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Why Zombies? Well, today was fancy dress Guinness Book Of Records attempt at the most Zombies in a field competition (or something like that). And as odd as it might seem, there were loads of people happy to dress up with full Zombie make up on and wonder about like the un-dead; potential Zombie glasses issues in the morning I thought.

And Woodstock was all about the creator of Woodstock, Michael Lang doing a talk about the world changing event of ‘69. So after a day of heavy rain and mud (Woodstock and Big Chill ‘09) the fortitude of festival goers is severely tested. And 40 years ago, it was much worse as there were high winds and with an estimated 400,000 turning up, all services were close to breaking point. So, by the time Hendrix turned up on stage on 4am on the Monday, most fans had gone back to their day jobs caked in mud.

But Lang explained the stars of the show were 10 Years After (the name that encapsulates the changes of civil rights, JFK and Vietnam) and Country Joe & the Fish who played 2 sets; making his name with the acoustic set on the Saturday afternoon. Nobody was listening. “Shall I play the f**K song” he asked. Back came the answer, “play anything you like”. And so the seeds of festival freedom were planted.

Asked about other bands, “The Who didn’t want to come, they’d been on tour and wanted to go home, we had to get Pete Townsend drunk before he agreed to play and then they went onto become massive in the U.S.” Anyone who you wanted to play? “John Lennon of course but he’d been recently busted for drugs possession, Led Zeppelin didn’t want to be just another name on the bill, the Moody Blues were recording an album and Roy Rogers”. Roy Rogers was a singing cowboy on TV and Lang wanted him to close the event singing his signature song ‘Happy Trails’; which was optimistic to say the least.

Fans of Carlos Nino wil know that there’s a massive box set that’s come out to mark the 40th anniversary called Woodstock Experience so loads more hippy festival madness if you need more.

Elsewhere British Sea Power were playing their new soundtrack to the film Man Of Aran (courtesy of the BFI) which (as a veggie) seemed to celebrate the slaughter of basking sharks for a community pot boiling session. Of course, back when this was filmed that was the way the folks survived and not a lifestyle choice (also see David Mitchell’s so You Know Who You Are from the night before and all about the Highland Clearances). The music was a bit rock-bleak similar to the jazz-bleak of Cinematic Orchestra’s soundtrack

But this is a festival and Mr. Scruff was on a 4 hour radio tea club set and outside the Cocktail bar. As ever, the top Ninja Tune tea guzzler was on top form, with the Zombies going off to Fela Kuti’s track ‘Zombie’ that he followed with a bit of Mulatu for good measure. Other highlights included “I’ve had a few requests for this one” (Scruffs own ‘Get A Move On’), “not played enough” (Prince Buster’s ‘Islam’) and “classic” (Aswad ‘Warrior Charge’).

So, back to Woodstock, hard to see the relevance with such slick and commercial operations as Big Chill today - but wait a minute, it’s p***ing down; more mud expected.

Links:
www.bigchill.net
Woodstock Experience - The Definite signed multimedia limited edition www.genesis-publications.com - Woodstock Music and Art Fair, August 15th 1969 $8