30 Years Ago: Backstage at Woodstock ’94 in Saugerties, NY

Back in 1994 I had just graduated college and was beginning my career in radio. As a newly-hired full-time employee of 101.5 WPDH, my first big assignment was to cover the Woodstock '94 concert in Saugerties.

Three decades ago there was no internet, no wifi and barely any cellphone service. Sending back live reports to the studio would require us to set up a permanent base of operations in the backyard of a house that was adjacent to the concert grounds. I'm not sure how much we paid the homeowner, but they most likely didn't expect several campers, radio station vehicles and a large microwave tower to clutter their lawn for several days in August.

As a small, local radio station, we found ourselves at a huge disadvantage competing with MTV, ABC, NBC, CBS and all of the other national news organizations invited to set up mobile studios backstage. To level the playing field, we took advantage of some holes in security to upgrade our access.

In a pre-9/11 world, the stakes were much lower when it came to sneaking into secure places. The worst thing that would happen would be that you got kicked out and had to try another way in. After noticing that the press passes we were given only granted us limited access, we took the liberty of "upgrading" them ourselves with the help of a Sharpie marker. What we didn't realize was that we wound up changing our security level to "all access", which gave us free reign of the entire backstage area including the artist tents where performers would relax between sets.

What happened next is a blur, but included some crazy interviews with the likes of Green Day, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails and other legendary artists. There were run-ins with Chris Farley, Tom Arnold and more a-list celebrities who came just to hang out backstage. We also received lots of dirty looks from popular MTV VJs who were wondering how some punk kid from a local radio station got to interview Aerosmith as the band walked to the stage to perform their late-night set.

Before smartphones and digital cameras, all we had to document the weekend was a disposable 35mm camera. Luckily, we had the foresight to take a few pictures to prove what actually transpired during that long weekend in 1994. If I didn't find these photos at the bottom of a drawer a few years ago I probably wouldn't have believed any of this happened myself.