Woodstock 94 [#1]

by

Various Artists

Edit

The CD set here is not meant to represent the concerts themselves but the event as a whole. the songs (and announcements) reflect the moods, styles, genres, humor and talents of the artists as a snapshot. This means that some bands may not have their best or most popular songs on these CD's. Both Cd's have a mix of:

Popular bands playing hits ( Melissa Ethridge, Cranberries, Collective Soul),

Popular bands playing lesser known songs ( Blues Traveler, Live, Candlebox, Cypress Hill),

And classic bands playing from their catalog ( CSN, Peter Gabriel, Joe Cocker).

Leading the second disc, Metallica dominated the set with an energy no one else seems to bring. (As I said some of these songs dont represent the bands' overall performance very well)Another review stated that this song, "For whom the Bell Tolls" was the definitive live recording of the band and I totally agree. The recording of this song is required for any metallica fan. The clarity beats any bootleg and the intensity beats the few live recordings the band is willing to sell.

Other standouts include: Cypress Hill, NIN, Blues Traveler, Aerosmith, Dylan, Chili Peppers, Primus and the Neville Bros.

Some may be dissapointed by Jackyl, Green Day, Blind Mellon, Salt N Pepa's song Shoop has dated very poorly, and the stage announcements can get repetitive. I personally found "Come Together" to be a little gratuitous as a reference to the original music of Woodstock. As a side note, I believe that Slash from GNR plays on "The Hunter" with Paul Rodgers though i could be mistaken.

It is possible to refute one complaint I have seen about the set (and the event). The sampling of the discs makes it clear that the bands selected are for the most part not platinum sellers, and those few that were, normally didn't have the "hit" song selected for the cd. The commercialism of the event itself may be an entirely other matter. Still I believe that at least 17 of the 27 bands have never seen platinum or achieved mainstream success. Bands like "Rollins Band" are talented but are so niche they are never likely to do so.

All in all I love the set. I believe it is worth the purchase if only for the Metallica song. However, this does not represent even a fraction of the music at the event and a true box set should be made available.