Search - Jefferson Airplane :: Jefferson Airplane: The Woodstock Experience

Morning maniac music, to be sure...

Jeff Mark | California | 10/26/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've got a real love-hate (or love-haight?) relationship with this item. I'll start by saying the performance is totally astounding. Really. I don't have superlatives enough. In that, I agree with almost everyone else here. The "Wooden Ships" by itself would justify the price. I don't know if it was the energy of the event, or the "whole lotta orange" they got earlier, or whatever it was that was keeping them awake a 5:30 AM, but this is perhaps the most intense performance that I have (which is most of what's available commercially and a couple of bootlegs).



But I can't get past the packaging. I don't mean the liner notes (such as they are) or the poster (which is OK), or the (plastic-free) enclosure (bravo for that). Those are terrific; I would have preferred better notes maybe, but that's a preference. What I don't quite understand was the need to include a copy of "Volunteers".



I do understand on one level. The Airplane set is 100 minutes, too long for one CD, and not quite enough for two. Again, I wouldn't have minded two CDs of just the Airplane set -- for $15? -- in the least. But someone decided they needed some filler, but they weren't willing to spend any money. So they used the most recent edition of "Volunteers", the 2004 remaster (which for some reason doesn't sound quite as good as the 2004 edition itself), rather than get the rights to some other as-yet-unreleased tracks, say, or produce more thorough notes, as a way of justifying the second CD. I note that the Sly & the Family Stone and Janis versions of this series get the whole set on one CD; so the 2d CD is then only to enhance the package. Unfortunately, neither "Kozmic Blues" nor "Stand" have been remastered, so if you already have these CDs (or the 2004 "Volunteers") this seems redundant.



I should mention, however, that despite these reservations, I did buy this CD, and I have ordered he Janis version; it helped that I don't currently have "Kozmic Blues" on CD, so it's not redundant. Yet."