Fans Head For Cover As Rain Pours On Jewel's Set
Festival medical workers were prepared for storm.
Contributing Editor Frank Tortorici reports:
ROME, N.Y. 霠As Jewel was singing the refrain "swallow the moon"
from her single "Jupiter" early Sunday evening (July 25), huge gray
clouds covered the sun and let loose a torrent of driving rain.
The cloudburst had many in the crowd near Woodstock's east stage
running for cover or hauling out makeshift rain gear. While an industrious
few had umbrellas or rain ponchos with them, most grabbed discarded
cardboard or trash bags to shield their bodies from a storm that seemed
confined to one side of the festival grounds.
At the west stage a few miles away, where
Collective Soul were covering Ozzy Osbourne's
"Crazy Train," there wasn't a single raindrop.
Chalk it up to the erratic nature of lake-heavy
upstate New York weather. "The rain doesn't
bother us," said 18-year-old Erin Bradley of
Boston. Her friend Sofia Cozzolino, also 18, said,
"This storm adds to the whole aura."
While it might have endowed the event with an air
of excitement, the rain was a concern to some.
Woodstock '99 medical workers were poised for
problems the weather could bring, with half the
crowd in the area of the storm for Jewel's set.
Rome's Sally Myhr, a medical staff member snug in her rain jacket and
hood, was standing by the sound towers and aluminum bleachers and
scaffolding to warn people to stay away due to the electrocution risk.
"We followed the forecast," Myhr said of the medical staff's quick
response. "We need to get everyone away from the [dangerous] areas
and be on guard." As she was motioning festival-goers to safety, gusts
of wind were spreading dirt and mud droplets on fleeing people.
One of those running for cover, despite being outfitted in rain gear, was
31-year-old Karen Shull of Brooklyn, N.Y. "I brought the [rainwear] with
me every day to be safe," Shull said. "I'm going to the porta-potty now."
The endless lines of portable toilets added to the strange atmosphere,
since most of the units hadn't been cleaned and gave off a sickening
smell.
As about a third of Jewel's crowd left the stage area for a nearby fire
station or for shuttle buses, the sun broke through the clouds about 6:45
p.m. and restored relative stillness to the area.
"I love the rain," Jewel said from the stage. But judging by the happy
faces in the crowd once the rain stopped, she was in the minority.
******
Jewel Adored, Elvis Costello Ignored
While young singer/songwriter gets a warm
reception, punk-era songsmith is heckled.
Contributing Editor Frank Tortorici reports:
ROME, N.Y. 霠Two singer/songwriters 霠veteran Elvis Costello and
current sensation Jewel 霠received widely different reactions with their
back-to-back sets at Woodstock on Sunday afternoon (July 25).
Not surprisingly, the younger Jewel proved a much bigger hit with the
largely teenage crowd.
Costello, a punk-era veteran whose first album, My Aim Is True, came
out in 1977, played the east stage first, offering a set of relatively bright
and bouncy renditions of his best-known songs largely stripped of their
edgy origins. He was accompanied only by his acoustic guitar (he
switched to electric late in the set) and longtime sideman Steve Nieve's
piano and keyboard.
"I'm very bored," 20-year-old Connecticut
resident Matt Parmalee said as Costello
(born Declan McManus) played such early
staples as "Accidents Will Happen" and
"Pump It Up." "I don't know who this
person is. I never heard of him."
Not even a rendition of pop composer Burt
Bacharach's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again"
(RealAudio excerpt), which Costello and
Bacharach perform together in the movie "Austin Powers: The Spy Who
Shagged Me," was enough to get through to a listless, apparently
confused crowd. A few screams of "you suck" could be heard.
Costello did stripped-down versions of hits "Veronica" and "Everyday I
Write the Book" along with obscurities such as "New Amsterdam,"
which he turned into a medley with the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your
Love Away."
He also broke into bits of Duran Duran's "Rio" and Blondie's "Heart of
Glass," and reprimanded a pay-per-view cameraman. "F--- off for a
minute and let me sing," he said. "After the first 500 pictures they're just
as ugly." Only during that moment and during a sing-along version of
"Pump It Up," the set closer, did any hint of Costello's punk origins
surface.
"I hope you like our new direction," Costello said to dead silence.
Jewel (born Jewel Kilcher), by contrast, was greeted with deafening
cheers as she walked onstage in a black halter top and black high
heels.
More heavily made up than usual, Jewel opened with "Near You Always"
from her debut album, Pieces of You (1995). Immediately, hordes of
young girls began mouthing her every word.
"Please don't bring me flowers/ They're only whispers of sweet things
you say," she sang, establishing her hippie-chick persona at a show for
which it seemed particularly appropriate.
"Today I have the coolest job in the world, I think," Jewel said, as she
looked over the mountains of Woodstock festival-goers.
Jewel evoked Janis Joplin, an icon from the original Woodstock, as her
usually sweet crooning turned into husky belting on "Deep Water"
(RealAudio excerpt), from Spirit (1998).
On "Foolish Games" (RealAudio excerpt) she drew out the last
syllable of "you're breaking my heart" for 30 seconds, during which her
face contorted like that of a silent film actress.
Jewel wiggled like actress Marilyn Monroe as she performed her first big
hit, "You Were Meant for Me," to which she added some scat singing in
the style of the late jazz singer Billie Holiday.
Jewel introduced three new numbers, including what may be the hardest
rocker she's ever written, "I'll Take You Downtown." The new songs also
included the amusing "Your Race Car Driver."
During the latter she sang about being in a speedster: "It's better than
watching 'Star Trek' after you've smoked weed."
"I wrote this song 'cause I believe in people as much as I believe in
angels," Jewel said when introducing the encore "Angel Standing By,"
from Pieces of You. The performance ended with her trademark
yodeling.
"I like the inflections in her voice when she sings," 18-year-old Kristy
McDonnell, of Massachusetts, said. "And [that] all her lyrics revolve
around [her] personal life."
--
gender is just an excuse, relationship shouldn't just be an excuse,
love is often an excuse, although sometimes these excuses are all
we have to hold onto,
death is the reason and living is the celebration
- Beth Orton
--
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