Woodstock/Joe Cocker

Imagine you are at Woodstock. Imagine the excitement of being at this festival, knowing you are a part of something monumental, something that will be talked about by future generations. The people, the drugs, the atmosphere, love love love, peace peace peace, ideas and visions floating around, smiles and rain and freedom, dirty hippies...

You experience a few days of this. By Sunday, August 17, 1969, you are tired, worn down. Sure, you've had a blast, but you want to take a shower, and sure, you're having fun, but you can feel the end is coming. You're ready for the last day.

It's the afternoon. You aimlessly wander around with your friends, lazy and happy, high on life and other stuff. "Who goes up first today?" you ponder. You make your way to the stage. You hear some band playing instrumental music.

Uh oh. You hate instrumental music. "No words, not for me," you think to yourself.

You're almost ready to leave when somebody whispers, "Oh look, it's Joe Cocker." You frown. You were hoping for Hendrix (who, incidentally, would be on last today, but you don't know this yet). "What the hell, why not", you think to yourself, and you decide to stay for his set.

By the last song, your mouth is open and you are struggling to comprehend what the fuck you just witnessed, a rockstar in tie-dye who has seizures on stage while singing, a voice like no other, a God in a Man's body, your brain doesn't know what to do and you have a strange longing for this dude to play nonstop for at least three more days. "One more" he says. "I'm gonna leave ya with the usual thing," he says, "this title puts it all into focus."

And then you see the following take place:



As he walks off stage, people around you are screaming but you are just stunned, a brute force just hit you upside the head. "Holy shit," you think to yourself, "that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. That was better than The Beatles' version! So much passion, so much emotion!"

As you're walking away, the clouds turn an ominous dark color as a thunderstorm erupts, lightning cracks and rain pours, and you get the feeling that He Who Lives Up There was saving it until Mr. Cocker left the stage, not wanting to interrupt anything.

Then you go back to your tent and take some shrooms and trip balls and pass out, and end up missing Jimi Hendrix.

No but seriously, that video gets me every time. That primal, animalistic scream at 4:55... goddamn, talk about feeling the music. Good stuff, Joe Cocker, really good stuff.