Santana
The Woodstock Experience

THE REVIEW

It's been years since that August 16, 1969!

When an unknown band from California drove the 500,000 people at the legendary Woodstock concert wild. When an unknown Mexican guitarist named Carlos impressed the crowd that had come to enjoy the performances of Hendrix and Janis Joplin with terrifying and angry solos. When a barely twenty-year-old Michael Shrieve electrified the indifferent crowd with the famous four-minute drum solo in "Soul Sacrifice." When a promising organist named Gregg Rolie inserted organ solos between those of the guitarist and percussionists and mixed his indispensable hard rock into Latin rock. When a percussionist from Nicaragua named Jose Areas and a big Hendrix fan like Mike Carabello made the audience dance to the purely Latin rhythms caused by their "timbales" and their "congas," offering the timeless sound of Santana of those times. When a strange guy named David Brown, who played the bass, launched the beginning of "Soul Sacrifice," involving the crowd by clapping hands and playing the famous riff of the mentioned song, accompanied by the percussionists.                                                     

This was the Santana experience at Woodstock, a band previously unknown and technically not up to the level of other bands.

The Santana played the entire debut album at the concert which would be released a few months later, except for the songs "Treat" and "Shades Of Time". Plus, they played "Fried Neckbones and Some Home Fries" where the Nicaraguan percussionist impressed the Woodstock audience once again by playing a fantastic solo with the flugelhorn.

These were Santana.
A band that, due to a flat tire on their hippie van, didn't even have time to tune their instruments and played what anyone would have defined as a disaster at first, but which fortunately turned out to be a great success.
A band that twenty-nine years later was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame alongside the great Jimi Hendrix Experience, Doors, Who, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground...
A band that unfortunately started to dissolve three years after the famous concert.

Today, after 44 years of career, only Carlos remains from the original band, who still continues to release albums.
Albums not up to the name: SANTANA.