour long.

VOLUME 1: THE KNOWNS

01 Ray of Light [Mike's Mix] (Madonna)
02 In Your Room [Mike's Mix] (Bangles)
03 We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together [Taylor's Version] [Mike's Mix] (Taylor Swift)
04 Girl like Me [Mike's Mix] (Shakira & Black Eyed Peas)
05 Lotta Love [Mike's Mix] (Nicolette Larson)
06 Black Velvet [Mike's Mix] (Alannah Myles)
07 Midnight Train to Georgia [Mike's Mix] (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
08 Royals [Mike's Mix] (Lorde)
09 Complicated [Mike's Mix] (Avril Lavigne)
10 Bring Me to Life [Second Version] [Mike's Mix] (Evanescence)
11 Precious Things [Mike's Mix] (Tori Amos)
12 Chuck E.'s in Love [Mike's Mix] (Rickie Lee Jones)
13 Tumbling Dice [Mike's Mix] (Linda Ronstadt)
14 It's Too Late [Mike's Mix] (Gloria Estefan)
15 Valerie [68 version] [Mike's Mix] (Amy Winehouse)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16704293/VA-UNCOVERDLDIESTheKnwns_atse.zip.html

VOLUME 2: THE LESSER KNOWNS

01 Funhouse [Mike's Mix] (P!NK)
02 Azelea Flowers [Mike's Mix] (Karine Polwart)
03 Cut the Cord [Mike's Mix] (Charlotte Martin)
04 Sunday Morning After [Mike's Mix] (Amanda Marshall)
05 Chickenman [Mike's Mix] (Indigo Girls)
06 Eye in the Sky [Mike's Mix] (Jonatha Broooke)
07 So You Say [Mike's Mix] (Manhattan Transfer)
08 Take to the Sky [Mike's Mix] (Janis Ian)
09 Happy Home [Mike's Mix] (Paula Cole)
10 99.9F [Mike's Mix] (Suzanne Vega)
11 Need You Now [Mike's Mix] (Lady Antebellum)
12 Tattooed Heart [Mike's Mix] (Ariana Grande)
13 Baby Hold On [Mike's Mix] (Dixie Chicks)
14 Extraordinary [Mike's Mix] (Liz Phair)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16704295/VA-UNCOVERDLDIESTheLssrKnwns_atse.zip.html

Mike picked the cover art for both of the covers here. Since the title of this album is "Uncovered Ladies," he wanted photos to match that theme. Since the first album consists of famous songs, he has one of them, Shakira, on the cover. Since the second album is of mostly unknown songs, the cover is an unknown sexy woman.

Various Artists - Children of the Americas Radiothon, United Nations Building, New York City, and Palace Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 11-12-1988

Here's another big benefit concert with a bunch of different famous musical acts. But this one was unusual in a couple of ways. For one, it was held in two locations simultaneously and broadcast live over the radio. And for the other, it's quite an odd selection of acts. I like all of them, but it seems pretty random to me to have, say, Pat Benatar followed by Al Stewart, then followed by Midnight Oil, and so on, which is what happened here. But hey, it's all good music, with excellent sound quality.

This benefit concert certainly had a good cause, which was to fund non-profits helping poor children in Latin America. This was the second annual concert for this cause. I don't know anything about the first concert or subsequent ones. But we know about this one because it was broadcast live on the radio, and a bootleg recording of it survives.

I made many, many edits to make this listenable. The concert took the form of a radiothon, which is just like a telethon, except for the radio instead of TV. And if you're familiar with telethons at all, you know they're notorious for constantly asking for donations. That's what happened here. Between acts, and even during acts, there were emcees giving pleas to donate, with the donation phone number in particular repeated endlessly. Even the musical artists would sometimes mention the phone number between songs. I got rid of all that because it's all moot now, with the number obviously no longer working. I stripped this down to just the music and the banter relevant to the music.

I also did some edits to make this flow better. Oftentimes, as soon as a song wound end, the emcee's voice would come on with more pleas for donations. So I would patch in some more applause to give the songs a decent sounding ending. I didn't bother marking those edits with "[Edit]" in the song titles, 'cos I did it so much.

Some of the acts performed at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles. Those were Jackson Browne, Midnight Oil, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY), plus earlier appearances by Graham Nash and David Crosby. All the other acts performed at the United Nations Building in New York City. Note that the crowd in Los Angeles sounds much larger than the one in New York City. I'm guessing only a few dozen were allowed into the United Nations Building for this, based on the clapping one can hear.  

The star attraction here was CSNY. They put out a new album in 1988, "American Dream," but Neil Young decided not to take part in a tour to support it. However, he did take part in a very limited number of concerts with CSN around this time. There was the Bridge Benefit in 1988 (which I have also posted here), the Bridge Benefit in 1989, and this. (There also were a couple more in 1987 and 1990 and 1991, if you want to go that far.)

It's quite possible that there was more to these two concerts that what was heard here. For instance, there was no introduction to the CSNY set, and I doubt they started with the new song "This Old House." It also seems odd that Midnight Oil would have been recruited but only played less than ten minutes of music. I'm guessing this is just the stuff that made it to the radio broadcast, and while music was broadcast from one location, we were probably missing the music taking place at the other location. If anyone has any more of it, please let me know.  

This album is two hours and 25 minutes long.

01 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash)
02 talk (Emcee)
03 I Love L.A. (Randy Newman)
04 Dixie Flyer (Randy Newman)
05 Sail Away (Randy Newman)
06 talk (Randy Newman)
07 Political Science (Randy Newman)
08 Short People (Randy Newman)
09 talk (Randy Newman)
10 I Want You to Hurt like I Do (Randy Newman)
11 talk (David Crosby)
12 Crow on the Cradle (Jackson Browne & Graham Nash)
13 talk (David Crosby)
14 talk (Jackson Browne)
15 Lives in the Balance (Jackson Browne with David Crosby & Graham Nash)
16 talk (Jackson Browne)
17 My Personal Revenge (Jackson Browne with Sangre Machuwa)
18 talk (Jackson Browne)
19 Fruita Almarga [Bitter Fruit] (Jackson Browne)
20 talk (Jackson Browne)
21 Lene Verde [Instrumental] (Jackson Browne with Sangre Machuwa)
22 talk (Graham Nash)
23 Rock Me on the Water (Jackson Browne with David Crosby & Graham Nash)
24 Powerful Stuff (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
25 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
26 Look at That, Look at That (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
27 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
28 She's Tough (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
29 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
30 Wrap It Up (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
31 talk (Pat Benatar)
32 All Fired Up (Pat Benatar)
33 Run Between the Raindrops (Pat Benatar)
34 talk (Pat Benatar)
35 Let's Stay Together (Pat Benatar)
36 talk (Emcee)
37 Antarctica (Al Stewart)
38 talk (Al Stewart)
39 Princess Olivia (Al Stewart)
40 The Year of the Cat (Al Stewart)
41 talk (Graham Nash)
42 Wealth Is Virtue (Midnight Oil)
43 The Dead Heart (Midnight Oil)
44 This Old House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
45 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
46 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
47 Name of Love (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
48 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
49 Tracks in the Dust (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
50 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
51 Don't Say Goodbye (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
52 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
53 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
54 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
55 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
56 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
57 My Country 'Tis of Thee (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with J. D. Souther)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/DQZ2b6A2

I found the cover image from some promotional art related to this concert. It's a drawing of all the major stars that took part. In the top row, from left to right: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In the bottom row, from left to right: Jackson Browne, Pat Benatar, Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, and Randy Newman. The banner at the top was in the original, but I changed the text there, and added more text at the bottom. 

I couldn't find any actual photos from this concert, so I'm lucky to have found this.

More Trouble with Download Links

I've been using two download services, upload.ee, and imagenetz. Upload.ee, unfortunately, has some spam attached to it (though there are ways to get around that). But at least those download links endure. The imagenetz links, by contrast, keep mysteriously disappearing, even though they're supposed to endure just as much. Over the past year or so, I've been gradually replacing imagenetz links with upload.ee ones, every time to imagenetz links die. A few days ago, I discovered that nearly all of the remaining imagenetz links suddenly died! I went from having about 650 links down to just about 85!

So I've spent many hours in the past few days replacing all those dead imagenetz links with upload.ee ones. Now, nearly all the links at this blog are upload.ee ones. There are still about 200 imagenetz ones though. That's intentional, because upload.ee doesn't allow files larger than 200 MB. That's equal to about an hour and a half of mp3s. So all the albums I post longer than an hour and a half still use imagenetz ones. Unfortunately, those are likely to keep dying from time to time, so if you find any dead links, please let me know.

I do still want an alternate to upload.ee, so if anyone has any good suggestions, please let me know. In the meantime, keep in mind there are lots of ways to get around the spam problem. A good one is to use an ad blocker plug-in. That's what I do, so I've never encountered this spam at all. Another easy one is to use the Brave browser. It has an ad blocker built in that automatically gets rid of this spam problem. Yet another option is to use the free download management program J-Downloader, which also blocks the spam. Failing all that, you can also grab all the music here via the free file sharing program SoulseekQT.

Thanks for your patience with all these link troubles. Right now, 100 percent of the links should be working, so this is a good time to go back and grab stuff.

Saturday, June 1, 2024

Various Artists - An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, 4-6-1999

I've previously posted "All-Star Tribute" concerts for Paul Simon and Brian Wilson. I discovered they were part of a short-lived annual tradition at the TNT TV network. There are only a couple more, so I plan on posting them too. Here's the next one, an "All-Star Tribute" to country legend Johnny Cash.

In 1999, Cash's health was in serious decline. He wouldn't die until 2003, at the age of 71. But by 1999, he rarely gave public performances. As he mentioned in his stage comments here, he hadn't performed on stage in the past year and a half. After this, he would only make about half a dozen additional musical performances, none of them full concerts. So although he did sing at the very end of this concert, maybe with his health in mind he only sang two songs.

The rest of the concert featured an impressive roster of musical stars singing songs made famous by Cash. It should be noted that the biggest stars, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and U2, weren't actually there but videotaped musical performances that were played at the concert. 

Unfortunately, one person who couldn't sing at this concert was Cash's famous musical daughter Rosanne Cash. This concert happened to take place during a three-year time period in which Rosanne was unable to sing due to a polyp on her vocal chords. She did, however, give a brief speech.

Most of the concert was emceed by actor Jon Voight. However, some of the other banter was by singer-songwriter Larry Gatlin, actor Kevin Bacon, and actor Tim Robbins. There were some additional parts that I cut out. These were narrated video tributes to different stages of Cash's life. I cut those out because they were mainly meant to be seen, not heard.

Like the other "All-Star Tributes" in this series, this concert remains officially unreleased. I found the video of it on YouTube, then converted that to audio. The sound quality is excellent throughout.

This album is an hour and a half long.

01 Jackson - Orange Blossom Special (Sheryl Crow & Willie Nelson)
02 talk (Jon Voight)
03 I Guess Things Happen That Way (Chris Isaak)
04 Get Rhythm Intro (Chris Isaak)
05 Get Rhythm (Chris Isaak)
06 talk (Jon Voight & John Carter Cash)
07 talk (Willie Nelson)
08 I Still Miss Someone (Willie Nelson)
09 talk (Jon Voight)
10 talk (June Carter Cash)
11 Ring of Fire (June Carter Cash)
12 talk (Jon Voight)
13 Train of Love (Bob Dylan)
14 talk (Jon Voight)
15 The Man in Black (Mavericks)
16 talk (Jon Voight)
17 The Ballad of Ira Hayes (Kris Kristofferson)
18 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
19 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Trisha Yearwood with Kris Kristofferson)
20 talk (Larry Gatlin)
21 Ghost Riders in the Sky (Brooks & Dunn)
22 talk (Jon Voight)
23 Tennessee Flat Top Box (Lyle Lovett)
24 talk (Lyle Lovett)
25 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
26 Give My Love to Rose (Bruce Springsteen)
27 talk (Jon Voight)
28 Flesh and Blood (Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
29 talk (Kevin Bacon)
30 Delia's Gone (Wyclef Jean)
31 talk (Jon Voight)
32 talk (Dave Matthews)
33 Long Black Veil (Dave Matthews & Emmylou Harris)
34 talk (Jon Voight)
35 talk (Rosanne Cash)
36 talk (Marty Stuart)
37 Belshazzar (Marty Stuart with the Fairfield Four)
38 talk (Jon Voight & Bono)
39 Don't Take Your Guns to Town (U2)
40 talk (Jon Voight)
41 talk (Tim Robbins)
42 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
43 talk (Johnny Cash)
44 I Walk the Line (Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dmd9S

The cover shows John Mellencamp with Johnny Cash at this exact concert. Curiously, Mellencamp didn't appear in any of the songs. Perhaps he had a song or two that got cut out of the TV broadcast, or perhaps he had a non-performing role, I don't know. But I thought it was a good photo to show how Cash was honored.