OldMan Zone Presents Santana Live At Woodstock

The group Santana was flown in by helicopter to Max Yasgur's farm, which was the site of WOODSTOCK in August of 1969. It was just months after Carlos was playing bars in Tijuana. Now, he was just about to play to 400,000 people.

When Carlos got out of the helicopter around noon he found his way backstage to say he was ready to play. He was told he probably wasn't going to go on until after the Grateful Dead. He sees his friend JERRY GARCIA and Jerry says they aren't going on for another 12 hours or so which would be about 1am. Carlos expected that he would most likely get on stage at 3am.

So, there he was stuck at Woodstock when Jerry Garcia said, "Carlos, take this!" The drug of choice at Woodstock was LSD (ACID). Carlos popped it in his mouth and soon after he started tripping out. When I say he started tripping out, he started tripping out like seeing things and feeling like he was floating around and flying over people.

All of a sudden, it's time to play and Carlos is ready to perform to a crowd of people that didn't know who he was just yet. Carlos was on the eve of his success, but this performance that was just about to happen at Woodstock, would catapult him to stardom.

You can watch another clip of the live performance here but, for some reason the entire drum solo is cut out. I've found that almost all videos of this performance cut out the main parts of the performance. I have no idea; but, I am thrilled to have found the whole uncut version posted above. Knowing that these guys were tripping balls the whole time makes it better. It had to be an insane experience!

I was 'almost' 15 yrs old living in Northern New Jersey (Matawan, Strathmore) at the time. My older brother and his friends made their way to WoodStock in 1969 - but, because he felt I was too young, he left me behind. I really, really wanted to go! We didn't live all that far away! Anyway, of all the performances, I absolutely love the live performance of Santana - Soul Sacrifice - nothing beats the live version at WoodStock! My second favorite performance was Joe Cocker - With A Little Help From My Friends and Canned Heat - Going Up The Country. I'm still sad I didn't get to go. Three years later, I joined the US Army and spent virually my entire military career overseas, retiring at 37 on The Island of Guam. Hence, I've never experienced a live concert in my life! Oh well, too late now... Once you Enter The Oldman Zone there's no more concerts for you.

SANTANA's Official Website Is Here

OldMan Remembers