On an August summer night in 1994, I was working the counter behind my family’s gas station in the Chicago suburb of Woodstock. Look it up if you aren’t familiar — it’s location is about to become key to this story.

A car pulled up and a girl around my age came in to ask for directions. “Where was the concert?,” she wondered — and *I* wondered if I was being pranked. Because — Woodstock ’94….was not here. This wasn’t real life, right? There’s no way someone thought a concert of THAT magnitude was in my hometown, right? RIGHT?!?

I will always remember being the one to break it to a car full of kids that on their journey from Vermont to Illinois, they passed right by the 25th anniversary of the original festival and probably should have made a U-turn somewhere in the last 900 miles. 😮

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the….well, 25th anniversary of Woodstock. This one was different. Louder, angrier, more electric bands. A raucous crowd four times the size expected. And a site that was soaked by rain and will forever be known as the festival of mud. Here’s some of the video highlights — [eric]

—

Green Day skipped a show they were supposed to play to hit the Woodstock ’94 stage — and it was an amazing career decision. This famous mud fight during “Paper Lanterns” made the world take notice — and Dookie fly off the shelves.

Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon reportedly was tripping on LSD and wore his girlfriend’s dress during their first day set.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers decided to show up as incandescent light bulbs for their set. Drugs are a hell of a drug, amiright?

Les Claypool said he was still cleaning mud out of his bass cabinets in 2014. I’m not making that up, either. The crowd heard this song from Primus and thought they were being INVITED to throw the ground at the stage. Oops.