Remembering Woodstock: John Sebastian : Rolling Stone

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John Sebastian

I just showed up backstage and asked Chip Monck [the stage manager and announcer] if I could help. He said, "millions of people are coming, and we're not prepared. We don't have much of a staff, and everything is sort of improvised." I'd just been living in a Volkswagen-bus tent in a muddy little culvert in L.A., so I told Chip, "I know how to live in these things." He said, "Great, you're in charge of the tent." So I became the welcoming committee. I'd show people how to keep their guitars dry. Don't walk into the tent with muddy feet, you know. That first night I slept with the Incredible String Band, all their instruments and lots of other people in this eight-by-eight-foot space. It was hilarious.

I consider Woodstock one of my lousiest performances, because by the time I was asked to play I was as stoned as everybody else. It had been raining, and Chip approached me: "John, we need someone to hold the stage with an acoustic instrument, because we've got to sweep the stage before we can even put an amp on it."

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