David Crosby Went Straight From Woodstock To ‘The Dick Cavett Show’

The 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Festival in Bethel, New York witnessed a number of legendary performances. One of the most fabled is just the second-ever live appearance by Crosby, Stills & Nash and first by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with Neil joining the group shortly before the festival.

But with their self-titled debut album as a trio having arrived in May 1969, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash took the Woodstock stage at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning — as the massive festival was notoriously behind schedule — to perform some of the more acoustic songs from Crsoby, Stills & Nash, famously opening with the album opener, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” with Stills addressing the crowd of half a million beforehand.

“Hey man, I just gotta say that you people have gotta be the strongest bunch of people I ever saw. Three days man! Three days! We just love ya, we just love ya. Tell ’em who we are.”

To which David Crosby replied, “They’ll all know if we just sing.” Even at their second gig, their harmonies were already instantly recognizable.

Stills and Crosby would somehow make it back to New York City not long after the festival ended on Monday to appear on The Dick Cavett Show alongside their friends Jefferson Airplane and Joni Mitchell. Hendrix was scheduled to appear as well but had just finished playing. Mitchell sadly missed Woodstock because her manager David Geffen was afraid she would miss the Cavett appearance, something she was heartbroken over. But as with most heartbreak, a good song came out of it: the aptly named “Woodstock” later recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Stills and Crosby joined Joni and Airplane on Cavett in what would become known as “The Woodstock Show.” Fresh from the festival, Stephen shows off the mud still caked to his pant leg. But it’s the famously outspoken Crosby who steals the show. Having a way with words, Crosby described what he say flying into the festival on a helicopter.

“It looked like an encampment of the Macedonian army on a Greek hill…crossed with the biggest batch of gypsies you ever saw…it was amazing.” Crosby also hilariously seals up the segment with a sentiment that is perhaps more relevant today than it was over 50 years ago, calling out a number of the world’s polluters — four of which Dick notes are his sponsors.

Watch David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Joni Mitchell and Jefferson Airplane rap with Dick Cavett below: