This was from the second day of the festival. While briefly scanning the YouTube comments, I came across what seems to be something of an urban legend, to the effect that Carlos Santana was so high on mescaline while performing this instrumental piece, he briefly hallucinated that his guitar had turned into a huge snake of some sort. This supposedly accounts for some of his facial expressions. I don't doubt for one second that he was high, on something, along with the rest of the band, but the story seems apocryphal. It is worth noting that, while it would be highly inaccurate to refer to Carlos Santana as an underrated guitarist, he would probably not make a top ten list of the all time great guitarists if one was to just spout one off on the fly. But, he was undoubtedly great, and his band here exhibits the highest quality of craftsmanship, drive, and enthusiasm for their craft. Which goes a long way towards explaining why Woodstock did not disintegrate into total chaos. You had 300,000 people (some people put the number at closer to half a million) in what was the first of its kind mass concert featuring a legion of the most idolized and revered rockers of the day, and there was plenty of free drugs to go around to keep everything copacetic.
People were just too caught up in the the occasion, and of course the music, to think much of going to far off the reservation. The drugs helped, along with certain other factors.
