Alvin Lee performs with Ten Years After in the early Seventies. From a guitarist's perspective, the 1970 Woodstock film, which documents the highs and lows of the...
Alvin Lee performs with Ten Years After in the early Seventies.
From a guitarist's perspective, the 1970 Woodstock film, which documents the highs and lows of the August 1969 Woodstock Festival, has several highlights. There's Jimi Hendrix's immortal take on "The Star-Spangled Banner," a mesmerizing performance by newcomers Santana, Richie Havens' thumb-fretting madness and Pete Townshend's Gibson SG acrobatics with the Who.
But for a full-on blues-rocking experience, there's no beating Ten Years After's adrenaline-fueled reading of "I'm Going Home." The performance, an intense nod to vintage blues and Fifties rock and roll, featured the lightning-fast fretwork of Ten Years After frontman Alvin Lee.
"The solo on the movie sounds pretty rough to me these days," Lee told me not long before his death in 2013. "But it had the energy, and that was what Ten Years After were all about at the time." The performance made instant stars out of the British band, which led to more big-name festivals, a label change and their biggest hit, 1971's "I'd Love to Change the World."
During my interview—which was tied into Lee's new studio album at the time—I couldn't help but steer things toward "I'm Going Home." By the way, Lee's guitar solo starts at 5:29 in the video below.
The first time I saw the Woodstock film, I was completely knocked out by Ten Years After's performance of "I'm Going Home." It is, without a doubt, one of the movie's true guitar highlights. I remember thinking I'd never seen a blues/rock guitarist play that fast before, at least not a guitarist in 1969. Where the hell did that come from?
You’re obviously a man of very good taste! Seriously, though, I never really tried to play fast. It kind of developed from the adrenalin rush of the hundreds