August 18, 2025 • 39 mins
The legendary music and art festival known as Woodstock that occurred in 1969 was 3 days of peace and music that drew a staggering crowd of more than 460,000 people! Boston Globe reporter Steve Kurkjian experienced and covered the iconic festival. While Bradley was not in attendance for the 1969 festival, he did attend Woodstock 99, which attempted to emulate the original 1969 Woodstock festival. How did music culture change in the 30 years that passed between the two festivals and how did the festivals differ? Did you attend either festival and if so, what was your experience like? Steve and Bradley swapped festival stories!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Nice Size with Dan Ray on wb Z, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is WBZ News Radio ten thirty Nice Side with
Dan Ray. I'm Bradley Jay in for Dan. Our next
guest is a fantastically interesting guy, a straight talking important guy.
He was a founding member of the Globes Investigative Spotlight Team,
later became an editor. Please welcome Steve Kirkchin to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Nice to see you again.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Nice to see you, and we're gonna actually cover a
pretty wide gamut. The main thrust of this was that
we were going to talk about but we're going to
compare Woodstock one with Woodstock ninety nine and see what
the what the country, the culture looked like with that
snapshot presented by Woodstock one, and compare that with the
(00:50):
snapshot provided by Woodstock ninety nine, and see where the
country went wrong, where the culture went wrong, and try
to identify and the reason this is appointed there's a
couple of reasons. One this being the eighteenth, I believe
is the anniversary of the last day of the first Woodstock.
The dates don't actually matter, but I think I have
it right. And Steve was there and it was one
(01:14):
of his early assignments as a reporter, and that story
in itself, Steve's a great storyteller, is going to be compelling. Then,
as fate would have it, I happened to be covering
the other end of that bookke nd Wouldstock ninety nine.
I was there very early and saw it all and it,
(01:36):
trust me, it was gruesome. So we'll compare the two.
What Steve saw was kind of provided some hope, maybe idyllic.
It was idyllic, and it was an accident. Maybe that's
one of the reasons it was idyllic. It wasn't trying
too hard, It just kind of happened. My situation was
entirely different. I hope some of you, as I suggested,
(01:58):
watched train Wreck Woodstock ninety nine, which is a three
part documentary on that, And if you didn't watch that,
you probably don't have a real handle on how terrible
it was and what an ugly picture of it painted.
It painted of our culture. So I'll do that for
you in case you didn't have a chance to watch that.
But before we get into that, and we have no
(02:21):
hurry here, I invite you to call and chat with us,
ask any question you want of Steve about anything, six, one, seven, two, five, four, ten, thirty.
I believe this is the number, is still right, Rob Good.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Especially if you have if you were lucky left enough
to have gone to Woodstock in Bethel, New York in
nineteen sixty August of nineteen sixty nine. Right, it was
an extraordinary weekend. Some friends I've met over the years came,
passed through, spent the night or two, and left, but
(02:58):
in mourned. I regretted that they stay until what I
thought was the most extraordinary Monday morning when Jimmy Hendrix
came on and played the saucepag Olbana with his solo
electric guitar.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
All right, we're going to get to all that. But
you and I have a very interesting history that relates
to WBZ, so it would be shame to not go
through that. I first met you as a host here
at WBZ, and actually it's truly, I'm honestly saying, it's
one of the great pleasures of working at WBZ. To
meet you, I was one of the big deals. Don't laugh,
it's true. Don't make me feel bad about being vulnerable,
(03:38):
and go ahead. I love it. It's been a long time,
so you know, we've we've hung out, we you know,
hang out of Castle Island and what else did we do?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You gave me the the tour, the crime tour of
the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum, because you have studied that
and researched that a great deal. You have your theories
on that. And you actually took me to the street
in Watertown where the shootout that occurred during the marathon
(04:12):
bombing manhunt took place. Which is that that resonates with
me because that was my first news story coverage ever.
I was a talk show host and one night about
I'd say, you know, just after midnight, somewhere between midnight
and one, we started getting these reports. And of course
(04:33):
the whole city was on edge because of the bombing
and there was a search on for the perpetrators. And
I started getting reports of waves of police moving across
the city and it started to sound like something was
going on. Then we got various reports coming in and
that was up to me, and it was my I
(04:54):
had zero experience of this, but I had to just
you know, I had to pay attention and focus and
not make it terrible mistake, do the best I could,
and it worked out. Producer Mark Levala was a very
big help, and the bosses came in and they were
great as guides. But after having had that experience, to
go with you to that very street and look at
(05:17):
the which is a very substentially armenion populated district area
neighborhood in Watertown and which I had never walked on,
but you and I did, and you knew where the
bullet holes were and things that had happened, and you
(05:38):
had these stories within a story that was quite intense,
and you have an interesting story related to that evolving
your sister.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yea, my late sister. Late everyone in Watertown, the town
had been shut down. The entire city was shut down,
but certainly Watertown had because that's where the shootout had
taken place the night before, which Bradley has talked about
covering here at BZ and Uh I'm living. I was
(06:10):
living in Plymouth then, and I got a call from
my sister who said, around one o'clock in the afternoon, Stephen,
there's a lot of police hanging out building up across
the street in the parking lot of the church next.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
To my house.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Uh, and I sat to her call. A little bit
older than me, and I said, Carolyn, Uh, do you
know how to use the camera on your phone? Yes, yes,
I've already used it one hundred times for my grandkids.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Great.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Great, that's how we all earned And Uh. Turned out
they were there because of a miscommunication on their police
radios as to a woman being held hostage in her
house by a man with a gun. That phone call
(06:57):
had been made by the Cambridge police about a woman
in Cambridge, but it got picked up in Watertown, and
the woman in Cambridge lived at three Langdon Street in Cambridge.
What the Watertown of what the police in Watertown heard
was only there's a woman being held hostage at three
(07:19):
Langdon by a man with a gun. And my sister
her home was on or is on has been on
three Langdon and Watertown and that build up that she
saw across the street where the waiting for the armored
truck to come into the parking lot. And there, as
I later learned, seventy five police officers dressed in black
(07:42):
aiming at her house, believing that af was holding her captive. Thankfully,
the Boston the command of that SWAT unit was under
the under the command of a of a commite and
of a Boston police who had undergone training for hostages,
(08:06):
and he very gingerly, carefully called her inside the house,
asked her to come out onto the porch and to
hold her phone up in the air, and said to
her do you do you have anything under you? And
she said no, no, So what is this all about?
(08:28):
And it really never made the papers. I wrote the
story when I got clearance from the city to get
the the to get the tapes. The only reason they
gave me the tapes, though, is because they saw that,
you know, she had been not badly treated, but mistreated,
but in this raid of her house, and there was
(08:50):
a possibility of a lawsuit. And the mayor called me
and she said to me, is she going to sue
the city for this raid at her house? And I said,
well me ask her hold her up, I said, Carolyn
Maya wants to know if you're going to sue the city.
She said, sue the city. I'm a graduate of Dorchester. Hi,
I would never sue the city. And she was a
(09:12):
concierge and one of her wonderful jobs at Boston Park Plaza.
I would never sue the city. But if the police
would just come to the house, and explain to me
what happened, because they never really explained to me. And
they did. The Commissioner Davis and the coal Maleiden who
knows a security chief for the Red Sox, came and
(09:34):
they talked her through it, and lovingly she gave a
little frame with the photo with the painting of the
skaters on frog Pond and asked them to give it
to the parents of the young Asian Chinese woman who
had been killed at marathon bombing. But you know, it's
(09:58):
it's a very very sad story to be telling now
because my sister passed away last month.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, thank you for thank you for that, and thank
you for getting allowing me to you're not sharing that.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, you're a great woman.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So we take a break, and now I open the
lines up and we're going to start talking about woodstock
and the woodstocks. You could teach a college course on
the difference between the woodstock sixty nine, sixty nine and
ninety nine and what happened to the country, and you
can kind of glean information from these two events that
gives you some ideas. I have some thoughts on it,
(10:34):
and I know Steven has thoughts on it, and that's
coming up on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w B Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
It's a nice Tell You with Dan Ray Bradley for
Dan's special guest Steve Kirchen, and we are now going
to delve into Woodstock one, wo'dstoc three and the slide
in the American culture. In between that the snapshaws are
the two evidenced and Steve let's tay call it Jack
in Newton? Hello, Jack, how are you doing? Say ahead
(11:05):
to Steve YEA.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
How you doing? Steve? Jack Porter? We know each other.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Oh good, you'd like to hear your voice? Jack? How
you being?
Speaker 5 (11:12):
How you done? Yeah, we've covered a lot of interesting
stuff we got in Witchtack. I was a reporter for
the Northwestern Daily, which was Northwestern University, and I remember
talking to the editor saying, Hey, we could cover this thing.
It sounds like a pretty wild conference, I mean a concert,
(11:33):
and my editor said, ah, there'll be another one. Yeah,
it's just one of many. So I didn't, well, was.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
That sixty nine because there hadn't been I don't know
if any that had been leading.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Up to that, although I think there were others, but
you know, they just looked at it as just another
rock concert. I guess he just waited to be not
so I missed it, but I did visit the site
years later. But I did go to the follow ups,
(12:08):
and they were pretty strange. I think it was ninety nine,
or was at the twenty fifth, maybe ninety four. There
wasn't one, but there were like.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Three of us. Yeah, one was well, and maybe you
could explain it to me why there were three separate venuars.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Well, they tried, and they tried. I watched a bit
at Bradley's suggestion, I watched a bit of train Wreck
this afternoon, and because I had known it it ended
so poorly, badly, I wasn't compelled to watch it until
Bradley said, you know, it'd be good to talk about it.
There was an attempt in ninety four, but it never
(12:46):
got carried off. Michael Lane had who had been the
reels driving force on the sixty nine event, still with
a full head of hair, when to start it again
and twenty four, but it never got off the ground.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
But he was.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
A consultant, I guess in the ninety nine event, and
he plays an important role in his talking about you
know why it went off? The rail so badly in
ninety nine. I mean, you can make some sweeping judgments
about the the quality of the of the of the kids,
(13:27):
the which I will do later Bradley, Bradley is still
fumes about. But also the bands, you know, the you
go through our the list, there's hot rockers, but it
was melodic rocket roll with each group, and you didn't
(13:53):
have the angry, aggressive rock rual groups that I mean.
He was particularly corn that I watched several minutes of
the in the ninety nine event. I mean, except for
(14:14):
Rage against the Machine, I'm not sure there was another
group that was at ninety nine that I would have
been compelled to see.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
So there was one one that he a went to
and we were all hoping, you know, that the Rolling
Stones would show up, but that was just a rumor.
In sixty nine.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
There was only one person who didn't show up, who
whom we all thought would show up as Dylan, because
Dylan was up in a village of you know, a
mile a couple of hundred, one hundred miles away, and
that's where he was recuperating from his motorcycle accident in
(14:56):
sixty five. And here we are in sixty nine and
I remember writing about it saying, you know, I can't
figure out what this whole event is about. Says about us,
says about the kids, says about the rock and old music,
says about society. You know, that's that's where deep think
is like. But I the only person who tell me
(15:19):
what this thing holds all about. We Bob Dylan and
I until the end, I thought he was going to
come out and give us a lecture and say this
is what it's about, and this is where we're going
with it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Well, thank you very much, Jack, appreciate that. And one moment,
in a moment, we'll go to New York Tennis in
New York. But first I want to ask Steve how
he came to be involved in covering it. A fun
little story.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, I had just become staff at the Boston Globe,
which means I was subject to the union rules, which
at that time every member of the staff had to
take at least one week off during the summer. And
I was trying to figure out the of my life
at the time, and I was head in my third
(16:04):
or fourth year of law school nights, so the best
time of my life was sitting in the middle of
the Globe newsroom covering stories and seeing my name in
the paper a day or two later, and I did
not want to take a week off, and they said,
you have to. The previous month I had been at
un chap Equittick at Bathasvinyad covering Ceneta Kennedy's accident and
(16:28):
with the death of Mary Joe Capecney, and you know,
held up on that. And when I came back, I
just wanted to get back to covering the the the
anti war protest, which was by sort of my assignment
for that summer. And they said, no, you have to
take a week off. So I remember looking at the
New York Times that Sunday morning and down below there
(16:52):
was one I had had the groups of you know,
you see the who Jedish, Shoplet, Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young and I was just into them, you know, canned heat,
sly in the family Stone, unbelievable groups. And I said, Oh,
that's what I'll That's what I'll do. I'll go there.
So there was a young man sitting next to me
in Northeastern intern at the Globe, Mark Flanagain, and I said, Mark,
(17:16):
are you interested? He said, let's do it. So I
had my two cylinder SOB filled it up in them
Friday Friday morning, picked them up in Northeastern and we
got out to the all the way out to the
pike to the New York state line, found our way
to the exit for Bethel, New York, and then got
stuck at the walk the walk on the hitchhike for
(17:39):
the last ten to fifteen miles to get into the
to get into the to get it to the camp
to the grounds. And I remember as we walked up,
all the chain fences were knocked down. It was swarming,
swarming with people. And I said to Mark, Mark, this
is you know, which is sort of sort of picked
(18:05):
the phrase of my life. There's something about this that's
that I think belongs to the paper. So I found
my way down to the press tent and then they
typed out a card for me, which I still have
misspells my name, but so doesn't any anybody who's typing
out by name. And UH, and that was it. That
(18:25):
was if I stayed from Friday night and calling in UH.
At the time, they had watch what was called a
Watts line W A T S, which what stood for
I kind of remember that now and you call They
had a bank of phones that had uh, you know,
pick it up and you get an out of state
(18:47):
operator and connect the beach of the globe in ten
seconds and talking to the reporter who's doing the rewrite
for me, and did that for for next four nights
xt four days.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
How did you fit into the group? You know, you
were a working reporter. A lot of those folks were
not that kind of person like were you? Did you
look like Joe Friday?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I had jeans and T shirts just like everyone else
that I was going to enjoy the music, and I
had Brenda and George Romanos's sleeping bag that they had
lent me, and you know, I was just gonna stay
out to the under the stars and enjoy forty three
four days for music.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
And yeah, did you enjoy it at the time or
only kind of in the in the kindness.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I remember enjoying covering the story I switched from but
every time I stopped covering the story just to sit
down and listen to them. They were our long breaks
before the next roofs go on. So that got a
little tedious. But you know, you're trying to find a
bathroom or get some water or something to eat.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
What you eat, I don't remember much of you didn't
have any food with you, No, No, I had.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Some money in my pocket, so I knew. But soon enough.
The original concern was when I got there and I
picked up the phone and called into the Globe newsroom.
Jim Stack, who's the rewrite guy pre reight person, said
to me, start filing. And I said file what? And
he says, haven't you heard they're going to shut it down.
(20:18):
This is around five o'clock at night on Friday night.
And I said shut Why are they going to shut
it down? And he says, because it's turning into a
Vietnam War protest? And I had no I knew, And
I said, Jimmy, this is not a Vietnam War part.
Kids are here enjoy a rock and roll and smoke
a lot of dope, and no one's getting in the
way of either one of them. He says, well, get
(20:38):
me that on the record. So I walked down to
the to the to the band. The band said that
was being built and I found I guess it was
Michael Lang. I vague memory of chatting with him, and
he said, I said, there's word that the governor, then
Rockefeller is worried. He's gonna and then the state troopers
(21:01):
to shut this down. And he said why. And he
said why, I said, the thing's can turn into a
Vietnam War protestants unruly. He says, if we stopped, if
we didn't go on, these kids would go crazy. We're
going on. It's gonna be fine. Don't worry about And
I knew, having covered these were not those kids throwing
(21:22):
rocks and bottles at a few of them at Vietnam
War protests. These were the younger brothers and sisters, all right.
They were here to enjoy music.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And we're going to continue with Steve Kirkton, longtime reporter
after this on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
With Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
There you go. That's Jimmy Hendricks version of Stars Mago
Banner at Woodstock a little I don't know if you
know this, but Jimmy's people, which says did he go
last as the what the you know, the final act,
which is usually something you want to do. Unfortunately, the
way it turned out, it was the morning I guess
it was the morning everyone had left. Thirty thousand people
(23:10):
just he played basically the big piles of trash. We're
talking about what's stock one and we's stock three? And
the discrepancies and what what the lessons are learned from
the first one versus the second one. I was talking
talking with longtime Globe report Steve Kirkchen, who was at
the first one. I was at the second and third.
I'll concentrated on the third. And when you, Steve as
(23:33):
you Oh no, I promised to go to Dennis in
New Dennis in New York for us. Here we go, Dennis,
how do you do?
Speaker 6 (23:45):
I'm doing well, Thanks for thanks for listening to mere.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Say to Steve and what what do you want to say?
Speaker 6 (23:52):
So I'm way up in true New York and he
had around that mountains and I'm wondering. I know Steve's
retired now been a long time since he was it
would stock. But what I'm interested in is with all
the iconic things he saw and heard during those three days,
what was the most memorable thing to him?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
It was it was the initial looking at the crowd,
being overwhelmed by the crowd. Thanks Dennis rustling that question,
because once I put on my boots and took my
notebook out and started taking notes. It was sort of
a familiar, just a big crowd story. I didn't cover
(24:40):
the music, but just what the fans reaction was to
being there, how much they were enjoying it and weathering it.
But it was this that period of adjustment of walking
down to the Prestent and walking in and seeing it's
a big, big pretent, tables that are filled with press
(25:03):
releases and the promotional materials of each group of the
thirty plus groups that would be coming on over the
next week, but there's nobody. There was one woman in
there and I told her I was from the Boston Globe.
She said, do you want a presscott. I said, yeap, please,
and I'll be covering it. It was just having access
(25:24):
to that and then seeing no other reporters there, And
I thought of this a few years ago that you know,
I might have been the first. I know EP was
reporting on it, but I think they were in the
local press from Manticello newspaper had a lot of people
stringers on the ground reporting and covering the crowds impact
(25:49):
on the community, but as far as out of town
reporter walking in and saying, this is a story which
is whatever any person who spent a week in the
journalism school or in a newsroom. You know this is
something different. I know what. I know what I'm supposed
(26:09):
to do. I'm supposed to stop everything else and go
out and start talking to people and seeing what brought
them there, and what they've seen and what they heard
and what they think. The next couple of days is
going to be like it was that period of time
and then coming home four nights later and only one
of which I spent in a at a hotel in
(26:32):
thinking well, I'm about to go back to law school nights.
And I think I was in the going into my
fourth year at Suffolk Night program.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It was a great program.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
But I'm never going to have last week. Last month
I was covered. I was trying to get similar Kennedy
to tell me some something about the accident they had
been in. And this month I'm talking to the promoter
of a of a of a of a of an
event as brought out three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand people.
I'm never going to be at the center of things
(27:06):
like I am as a reporter. I think I'll finish
law school, but I think I'll stay.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
In this.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
So on the way home.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It's kind of when you decided to say goodbye to
law school, and.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I's not say goodbye to the law school because I
would not go into law.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Is you finished that? Yeah? Didn't take the bar.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I did take the I did take the bar. I
took it twice, asked me to take it a second time.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Been the second time.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I did pass it, but the U but I never
had the yearning.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Okay, that's a good question, Dennis. Thank you so much
for the question. And well, Dave from Beverly's aer, we
might as well grab him, Dave, what's up? What do
you what do you have for us?
Speaker 7 (27:48):
He took He took the bar. I took the bar too,
a couple of times right outside bedway.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 7 (27:54):
But hey, would I toured? When I tuned in, you
guys were also talking about like like Boston music. You
covered that too, like local. I know you're talking about
Woodstock now, but I thought I heard you saying something about,
you know, local stuff. Because am I wrong?
Speaker 5 (28:11):
No?
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I definite covered local. We had it as the late
sixties early seventies, hired first Steve Morths and then Jim
Sullivan to cover rock music. It had been done by
really our jazz writer Ernest and Suassow. When I say, oh,
I mean the Boston Globes and so yes, I would
(28:33):
go to every time that Bruce, excuse me, that Van
Morrison keme to town. I was as close as I
could get, and every time Bruce came to town, close
as I could get. And unfortunately, only too late in
my life did I begin to appreciate John Prine. But
I would have been. I would have been a groupie
for John Prine. I love his writing so much.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Oh, thank you, Yeah, I appreciate it. And we have Dennis.
I want to squeeze Dennis in here, Dennis from Lowe.
How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (29:00):
Very well, very well. I was like twenty one years old,
nineteen sixty nine, and I was going to go to Woodstock,
but I heard the weather report was going to be
terrible in the crowds, the traffic, so I ended up
at the New York line, you know, Massachusetts New York line.
But anyway, I was going to say one of the performances,
I mean, there were so many great performances, you know
(29:22):
in Santana, and don't buy as I go on on Joplin,
But they were like in the morning, some of them
like all night launch. But one of the best performances
was Joe Cocker. What he did with a little help
from my friends, that was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
I think he came on Friday night after after Richie Havens.
In Richie Havens. You know, he's so melodic, he messaged
as in his songs, but and it was just he
He had a couple of people on on the I
(30:02):
mean his dumbags on the I mean on the drums,
but it was just he filled that three hundred thousand
And as I watched the director's cut of the movie
the other night, I saw here did not look up
for until after that first song, because it was it
(30:25):
was always looking at three hundred thousand people and there's
just one this adoration coming at him. I think it
would have been overwhelming. You know, it's not forty fifty thousand,
it's six seven times that. And but he was his performers,
they've got something else that you and you would me
(30:46):
don't have, you know, to just be able to stand
up and do your thing and have that voice in
that expertise on your instrument.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
You know, Dennis, I if I had to choose my favorite.
It's Santana Soul Sacrifice. Oh yeah, unbelievable, just transcendent. You
talk about music being transcendent seldom is this one was
because that's something you see all the time. And there
are separate clips all over the place, but each player
(31:16):
is off the zone.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Did I read that Carlos had taken a tab from Yeah?
Did you hear that did take the Jerry GOTSI he
was zoned out.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
If you take a look at the drummer, particularly the
dudes on a magic carbon I I don't know if
that's just musical ecstasy or something else.
Speaker 8 (31:43):
Thanks Dennis.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So before the quick break, I want to just say
that from what I hear from you, Steve, the message,
if there was a message, was hey, let's get along.
There's a lot of people here, we have to get along,
and in general, let's extrapolate beyond the thing the event.
It kind of was a message that resounded throughout the concert.
Let's get along, you know.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
The the the message in the message from the from
the announcers, from the uh I think Chipmunk was it
was so uh calming, uh even with the storm coming,
what to do, whom to take care of? What what
(32:29):
to watch out for. Come down from the come down
from the the uh, the the speakers UH set up
and they did. People did, and they they really had
a command, the command control of that audience. Uh. I.
(32:49):
I don't remember any fights. I don't remember any bickering.
I remember excuse me, excuse me? Uh or can you
pass that over here? And like I said, these are
their younger brothers and sisters of the average age we
probably was nineteen or twenty, and so they were not looking.
They were looking to get stoned and enjoy the way.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
And I maintained that was a snapshot, if if not
of all society at that time, the the society that
was up and coming.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Remember, the message is peace in love, right, it is
peace and music in peace. Because every day we're being
assaulted by the tragedy there by.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Everywhere in Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Unbelievable and in this country.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And now there are more sources beaming this tragedy into
our brains, and it's getting harder and harder. So after
this we'll move into what's Duck ninety nine, and that
we'll get into great, great detail on that. After this
on WBZ, You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ,
(34:04):
Boston's news radio. We reach him on night Side with
Dan Ray. I'm Bradley Jay filling in for Dan tonight,
and we resume with Steve Kirchen and we're talking about
the juxtaposition of the statements made by Woodstock one and
Woodstock three. There was another Woodstock in between, which I
also attended, which, as you might expect, was kind of
a mid point. So there's no real point in talking
(34:27):
about that. And I am intimately familiar with the just
a horrible mess that was Woodstock ninety nine. Steve is
a professional interviewer, so he's gonna ask me some questions
about it.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Why don't we go to the n first, Bradley, did
it finish? Did put Woodstock ninety nine complete?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
It's that's a great question. And pretty close you got
you got to the red hot chili peppers, and I
don't know if anything, it got pretty close because it
was pretty late at night, but I can't confirm that.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
But you did have some conflagration.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
You had some big time conflagration. Fires were being actual fires. Yeah,
if you want me to take a minute to describe.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
It, I want to hear that because that was so
different from anything.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
So come towards. I remember I interviewed twenty one people,
and I remember leaving the twenty first interview and thinking, wow,
that was hard work. I feel like I did a
good job. I'm going back to relax, have a beer
or something. And as the night night went down, things
and of course the music in the background. I will
(35:33):
tell you I didn't see much music. There's no way
I was going over there and standing that hell crowd.
I was reporting on it from kind of a distance
and interviewing. I was in the interview tent, the MTV
interview tent, so I was pretty isolated. While the people
that went to see the concert were treated pretty badly,
the artists and the press were treated very well. So
(35:54):
it was air conditioned. There was a cake of beer
in there, it was very nice. I would do one interview,
I have a glass of beer, and do another interview.
And I did that seven times a day for three days.
And so at the end the vibe became a little crazy,
and I wasn't understanding why because I wasn't seeing the band.
(36:17):
But the bands were not exactly saying let's all get along.
They were saying things like they break stuffing So the
first thing I knew of a problem was I was
doing a little on camera thing and I look over
(36:37):
in the distance and there's an explosion. And these are
explosions with a big thump. Is what I understand. Was
the refrigerator units on top of the refrigerator trucks were
heating up and exploding, So that's a big thing. And
along with that would be a fire. So you start
to see these fires on the horizon, and while I'm
on this, I guess I'll finish up with these observations. No,
(37:00):
right around just before that it happened, we were separated
from the sort of fans by a cheap chain link fence.
And I do remember the TV crews with their big
trucks and all their TV equipment. They grabbed all their
equipment right away and scurried into their trucks and locked
the doors, so they were all huddled in their equipment trucks.
(37:25):
And I do remember seeing police with long riot batons banging.
And this is something that if you're in the sixties
you might have been familiar with this kind of thing,
but not in the nineties and the almost of the
year two thousand, when you were confronted by a row
of policemen in battle helmets and big long sticks banging
(37:48):
on the payment. It's a little bit like the intimidation
probably attempted by Roman soldiers with their enemies. It's just
they're scaring you. It's like, I'm not messing with that.
So I saw that, and then more and more fires
to break out, and more and more frequent explosions, and
again we were we were kind of protected that, but
(38:09):
we didn't that chainling fence could have come down. So
there was a big worry that they would decide, oh,
the press are part of the problem bush and and
we were nervous about that. But it did not take place,
and you know, we went we went back to our accommodations,
probably nine o'clock. I do remember speaking though of a
(38:29):
final band and this this may have might have exacerbated
the situation. There were rumors on the on the last
day there was going to be some sort of surprise guest,
and there's speculation, there was speculation, I'm not saying, but
there was speculation that there was there was going to
be some secret like big act come out at the end,
(38:52):
and there wasn't, and that might have been the thing
all of a sudden lights out. That's it. That might
have been the thing that set them off. All right,
great hour, I hope you can stay. It's WBC
It's Nice Size with Dan Ray on wb Z, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is WBZ News Radio ten thirty Nice Side with
Dan Ray. I'm Bradley Jay in for Dan. Our next
guest is a fantastically interesting guy, a straight talking important guy.
He was a founding member of the Globes Investigative Spotlight Team,
later became an editor. Please welcome Steve Kirkchin to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Nice to see you again.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Nice to see you, and we're gonna actually cover a
pretty wide gamut. The main thrust of this was that
we were going to talk about but we're going to
compare Woodstock one with Woodstock ninety nine and see what
the what the country, the culture looked like with that
snapshot presented by Woodstock one, and compare that with the
(00:50):
snapshot provided by Woodstock ninety nine, and see where the
country went wrong, where the culture went wrong, and try
to identify and the reason this is appointed there's a
couple of reasons. One this being the eighteenth, I believe
is the anniversary of the last day of the first Woodstock.
The dates don't actually matter, but I think I have
it right. And Steve was there and it was one
(01:14):
of his early assignments as a reporter, and that story
in itself, Steve's a great storyteller, is going to be compelling. Then,
as fate would have it, I happened to be covering
the other end of that bookke nd Wouldstock ninety nine.
I was there very early and saw it all and it,
(01:36):
trust me, it was gruesome. So we'll compare the two.
What Steve saw was kind of provided some hope, maybe idyllic.
It was idyllic, and it was an accident. Maybe that's
one of the reasons it was idyllic. It wasn't trying
too hard, It just kind of happened. My situation was
entirely different. I hope some of you, as I suggested,
(01:58):
watched train Wreck Woodstock ninety nine, which is a three
part documentary on that, And if you didn't watch that,
you probably don't have a real handle on how terrible
it was and what an ugly picture of it painted.
It painted of our culture. So I'll do that for
you in case you didn't have a chance to watch that.
But before we get into that, and we have no
(02:21):
hurry here, I invite you to call and chat with us,
ask any question you want of Steve about anything, six, one, seven, two, five, four, ten, thirty.
I believe this is the number, is still right, Rob Good.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Especially if you have if you were lucky left enough
to have gone to Woodstock in Bethel, New York in
nineteen sixty August of nineteen sixty nine. Right, it was
an extraordinary weekend. Some friends I've met over the years came,
passed through, spent the night or two, and left, but
(02:58):
in mourned. I regretted that they stay until what I
thought was the most extraordinary Monday morning when Jimmy Hendrix
came on and played the saucepag Olbana with his solo
electric guitar.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
All right, we're going to get to all that. But
you and I have a very interesting history that relates
to WBZ, so it would be shame to not go
through that. I first met you as a host here
at WBZ, and actually it's truly, I'm honestly saying, it's
one of the great pleasures of working at WBZ. To
meet you, I was one of the big deals. Don't laugh,
it's true. Don't make me feel bad about being vulnerable,
(03:38):
and go ahead. I love it. It's been a long time,
so you know, we've we've hung out, we you know,
hang out of Castle Island and what else did we do?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You gave me the the tour, the crime tour of
the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum, because you have studied that
and researched that a great deal. You have your theories
on that. And you actually took me to the street
in Watertown where the shootout that occurred during the marathon
(04:12):
bombing manhunt took place. Which is that that resonates with
me because that was my first news story coverage ever.
I was a talk show host and one night about
I'd say, you know, just after midnight, somewhere between midnight
and one, we started getting these reports. And of course
(04:33):
the whole city was on edge because of the bombing
and there was a search on for the perpetrators. And
I started getting reports of waves of police moving across
the city and it started to sound like something was
going on. Then we got various reports coming in and
that was up to me, and it was my I
(04:54):
had zero experience of this, but I had to just
you know, I had to pay attention and focus and
not make it terrible mistake, do the best I could,
and it worked out. Producer Mark Levala was a very
big help, and the bosses came in and they were
great as guides. But after having had that experience, to
go with you to that very street and look at
(05:17):
the which is a very substentially armenion populated district area
neighborhood in Watertown and which I had never walked on,
but you and I did, and you knew where the
bullet holes were and things that had happened, and you
(05:38):
had these stories within a story that was quite intense,
and you have an interesting story related to that evolving
your sister.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yea, my late sister. Late everyone in Watertown, the town
had been shut down. The entire city was shut down,
but certainly Watertown had because that's where the shootout had
taken place the night before, which Bradley has talked about
covering here at BZ and Uh I'm living. I was
(06:10):
living in Plymouth then, and I got a call from
my sister who said, around one o'clock in the afternoon, Stephen,
there's a lot of police hanging out building up across
the street in the parking lot of the church next.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
To my house.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Uh, and I sat to her call. A little bit
older than me, and I said, Carolyn, Uh, do you
know how to use the camera on your phone? Yes, yes,
I've already used it one hundred times for my grandkids.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Great.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Great, that's how we all earned And Uh. Turned out
they were there because of a miscommunication on their police
radios as to a woman being held hostage in her
house by a man with a gun. That phone call
(06:57):
had been made by the Cambridge police about a woman
in Cambridge, but it got picked up in Watertown, and
the woman in Cambridge lived at three Langdon Street in Cambridge.
What the Watertown of what the police in Watertown heard
was only there's a woman being held hostage at three
(07:19):
Langdon by a man with a gun. And my sister
her home was on or is on has been on
three Langdon and Watertown and that build up that she
saw across the street where the waiting for the armored
truck to come into the parking lot. And there, as
I later learned, seventy five police officers dressed in black
(07:42):
aiming at her house, believing that af was holding her captive. Thankfully,
the Boston the command of that SWAT unit was under
the under the command of a of a commite and
of a Boston police who had undergone training for hostages,
(08:06):
and he very gingerly, carefully called her inside the house,
asked her to come out onto the porch and to
hold her phone up in the air, and said to
her do you do you have anything under you? And
she said no, no, So what is this all about?
(08:28):
And it really never made the papers. I wrote the
story when I got clearance from the city to get
the the to get the tapes. The only reason they
gave me the tapes, though, is because they saw that,
you know, she had been not badly treated, but mistreated,
but in this raid of her house, and there was
(08:50):
a possibility of a lawsuit. And the mayor called me
and she said to me, is she going to sue
the city for this raid at her house? And I said,
well me ask her hold her up, I said, Carolyn
Maya wants to know if you're going to sue the city.
She said, sue the city. I'm a graduate of Dorchester. Hi,
I would never sue the city. And she was a
(09:12):
concierge and one of her wonderful jobs at Boston Park Plaza.
I would never sue the city. But if the police
would just come to the house, and explain to me
what happened, because they never really explained to me. And
they did. The Commissioner Davis and the coal Maleiden who
knows a security chief for the Red Sox, came and
(09:34):
they talked her through it, and lovingly she gave a
little frame with the photo with the painting of the
skaters on frog Pond and asked them to give it
to the parents of the young Asian Chinese woman who
had been killed at marathon bombing. But you know, it's
(09:58):
it's a very very sad story to be telling now
because my sister passed away last month.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, thank you for thank you for that, and thank
you for getting allowing me to you're not sharing that.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, you're a great woman.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So we take a break, and now I open the
lines up and we're going to start talking about woodstock
and the woodstocks. You could teach a college course on
the difference between the woodstock sixty nine, sixty nine and
ninety nine and what happened to the country, and you
can kind of glean information from these two events that
gives you some ideas. I have some thoughts on it,
(10:34):
and I know Steven has thoughts on it, and that's
coming up on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w B Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
It's a nice Tell You with Dan Ray Bradley for
Dan's special guest Steve Kirchen, and we are now going
to delve into Woodstock one, wo'dstoc three and the slide
in the American culture. In between that the snapshaws are
the two evidenced and Steve let's tay call it Jack
in Newton? Hello, Jack, how are you doing? Say ahead
(11:05):
to Steve YEA.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
How you doing? Steve? Jack Porter? We know each other.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Oh good, you'd like to hear your voice? Jack? How
you being?
Speaker 5 (11:12):
How you done? Yeah, we've covered a lot of interesting
stuff we got in Witchtack. I was a reporter for
the Northwestern Daily, which was Northwestern University, and I remember
talking to the editor saying, Hey, we could cover this thing.
It sounds like a pretty wild conference, I mean a concert,
(11:33):
and my editor said, ah, there'll be another one. Yeah,
it's just one of many. So I didn't, well, was.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
That sixty nine because there hadn't been I don't know
if any that had been leading.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Up to that, although I think there were others, but
you know, they just looked at it as just another
rock concert. I guess he just waited to be not
so I missed it, but I did visit the site
years later. But I did go to the follow ups,
(12:08):
and they were pretty strange. I think it was ninety nine,
or was at the twenty fifth, maybe ninety four. There
wasn't one, but there were like.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Three of us. Yeah, one was well, and maybe you
could explain it to me why there were three separate venuars.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Well, they tried, and they tried. I watched a bit
at Bradley's suggestion, I watched a bit of train Wreck
this afternoon, and because I had known it it ended
so poorly, badly, I wasn't compelled to watch it until
Bradley said, you know, it'd be good to talk about it.
There was an attempt in ninety four, but it never
(12:46):
got carried off. Michael Lane had who had been the
reels driving force on the sixty nine event, still with
a full head of hair, when to start it again
and twenty four, but it never got off the ground.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
But he was.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
A consultant, I guess in the ninety nine event, and
he plays an important role in his talking about you
know why it went off? The rail so badly in
ninety nine. I mean, you can make some sweeping judgments
about the the quality of the of the of the kids,
(13:27):
the which I will do later Bradley, Bradley is still
fumes about. But also the bands, you know, the you
go through our the list, there's hot rockers, but it
was melodic rocket roll with each group, and you didn't
(13:53):
have the angry, aggressive rock rual groups that I mean.
He was particularly corn that I watched several minutes of
the in the ninety nine event. I mean, except for
(14:14):
Rage against the Machine, I'm not sure there was another
group that was at ninety nine that I would have
been compelled to see.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
So there was one one that he a went to
and we were all hoping, you know, that the Rolling
Stones would show up, but that was just a rumor.
In sixty nine.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
There was only one person who didn't show up, who
whom we all thought would show up as Dylan, because
Dylan was up in a village of you know, a
mile a couple of hundred, one hundred miles away, and
that's where he was recuperating from his motorcycle accident in
(14:56):
sixty five. And here we are in sixty nine and
I remember writing about it saying, you know, I can't
figure out what this whole event is about. Says about us,
says about the kids, says about the rock and old music,
says about society. You know, that's that's where deep think
is like. But I the only person who tell me
(15:19):
what this thing holds all about. We Bob Dylan and
I until the end, I thought he was going to
come out and give us a lecture and say this
is what it's about, and this is where we're going
with it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Well, thank you very much, Jack, appreciate that. And one moment,
in a moment, we'll go to New York Tennis in
New York. But first I want to ask Steve how
he came to be involved in covering it. A fun
little story.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, I had just become staff at the Boston Globe,
which means I was subject to the union rules, which
at that time every member of the staff had to
take at least one week off during the summer. And
I was trying to figure out the of my life
at the time, and I was head in my third
(16:04):
or fourth year of law school nights, so the best
time of my life was sitting in the middle of
the Globe newsroom covering stories and seeing my name in
the paper a day or two later, and I did
not want to take a week off, and they said,
you have to. The previous month I had been at
un chap Equittick at Bathasvinyad covering Ceneta Kennedy's accident and
(16:28):
with the death of Mary Joe Capecney, and you know,
held up on that. And when I came back, I
just wanted to get back to covering the the the
anti war protest, which was by sort of my assignment
for that summer. And they said, no, you have to
take a week off. So I remember looking at the
New York Times that Sunday morning and down below there
(16:52):
was one I had had the groups of you know,
you see the who Jedish, Shoplet, Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young and I was just into them, you know, canned heat,
sly in the family Stone, unbelievable groups. And I said, Oh,
that's what I'll That's what I'll do. I'll go there.
So there was a young man sitting next to me
in Northeastern intern at the Globe, Mark Flanagain, and I said, Mark,
(17:16):
are you interested? He said, let's do it. So I
had my two cylinder SOB filled it up in them
Friday Friday morning, picked them up in Northeastern and we
got out to the all the way out to the
pike to the New York state line, found our way
to the exit for Bethel, New York, and then got
stuck at the walk the walk on the hitchhike for
(17:39):
the last ten to fifteen miles to get into the
to get into the to get it to the camp
to the grounds. And I remember as we walked up,
all the chain fences were knocked down. It was swarming,
swarming with people. And I said to Mark, Mark, this
is you know, which is sort of sort of picked
(18:05):
the phrase of my life. There's something about this that's
that I think belongs to the paper. So I found
my way down to the press tent and then they
typed out a card for me, which I still have
misspells my name, but so doesn't any anybody who's typing
out by name. And UH, and that was it. That
(18:25):
was if I stayed from Friday night and calling in UH.
At the time, they had watch what was called a
Watts line W A T S, which what stood for
I kind of remember that now and you call They
had a bank of phones that had uh, you know,
pick it up and you get an out of state
(18:47):
operator and connect the beach of the globe in ten
seconds and talking to the reporter who's doing the rewrite
for me, and did that for for next four nights
xt four days.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
How did you fit into the group? You know, you
were a working reporter. A lot of those folks were
not that kind of person like were you? Did you
look like Joe Friday?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I had jeans and T shirts just like everyone else
that I was going to enjoy the music, and I
had Brenda and George Romanos's sleeping bag that they had
lent me, and you know, I was just gonna stay
out to the under the stars and enjoy forty three
four days for music.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
And yeah, did you enjoy it at the time or
only kind of in the in the kindness.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I remember enjoying covering the story I switched from but
every time I stopped covering the story just to sit
down and listen to them. They were our long breaks
before the next roofs go on. So that got a
little tedious. But you know, you're trying to find a
bathroom or get some water or something to eat.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
What you eat, I don't remember much of you didn't
have any food with you, No, No, I had.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Some money in my pocket, so I knew. But soon enough.
The original concern was when I got there and I
picked up the phone and called into the Globe newsroom.
Jim Stack, who's the rewrite guy pre reight person, said
to me, start filing. And I said file what? And
he says, haven't you heard they're going to shut it down.
(20:18):
This is around five o'clock at night on Friday night.
And I said shut Why are they going to shut
it down? And he says, because it's turning into a
Vietnam War protest? And I had no I knew, And
I said, Jimmy, this is not a Vietnam War part.
Kids are here enjoy a rock and roll and smoke
a lot of dope, and no one's getting in the
way of either one of them. He says, well, get
(20:38):
me that on the record. So I walked down to
the to the to the band. The band said that
was being built and I found I guess it was
Michael Lang. I vague memory of chatting with him, and
he said, I said, there's word that the governor, then
Rockefeller is worried. He's gonna and then the state troopers
(21:01):
to shut this down. And he said why. And he
said why, I said, the thing's can turn into a
Vietnam War protestants unruly. He says, if we stopped, if
we didn't go on, these kids would go crazy. We're
going on. It's gonna be fine. Don't worry about And
I knew, having covered these were not those kids throwing
(21:22):
rocks and bottles at a few of them at Vietnam
War protests. These were the younger brothers and sisters, all right.
They were here to enjoy music.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And we're going to continue with Steve Kirkton, longtime reporter
after this on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
With Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
There you go. That's Jimmy Hendricks version of Stars Mago
Banner at Woodstock a little I don't know if you
know this, but Jimmy's people, which says did he go
last as the what the you know, the final act,
which is usually something you want to do. Unfortunately, the
way it turned out, it was the morning I guess
it was the morning everyone had left. Thirty thousand people
(23:10):
just he played basically the big piles of trash. We're
talking about what's stock one and we's stock three? And
the discrepancies and what what the lessons are learned from
the first one versus the second one. I was talking
talking with longtime Globe report Steve Kirkchen, who was at
the first one. I was at the second and third.
I'll concentrated on the third. And when you, Steve as
(23:33):
you Oh no, I promised to go to Dennis in
New Dennis in New York for us. Here we go, Dennis,
how do you do?
Speaker 6 (23:45):
I'm doing well, Thanks for thanks for listening to mere.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Say to Steve and what what do you want to say?
Speaker 6 (23:52):
So I'm way up in true New York and he
had around that mountains and I'm wondering. I know Steve's
retired now been a long time since he was it
would stock. But what I'm interested in is with all
the iconic things he saw and heard during those three days,
what was the most memorable thing to him?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
It was it was the initial looking at the crowd,
being overwhelmed by the crowd. Thanks Dennis rustling that question,
because once I put on my boots and took my
notebook out and started taking notes. It was sort of
a familiar, just a big crowd story. I didn't cover
(24:40):
the music, but just what the fans reaction was to
being there, how much they were enjoying it and weathering it.
But it was this that period of adjustment of walking
down to the Prestent and walking in and seeing it's
a big, big pretent, tables that are filled with press
(25:03):
releases and the promotional materials of each group of the
thirty plus groups that would be coming on over the
next week, but there's nobody. There was one woman in
there and I told her I was from the Boston Globe.
She said, do you want a presscott. I said, yeap, please,
and I'll be covering it. It was just having access
(25:24):
to that and then seeing no other reporters there, And
I thought of this a few years ago that you know,
I might have been the first. I know EP was
reporting on it, but I think they were in the
local press from Manticello newspaper had a lot of people
stringers on the ground reporting and covering the crowds impact
(25:49):
on the community, but as far as out of town
reporter walking in and saying, this is a story which
is whatever any person who spent a week in the
journalism school or in a newsroom. You know this is
something different. I know what. I know what I'm supposed
(26:09):
to do. I'm supposed to stop everything else and go
out and start talking to people and seeing what brought
them there, and what they've seen and what they heard
and what they think. The next couple of days is
going to be like it was that period of time
and then coming home four nights later and only one
of which I spent in a at a hotel in
(26:32):
thinking well, I'm about to go back to law school nights.
And I think I was in the going into my
fourth year at Suffolk Night program.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It was a great program.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
But I'm never going to have last week. Last month
I was covered. I was trying to get similar Kennedy
to tell me some something about the accident they had
been in. And this month I'm talking to the promoter
of a of a of a of a of an
event as brought out three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand people.
I'm never going to be at the center of things
(27:06):
like I am as a reporter. I think I'll finish
law school, but I think I'll stay.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
In this.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
So on the way home.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It's kind of when you decided to say goodbye to
law school, and.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I's not say goodbye to the law school because I
would not go into law.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Is you finished that? Yeah? Didn't take the bar.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I did take the I did take the bar. I
took it twice, asked me to take it a second time.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Been the second time.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I did pass it, but the U but I never
had the yearning.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Okay, that's a good question, Dennis. Thank you so much
for the question. And well, Dave from Beverly's aer, we
might as well grab him, Dave, what's up? What do
you what do you have for us?
Speaker 7 (27:48):
He took He took the bar. I took the bar too,
a couple of times right outside bedway.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 7 (27:54):
But hey, would I toured? When I tuned in, you
guys were also talking about like like Boston music. You
covered that too, like local. I know you're talking about
Woodstock now, but I thought I heard you saying something about,
you know, local stuff. Because am I wrong?
Speaker 5 (28:11):
No?
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I definite covered local. We had it as the late
sixties early seventies, hired first Steve Morths and then Jim
Sullivan to cover rock music. It had been done by
really our jazz writer Ernest and Suassow. When I say, oh,
I mean the Boston Globes and so yes, I would
(28:33):
go to every time that Bruce, excuse me, that Van
Morrison keme to town. I was as close as I
could get, and every time Bruce came to town, close
as I could get. And unfortunately, only too late in
my life did I begin to appreciate John Prine. But
I would have been. I would have been a groupie
for John Prine. I love his writing so much.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Oh, thank you, Yeah, I appreciate it. And we have Dennis.
I want to squeeze Dennis in here, Dennis from Lowe.
How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (29:00):
Very well, very well. I was like twenty one years old,
nineteen sixty nine, and I was going to go to Woodstock,
but I heard the weather report was going to be
terrible in the crowds, the traffic, so I ended up
at the New York line, you know, Massachusetts New York line.
But anyway, I was going to say one of the performances,
I mean, there were so many great performances, you know
(29:22):
in Santana, and don't buy as I go on on Joplin,
But they were like in the morning, some of them
like all night launch. But one of the best performances
was Joe Cocker. What he did with a little help
from my friends, that was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
I think he came on Friday night after after Richie Havens.
In Richie Havens. You know, he's so melodic, he messaged
as in his songs, but and it was just he
He had a couple of people on on the I
(30:02):
mean his dumbags on the I mean on the drums,
but it was just he filled that three hundred thousand
And as I watched the director's cut of the movie
the other night, I saw here did not look up
for until after that first song, because it was it
(30:25):
was always looking at three hundred thousand people and there's
just one this adoration coming at him. I think it
would have been overwhelming. You know, it's not forty fifty thousand,
it's six seven times that. And but he was his performers,
they've got something else that you and you would me
(30:46):
don't have, you know, to just be able to stand
up and do your thing and have that voice in
that expertise on your instrument.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
You know, Dennis, I if I had to choose my favorite.
It's Santana Soul Sacrifice. Oh yeah, unbelievable, just transcendent. You
talk about music being transcendent seldom is this one was
because that's something you see all the time. And there
are separate clips all over the place, but each player
(31:16):
is off the zone.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Did I read that Carlos had taken a tab from Yeah?
Did you hear that did take the Jerry GOTSI he
was zoned out.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
If you take a look at the drummer, particularly the
dudes on a magic carbon I I don't know if
that's just musical ecstasy or something else.
Speaker 8 (31:43):
Thanks Dennis.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So before the quick break, I want to just say
that from what I hear from you, Steve, the message,
if there was a message, was hey, let's get along.
There's a lot of people here, we have to get along,
and in general, let's extrapolate beyond the thing the event.
It kind of was a message that resounded throughout the concert.
Let's get along, you know.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
The the the message in the message from the from
the announcers, from the uh I think Chipmunk was it
was so uh calming, uh even with the storm coming,
what to do, whom to take care of? What what
(32:29):
to watch out for. Come down from the come down
from the the uh, the the speakers UH set up
and they did. People did, and they they really had
a command, the command control of that audience. Uh. I.
(32:49):
I don't remember any fights. I don't remember any bickering.
I remember excuse me, excuse me? Uh or can you
pass that over here? And like I said, these are
their younger brothers and sisters of the average age we
probably was nineteen or twenty, and so they were not looking.
They were looking to get stoned and enjoy the way.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
And I maintained that was a snapshot, if if not
of all society at that time, the the society that
was up and coming.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Remember, the message is peace in love, right, it is
peace and music in peace. Because every day we're being
assaulted by the tragedy there by.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Everywhere in Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Unbelievable and in this country.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And now there are more sources beaming this tragedy into
our brains, and it's getting harder and harder. So after
this we'll move into what's Duck ninety nine, and that
we'll get into great, great detail on that. After this
on WBZ, You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ,
(34:04):
Boston's news radio. We reach him on night Side with
Dan Ray. I'm Bradley Jay filling in for Dan tonight,
and we resume with Steve Kirchen and we're talking about
the juxtaposition of the statements made by Woodstock one and
Woodstock three. There was another Woodstock in between, which I
also attended, which, as you might expect, was kind of
a mid point. So there's no real point in talking
(34:27):
about that. And I am intimately familiar with the just
a horrible mess that was Woodstock ninety nine. Steve is
a professional interviewer, so he's gonna ask me some questions
about it.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Why don't we go to the n first, Bradley, did
it finish? Did put Woodstock ninety nine complete?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
It's that's a great question. And pretty close you got
you got to the red hot chili peppers, and I
don't know if anything, it got pretty close because it
was pretty late at night, but I can't confirm that.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
But you did have some conflagration.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
You had some big time conflagration. Fires were being actual fires. Yeah,
if you want me to take a minute to describe.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
It, I want to hear that because that was so
different from anything.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
So come towards. I remember I interviewed twenty one people,
and I remember leaving the twenty first interview and thinking, wow,
that was hard work. I feel like I did a
good job. I'm going back to relax, have a beer
or something. And as the night night went down, things
and of course the music in the background. I will
(35:33):
tell you I didn't see much music. There's no way
I was going over there and standing that hell crowd.
I was reporting on it from kind of a distance
and interviewing. I was in the interview tent, the MTV
interview tent, so I was pretty isolated. While the people
that went to see the concert were treated pretty badly,
the artists and the press were treated very well. So
(35:54):
it was air conditioned. There was a cake of beer
in there, it was very nice. I would do one interview,
I have a glass of beer, and do another interview.
And I did that seven times a day for three days.
And so at the end the vibe became a little crazy,
and I wasn't understanding why because I wasn't seeing the band.
(36:17):
But the bands were not exactly saying let's all get along.
They were saying things like they break stuffing So the
first thing I knew of a problem was I was
doing a little on camera thing and I look over
(36:37):
in the distance and there's an explosion. And these are
explosions with a big thump. Is what I understand. Was
the refrigerator units on top of the refrigerator trucks were
heating up and exploding, So that's a big thing. And
along with that would be a fire. So you start
to see these fires on the horizon, and while I'm
on this, I guess I'll finish up with these observations. No,
(37:00):
right around just before that it happened, we were separated
from the sort of fans by a cheap chain link fence.
And I do remember the TV crews with their big
trucks and all their TV equipment. They grabbed all their
equipment right away and scurried into their trucks and locked
the doors, so they were all huddled in their equipment trucks.
(37:25):
And I do remember seeing police with long riot batons banging.
And this is something that if you're in the sixties
you might have been familiar with this kind of thing,
but not in the nineties and the almost of the
year two thousand, when you were confronted by a row
of policemen in battle helmets and big long sticks banging
(37:48):
on the payment. It's a little bit like the intimidation
probably attempted by Roman soldiers with their enemies. It's just
they're scaring you. It's like, I'm not messing with that.
So I saw that, and then more and more fires
to break out, and more and more frequent explosions, and
again we were we were kind of protected that, but
(38:09):
we didn't that chainling fence could have come down. So
there was a big worry that they would decide, oh,
the press are part of the problem bush and and
we were nervous about that. But it did not take place,
and you know, we went we went back to our accommodations,
probably nine o'clock. I do remember speaking though of a
(38:29):
final band and this this may have might have exacerbated
the situation. There were rumors on the on the last
day there was going to be some sort of surprise guest,
and there's speculation, there was speculation, I'm not saying, but
there was speculation that there was there was going to
be some secret like big act come out at the end,
(38:52):
and there wasn't, and that might have been the thing
all of a sudden lights out. That's it. That might
have been the thing that set them off. All right,
great hour, I hope you can stay. It's WBC
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