The Desert Trip festival may appeal to the Woodstock crowd, and the Who and Neil Young were on both bills, but the events couldn’t be more different.
Lance Albrecht, 65, remembers being at Woodstock as a teenager in 1969 and says he’s a lot more comfortable at Desert Trip.
“You can’t compare them,” he said. “It’s not even close.”
The three-day Desert Trip concert features a legendary line-up of classic rock acts. Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones played on Friday. Young and Paul McCartney performed on Saturday, and The Who and Roger Waters closed the festival on Sunday night. The festival repeats next weekend.
Woodstock was a muddy mess, Albrecht said, and once you got in, you couldn’t get out.
“It was thrown together,” he said. “There wasn’t any food or anything.”
Desert Trip, on the other hand, boasts gourmet dining, air-conditioned bathrooms and a museum-style photo exhibit of the rock icons performing at the show. It’s aimed at an older and more moneyed crowd than most music festivals, earning it the nickname “Oldchella.” Albrecht said he’d happily attend again if it’s offered, and he doesn’t mind the mocking nickname: “We embrace it.”
Gary Schultz and Ross Pringle came from Alberta, Canada, to attend Desert Trip. They bought tickets as soon as they went on sale because they had never seen any of the bands live before.
“The Stones were even better than I thought they’d be,” said Pringle, 59.
Sunday night saw The Who rock through hits for more than two hours.
Guitarist Pete Townshend came out carrying a bottle of oral rehydration drink Pedialyte.
“Well, here the [expletive] we are,” he said. “You all come to watch old people dance?”
Frontman Roger Daltrey swung his microphone around before the band opened with Can’t Explain, followed by The Seeker.
“We love you for coming to see us,” he said, dedicating The Kids Are Alright to “the young ones” in the audience.
The band’s set also included My Generation, with Daltrey stuttering the vocals just right, along with You Better You Bet, Eminence Front, The Acid Queen and Pinball Wizard.
Before playing I Can See for Miles, Townsend said the song was their first hit in the United States, back in 1967.
“Such a long [expletive] time ago,” he said with a laugh. “We were 1967’s version of Adele or Lady Gaga or Rihanna or Bieber.”
It’s been 49 years, but the rockers maintained their classic sound and trademark moves: Daltrey swung his microphone cord around anytime he wasn’t singing, and Townsend exaggerated his windmill move as he strummed.
“Roger and I are so glad to be out here at our age,” Townsend said. “And I couldn’t do it without Roger.”
They were backed by six musicians, including Townsend’s brother, Simon.
Paul’s full of love
The night before, Young joined McCartney briefly during his set to perform A Day in the Life, which morphed into John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance. The audience flashed peace signs as they sang along. Young played lead guitar to duet with McCartney on Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?.
“Thank you, Neil,” McCartney, 74, said when his friend left the stage. “I love that boy!”
McCartney’s headlining two-hour performance was full of love. He paid tribute to his late wife and his current spouse during the performance, along with George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones.
He sang Maybe I’m Amazed for the late Linda McCartney, and he dedicated My Valentine to his wife, Nancy, ahead of their fifth wedding anniversary on Sunday.
He brought out a ukulele to perform Harrison’s Something, but stopped the song almost as soon as he started.
“I’m out of tune,” McCartney said, alone on stage. “I’m going to get another one.”
A stagehand brought him another ukulele and McCartney began again.
“At least it proves we’re live, right?” he cracked.
Backed by a four-piece band, he played a few bars of Foxy Lady to honour Hendrix. He recognised the Stones with I Wanna Be Your Man, which McCartney and Lennon wrote for their colleagues in the early 1960s.
(The Rolling Stones headlined the first night of Desert Trip and covered the Beatles’ hit Come Together. Mick Jagger introduced it by saying, “We’re going to do a cover song of some unknown beat group.”)
Besides ukulele, McCartney played bass, guitar and piano. He performed his earliest (pre-Beatles) recording, In Spite of All the Danger from 1958, and his most recent track, FourFive Seconds, made last year with Kanye West and Rihanna.
McCartney accompanied himself on guitar for Blackbird, explaining that he wrote the song in the late 1960s after hearing of the civil rights struggles in the United States. He also shared stories about his first recording session with the Beatles, saying he can “still hear the nerves in my voice” on Love Me Do.
Also included in his set: A Hard Day’s Night, Can’t Buy Me Love, Eleanor Rigby, Helter Skelter, Band on the Run, Let it Be and Back in the U.S.S.R.
