how long is the star spangled banner song performed

Hendrix’s guitar plays over shots of the emptied field with sleeping bags, wet cardboard, and trash strewn all over the muddy ground. This was dramatically illustrated in the director’s cut of Michael Wadleigh’s documentary that captures much of the essence of this watershed event. We kind of sensed that we could change the world for three days but the rest of the world wasn’t with us, and we knew that it was going to be a real culture shock coming back into society.” Laureen Starobin, one of the attendees, says in the same documentary, “We so did not want to leave.

It drove home the reality that this massive love-in had reached its end.

Country Joe McDonald famously led attendees in a sing-a-long of the antiwar anthem, “Fish Cheer.” But the guitar virtuoso punctured a kind of bubble that had enveloped people throughout the weekend. Hendrix was not the only artist to explicitly or implicitly reference the Vietnam War. It was the devastation and the brutality and the insanity.” Tom Law, a member of the Hog Farm collective, which helped with food and security at the festival, said, “We’re at the most peaceful gathering that was probably happening on the planet at the time, and he hooked us up with Vietnam. I’d never heard anything like that in my life.” It sounded exactly like rockets, missiles, and bombs bursting in air. national anthem before, but his rendition had never achieved such a glorious sonic impact.Īs journalist Barnard Collier recalled for PBS’ “Woodstock” documentary, “Into my head stabbed this sound. In the set, Hendrix smoothly segues into the “Star Spangled Banner” after completing “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).” As his guitar distorts and wails the last notes, he launches into “Purple Haze.” The national anthem was part of a medley of songs. By the time he was introduced, many of the attendees had left to return home. Technical and weather delays led to the only morning performance he ever did for an audience. He had top-billing and was supposed to take the stage Sunday evening.

Hendrix was the last act to take the stage. It was fifty years ago that Jimi Hendrix performed the United States national anthem during a Monday morning for tens of thousands of people at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

How long is the star spangled banner song performed