Mountain's Leslie West on why performing at Woodstock was such a thrill JimmyDean 50thAnniversary
got on the show because our booking agent also handled Jimi Hendrix. I remember watching Creedence, Sly and the Family Stone, the Who. And I was thinking, “How can I topWe hired our own helicopter ’cause we had heard that it would be chaos getting up there. When we flew over in the helicopter, it felt like something out of. There was a first-aid kit, and I opened it up and took out an amyl nitrite popper. I looked out at that crowd, and I almost fell out of the helicopter.
I think I had the most amplifiers of anybody there. It was paralyzing because that stage, that setting, was some kind of natural amphitheater. The sound was so loud and shocking that I got scared. But once I started playing, I just kept going because I was afraid to stop. There were bagels backstage, and they were going real quick. I remember that distinctly because our manager brought these barbecued chickens up in the helicopter — his wife had told him he’d better bring something to eat, and we were the only ones with food. Well, with all the smoke that was there, the appetites were crazy, and there was absolutely nothing to eat. We could have probably sold those chickens for like five grand apiece.
A version of this story was originally published in the August 24th, 1989 print edition of Rolling Stone.
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