TEN YEARS AFTER
Woodstock 1969
Acareer-defining show at an era-defining event. By Nigel Williamson
CHRYSALIS
Ten Years After, spring 1969: (l–r) Ric Lee, Leo Lyons, Alvin Lee, Chick Churchill
7/10
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WHEN this reviewer first saw the Woodstock movie at a midnight showing in the summer of 1970, the wildest reaction from those crammed into Bromley’s Astor cinema came not as Hendrix, Sly Stone and The Who exploded across the screen but when Alvin Lee announced, “This is a thing called ‘I’m Going Home’… by helicopter.”
Amachine-gun burst of notes flew from his cherry red Gibson, and by the time the screen split into triplicate with close-ups of Lee’s fingers flying over the frets at the speed of light, we were all headbanging in the aisles.
Perhaps it was because Ten Years After were so relatable. We’d seen them just down the road at the Greyhound in Croydon, and their 1968 live album Undead, which included the first recording of “I’m Going Home”, captured them not in front of a half a million people in upstate New York but in a tiny club above the Railway Hotel, West Hampstead, from whence going home meant the last tube on the Bakerloo line.