Still No Room for Grateful Dead Even in Relaxed-Fit 'Woodstock'

\o7 "It's been a long time coming . . ."\f7

--Crosby, Stills & Nash

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Twenty-five years, to be exact. The opening number in "Woodstock," the documentary of the 1969 music festival that forever marked a generation, is unfurling on the big screen once again. And this time, there is even more peace and love to go around. Forty minutes of footage, including some of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, has been added to the already three-hours-plus length of the film.

The film, which also features remixed sound, opens Wednesday at just four theaters (Mann's Chinese in Hollywood, South Coast Plaza in Orange County and two theaters in New York), seven weeks before a much-ballyhooed anniversary concert will be held near the original concert site.

The added footage will include Joplin singing "Work Me, Lord"; more of Hendrix, including "Voodoo Chile"; two Jefferson Airplane songs, "Try" and "Uncle Sam's Blues" and Canned Heat performing "Change Is Gonna Come."

The highlight of the new footage, says original director Michael Wadleigh, who is overseeing the expanded version, is Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile." "It's about death--what happened to him, the Vietnam War. It was a telling moment."

Viewers will hear sound supervisor L.A. (Larry) Johnson's restored sound, where the original eight-track recording was put in a sonic solution. "The digital domain regenerates the tapes to a higher level that removes all of the hisses and distortion that pops up after 25 years," Johnson says.

And that's not the only addition. In 1994, Wadleigh, instead of protesting the Vietnam War or the Establishment, is tweaking distributor Warner Bros. and the MPAA, which rated both versions of the film R, which Wadleigh thinks is too harsh. (The film got the label for language, nudity and drug references.)

In the new version, when the theater goes dark, the Warner Bros. logo appears on the screen. Jimi Hendrix's electric guitar is heard tuning up. The logo fades and a rating card appears: "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Has Been Rated R--Restricted; Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent or Guardian." There is a pause in the guitar licks. Then Hendrix's famed rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner"--the film's closing number--blares forth. The "R" in the rating card catches fire, the word "Restricted" bursts into flames, and a fireball burns the warning off the screen. As the smoke clears, only "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music" remains.