"The Road to Woodstock":
The Stories Behind Rock History
Page 6Hugh Romney: a Star is Born
Between sets, Hugh Romney ended up onstage making announcements, becoming an audience favorite in the process.
HUGH ROMNEY: I was working pretty much full- time with the drug talkdown situation, busy moving from one situation to the next. How I ended up getting onstage was that I had some announcements to give Chip to make, and I was also on his case because he'd made this announcement about avoiding the "blue acid." Chip said, "Come on up and do it yourself." He had no problem letting me talk on the microphone, and the only times I ever went up there were when I had something to say toward the collective consciousness. Later, when the rains came and they were announcing it was a disaster area, I said, "There's a little bit of heaven in every disaster area!"
Hugh calmed people's fears about the "bad acid." "It's not poison," he said from the stage, "it's just poorly manufactured."
From The Road to Woodstock by Michael Lang with Holly George-Warren, Ecco/HarperCollins, � 2009 (used with permission)
