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oliverreedmasterass · 2 years ago

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Part 7! (next part is the finale 👀)

Thank you to @starcatcherkiszka for the fic idea and tolerating all the times I’ve tagged you in these fic posts lol :)

In case you want something to listen to while you read: ✨Summer of 69 Playlist✨

Note: I’m so sorry I’ve been spamming everyone with this fic, I’ve been in a HUGE writing mood this weekend

Words: 4.4k

Warnings: drinking, mentions of drugs, attempted fist fight, tomfoolery

Synopsis: Greta Van Fleet somehow manages to travel back in time to the Summer of 69, during the Woodstock Art and Music festival. You can only imagine what hijinks they’re going to get up to.

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The rest of the night was a blissful blur. Creedence Clearwater Revival’s set blew the four of them away, and they had the pleasure of watching from the front of the stage, in the audience with a bunch of stoned people who were jumping up and down to the beat. When Janis Joplin came out, Josh couldn’t stop screaming, and he even caught a tambourine that she threw out into the crowd, of course after wrestling it away from a teenage girl. Freddie Stone spotted Jake during Sly and the Family Stone’s performance and he motioned for him to join them all on stage. Josh and Danny whooped out in glee as Jake took a spot beside Gregg Errico on the drums and shook around a maraca like his life depended on it. Sam only refused to cheer because he was still butthurt over Jake’s Joan Baez prank on him earlier. By the time The Who came on at 5am, Josh was appalled that he was still awake and invested in the music. The Who was definitely more of a band that Jake appreciated, but Josh had to admit that they sounded pretty good, and it was fun to watch Pete Townshend do his signature windmill move on the guitar that Jake had played the day before.

What wasn’t as great was when Pete used the guitar to try and strike Abbie Hoffman, the activist, who had jumped on stage mid-set to yell about John Sinclairs’ 9 year sentence for marijuana possession. Josh had a split second where he contemplated running up to try and defend Abbie, but it was all over so fast, he didn’t have any time to react. Jefferson Airplane closed things out at 8am the next day, and that was when the exhaustion caught up to everyone.

At the end of “The House at Pooneil Corners,” Sam looked around at Jake, Josh, and Danny with heavy bags under his eyes.

“No amount of drugs can keep me up for another second,” he said.

“Hop on my back,” Danny offered, “I’ll take you to Dave’s van so you can get some rest.”

Like a line of zombies, they inched back to Dave’s van, but were pleasantly surprised to see him there, chatting with Janis Joplin. She was cradling a bottle of something in her hand, dressed in a long, oversized tie dye top with flowy pants, her long hair messy and wrapped around some of the beads hanging from her neck.

“Hey,” Dave perked up at the sight of the guys. “I was just telling Janis about you.”

“I’m sad I missed your show,” Janis gave them a toothy smile, extending a hand for all of them to shake. Jake was sure that he was doing a poor job hiding his shock. He was standing in front of one of the most exceptional vocalists of all time. “Dave was telling me about your pipes,” she looked around at them, trying to figure out who the frontman was.

“Thanks,” Josh spoke up, his face red.

“Preserve that voice of yours,” Janis’s tone hardened for a second. “That’s a gift you’ve got.”

“Janis is gonna be at the after party later today,” Dave shared. “We’re all going to be meeting up at a nice restaurant a few miles up the road. There’s gonna be a pretty decent gap between sets after Joe Cocker finishes up, so we’ll have enough time to mingle.”

“That sounds great,” Jake said, looking around at Josh, Sam, and Danny to make sure that they were up for it. Danny was still staring at Janis Joplin, obviously having trouble comprehending that she was real. Sam nodded, though he still looked concerned about Joan Baez, and Josh gave a smile.

“I do need to sleep though,” Sam remembered. “I can’t believe I’m still standing upright.”

“The van’s all yours,” Dave chuckled, motioning towards the open door. That was what Sam had been waiting for, since he kicked off his shoes and dove into the back of the van, finding his spot back under the massive pile of blankets. Danny finally snapped his head away from Janis and nodded towards where Sam had disappeared.

“I think I’m gonna get a nap in,” he excused himself. “It was nice to meet you,” he added, finally addressing Janis, who raised her drink up to him.

“Keep on rocking, I’ll see you later,” she promised. Danny nearly hit his head on the doorframe of the van because he was so thrown off guard by being in Janis’s presence. Jake wanted to continue talking with her and Dave, but he also knew they would be at the party later. Although Jake wasn’t as open to announce it to the world like Sam, he was feeling pretty damn tired too.

“Catch you later,” he raised a hand to Janis and Dave, and swiftly made his exit into the van.

“They’re good kids,” he could hear Dave tell Janis behind him.

“They’re cute,” Janis chuckled.

Josh was right behind Jake and, after sliding the van door shut to engulf them in darkness, Jake nudged Josh in the side.

“Thanks for sticking around,” he said just loudly enough for Josh to hear.

“Vietnam or not, it is pretty cool being here,” Josh chuckled.

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They all could have slept a lot longer if Joe Cocker’s rendition of “With A Little Help From My Friends” didn’t make them spring out of the van. One thing Jake, Josh, Sam, and Danny could all agree on was that it was one of the best covers made. They had to see it live.

In a mad rush, they sprinted down the field towards the stage and started to cheer loudly when they could just barely make out the ant-like figure that was Joe Cocker on stage, in his red, yellow, and purple tie dye shirt. While Josh and Sam swung back and forth to the music, Danny took a seat in the grass, leaned back on his elbows, and closed his eyes so he could be fully immersed in the music. Jake just stared onwards in awe. The recordings that he had grown up hearing of the cover were nothing in comparison to witnessing it live.

By the time Joe Cocker left the stage, Josh was disappointed. He and Sam had been having a field day dropping it low to the music, even if their dancing didn’t quite match what everyone else in the crowd was doing.

“That was great, wasn’t it?” he nudged Danny in the side. Danny slowly opened his eyes and leaned his head back to look at Josh.

“I’m sad I slept through ‘Feelin’ Alright.’”

“That’s what the concert DVD is for,” Josh joked.

“We should find Dave,” Jake realized. “I have no clue how to get to that restaurant.”

“I didn’t see him when we left the van,” Sam shared. “But I also wasn’t really looking for him.”

“I’ll bet he’s by the stage,” Josh reasoned. They all looked ahead at the stage in the distance and released a collective groan. They had done a lot more walking than they were used to over the past three days. Jake was certain that he was getting in his 10,000 steps a day. If he had it on him, his Fitbit would have been so proud.

The walk was long but worthwhile, since they located Dave and he motioned towards a Ford Bronco that was parked in the dirt by the front entrance.

“I’ll have one of my guys drive you over there,” he said like it was no problem. “It’s a short trip.”

“We’re in no rush,” Jake lied. He needed to eat something filling soon, or else he was going to have to resort to gnawing on sticks and pieces of cardboard.

It was a pleasant surprise that they were apparently receiving star treatment, since one of the stagehands hurried to their side, some cords still in his hands, and nodded towards the car.

“Ready to head out?”

“Yup,” they all replied.

Compared to the first day when they walked into the venue, the roads were a bit more clear, but it was still shocking to see how many cars had been abandoned on the side of the road. Danny frowned when he saw that some of the cars had their windows broken in. Some people loitered around, grouping in the shade for cover from the sun, and watched as the car drove past.

“Dave reserved the restaurant,” the stagehand shared. “I’m not sure how great the food is, it’s all locals running things out here who aren’t used to big crowds, but it probably won’t give you food poisoning.”

“That’s a relief?” Josh had to laugh in response.

“It better not give me food poisoning,” Sam grumbled.

The stagehand pulled into the parking lot of a small diner that looked straight out of the 1950s. Jake whistled at the sight of it and immediately knew that he was about to have a really, really good milkshake.

“I like that Dave considers this a nice place,” Josh observed after they hopped out of the car.

“It is a nice place, compared to what we’ve been eating recently,” Danny said. Like Jake, Danny was growing really tired of eating essentially bird food. He was ready to move on to bigger and better things, like a good old greasy hamburger.

They strolled through the front doors and, even though they had spent time around all of their idols all weekend, it was still jarring to see them crowded into one place. Jake couldn’t help but let out a gasp when he saw Pete Townshend and Keith Moon standing in the corner of the diner, stationed next to the jukebox, trying to smoke multiple cigarettes at once. Jerry Garcia was laying on the diner counter, popping maraschino cherries into his mouth like candy. A few members from Jefferson Airplane were crowded into one of the booths, silently digging into a massive plate of fries. While Jake was starstruck by the members of The Who, Sam felt his hands start to shake in excitement when he spotted Neil Young, Stephen Stills, David Crosby, and Graham Nash lounging on the counter stools. He started to levitate towards them, but abruptly stopped when he saw that Joan Baez was sitting with them.

“Shit,” Sam grunted when he saw that Joan was looking in his direction.

Hey!” she called to him. Sam tried to hide his face, but Danny nudged him forward.

“Just be normal,” he tried to coach Sam. “I’m sure she doesn’t care that you missed her show.”

Sam huffed but nodded because he knew that Danny was telling the truth.

“Hey!” he replied back to Joan, waving an arm around with a bit too much force, so he nearly whacked Country Joe McDonald in the head. Joan motioned for him to join her and the CSNY guys, and he jogged to her side.

“Have you met Neil, Stephen, David, and Graham?” she asked Sam. Sam’s mouth was hung open.

“Seems like he recognizes us,” Stephen said with a grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look at us like that before. Does this mean we’ve made it, Neil?”

“I sure hope so,” Neil joined in the laughter. “Maybe I’ll be able to pay off the mortgage on my house soon.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Graham chuckled. Sam started to nervously laugh with them.

“So do you play with anyone? What’s your instrument?” Stephen focused his attention back on Sam. Joan luckily swooped in and saved Sam from utter embarrassment since he had suddenly forgotten how to speak English in his moment of panic.

“He does keys and bass for this new group, called JJ and the Salty Dogs,” Joan shared. “They put on a stellar performance Friday night. It was hard to go out there after them.”

Sam winced at the thought that he had missed Joan Baez’s set.

“Half the audience was asleep by the time I went out,” Joan continued. “I don’t think I have the heaviest music to keep everyone awake, I probably should have been one of the first people out there but it is what it is, I guess.”

“Hey, you closed out the first day, that’s pretty huge,” Neil raised a glass up to Joan with a smile. “You deserve to be at the top of the bill, you’ve been working hard for it.”

One of the diner employees approached their group with a pen and notepad in hand.

“I’ll have a vanilla malt,” Sam finally found his words again. It was amazing what he could do when he was starving. “Do you have any non-meat items?”

“Non-meat?” the employee cocked his head to the side. “Like a salad?”

“That’ll do,” Sam sighed. “And I’ll take some fries too.”

Since he had found his words again, he decided to lean on the counter, right by Jerry Garcia’s bare feet, and strike a conversation with some of his favorite musicians. He had to know what their process was behind writing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.”

Back at the front entrance, Danny, Jake, and Josh were still huddling close to each other, unsure what to do. They were caught in a situation none of them could have ever dreamed of: everyone in that diner had, in some way or another, been an influence on their music. Jake watched as Pete Townshend and Keith Moon put their cigarettes out and turned their attention to the jukebox. Keith fished a few coins out of his pocket and slid them into the slot so he could flip through the song options. He finally settled on Henry Mancini’s “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” and started to waltz around the diner while humming along. Roger Daltry entered the restaurant and stood beside Josh, Jake, and Danny, trying to search for his bandmates when Keith whisked him away, twirling him around a few times.

“Quit it!” Roger called out, but Keith was in no mood to stop. Behind them, Pete was cackling loudly.

While Jake was watching the chaotic scene unfold in front of them, Josh was distracted because he was trying to find Robbie Robertson, from The Band. Out of all the people on the Woodstock lineup that he hadn’t met yet, he most wanted to pick Robbie’s brain apart since he was, in Josh’s opinion, one of the best songwriters and storytellers of the time. He perked up when he saw Robbie standing at the far end of the counter, cradling a beer, and rushed to his side, leaving Jake and Danny behind.

Keith had finally stopped spinning Roger in circles, and the members of The Who, including John Entwistle, who had just come in, settled into a booth so they could steal fries from Jefferson Airplane.

“We should talk to them,” Jake whispered to Danny, motioning towards The Who.

“They kind of scare me,” Danny admitted. “Plus I heard Pete’s a dickhead.”

“Only one way to find out,” Jake said, dragging Danny behind him.

“Why don’t we try to talk to Ten Years After instead?” Danny tried to negotiate with Jake, but stopped when he realized that they were standing in front of The Who’s booth. Jake wasn’t really sure what the best way was to make a first impression with them, so he decided to snatch a french fry out of John’s hand and shove it in his mouth.

“Who are you?” Pete’s voice raised. Danny turned on his heel to run away, but Jake held him firmly in place while he swallowed down the french fry.

“We played on Friday,” Jake answered, hoping he sounded a lot more confident than he felt. “We’re called Greta Van - fuck - JJ and the Salty Dogs.”

“Long band name,” Keith nodded in appreciation.

“I’ve never heard of you,” Pete retorted.

“Hey, I think I saw a picture of your performance,” Roger spoke up. “This guy plays a guitar that looks exactly like yours, Pete,” he added, motioning in Jake’s direction.

“What are the odds of that?” Jake nervously chuckled. He really hoped that it wasn’t obvious from the picture that he really was playing Pete’s guitar. He could only imagine what Pete would do to him if he found out so, at that moment, Jake decided it was probably safest that he get some distance between them. “Well, nice to meet you,” Jake excused himself, hustling away and leaving Danny in the dust. Danny stared down at the members of The Who in fear.

“Take a seat,” Keith scooted over on the vinyl seat and patted it. “We don’t bite.”

“Oh god,” Danny whispered.

Across the diner, Josh had moved on from Robbie Robertson to join Sam, Joan Baez, and the members of CSNY. Robbie had been kind to him, but Josh quickly found that he wasn’t really in the mood to talk music, and rather preferred to people-watch while working away at his beer. Sam was engaged in a deep conversation with Stephen Stills about harmonies when Josh came over and extended a hand for Stephen to shake.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Josh flashed his pearly whites.

“This your brother?” Stephen checked in with Sam, who nodded.

“I’ve heard a lot about your voice, dude. Everyone’s been raving about it, I keep hearing that it’s outtasight.”

“I don’t know about that,” Josh blushed and raked a hand through his hair.

“I’m hoping my voice holds up tonight,” Stephen looked between Sam and Josh. “It’s our second time performing live, so the nerves are pretty bad.”

“You’re gonna be fine,” Sam assured him. He knew for a fact that he was going to be fine: he had grown up listening to the CSNY Woodstock performance on CD, and it was one of his favorite albums of all time. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

A loud commotion came from the back of the diner and they all turned around to find its source. Upon closer inspection, Sam and Josh realized that Danny was standing on top of one of the booth’s tables with Keith Moon, jousting back and forth with two floppy french fries.

“What the hell?” Josh couldn’t help but sputter.

“He one of yours?” Stephen smirked, nodding in Danny’s direction. “Keith will bring out the worst in people. But, if you ask him, he’ll insist it’s the best. He convinced David to crash a car into a snowbank once.”

“Best night of my life,” David leaned over to interject.

“Should we tell him to stop?” Josh asked Sam. Sam watched his best friend cackle with glee as he pretended to shank Keith Moon, and shook his head.

“Let him have his fun.”

While Josh, Sam, and Danny all socialized, Jake had been hiding in the bathroom, where he thought he was safe from the wrath of Pete Townshend. He could only hide for so long though since his stomach was literally starting to ingest himself, so he tried to convince himself that he would be okay, and then powered out of the bathroom stall to find a waiter. Right outside the bathroom door, he ran into Michael Shrieve, from Santana, and Joe Cocker, and nearly screamed in surprise.

“We saw you talking to The Who guys,” Michael gave Jake a knowing look.

“Talk about a lot of energy,” Joe Cocker blew out. “I’m too old for that shit.”

“You’re twenty-five,” Michael turned to Joe.

“Fucking ancient,” Joe continued.

“I tried talking to them a bit earlier,” Michael shared. “Pete called me a punkass bitch for literally no reason at all. I just told him that I thought Tommy was a really great album.”

“He’s got quite the, uh, personality,” Jake tried to think of an acceptable response.

“Don’t let it get to you,” Joe Cocker patted him on the back. “All the other guys here are for the most part cool. Jerry Garcia’s a fun guy if you can actually catch him while he’s conscious.”

They all looked at Jerry, who had fallen asleep on top of the counter, and was unleashing window-rattling snores. Edgar Winter was leaning over him, trying to balance as many cherries as he could on his forehead.

“Thanks, guys,” Jake looked between them. “It’s hard to put into words how exciting it is to be here with everyone.” His stomach let out a loud groan and Jake cleared his throat. “We’ll have to talk more later, but I need to get some food in me before I combust.”

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Michael laughed, waving Jake away.

Jake hurried to the counter, next to where Josh and Sam were standing, and tried to catch the attention of one of the chefs who was working in the back. He looked up from the burger he was grilling and held up a finger for Jake to wait a second. Jake wasn’t sure he could last that long, so he grabbed a handful of Sam’s salad that he had gotten halfway through and shoved it into his mouth. For what it was worth, it was probably the best thing Jake had eaten since they got to 1969. It took everything within him to not groan out in satisfaction.

“There you are,” Josh turned around to face Jake. “I was wondering where you had disappeared off to.”

“Bathroom,” Jake replied. He didn’t want to extrapolate on that any further.

Danny and Keith Moon’s french fry battle had escalated to an all-out war as they armed themselves with paper plates as shields, and Keith was wearing an empty tray on his head like a helmet. The table was no longer enough for them, since they had hopped down and were navigating around the busy diner, whacking each other back and forth with the french fries. Danny’s french fry broke in half upon impact on Keith’s shoulder, and Keith took the opportunity to roar and tackle Danny, sending him flying over the counter, right past Jake, Josh, and Sam. Before they could worry that Danny had gotten seriously injured, Danny sprung back up with a whoop and brushed himself off.

“I thought this was a no-contact sport!” He called to Keith.

“I don’t know where you heard that from,” Keith replied with a cheeky grin.

Jake watched the two drummers rough house with his mouth hung open. He must have missed a lot while he was hiding in the bathroom if Danny was apparently suddenly buddies with the powderkeg of a drummer from The Who.

“Danny becoming friends with Keith Moon, there’s another thing I didn’t have on my time travel bingo card,” Sam mused between sips of his vanilla malt.

“Your time travel what?” Stephen raised an eyebrow. Sam started to choke at the realization that he had let their time travel slip. While Jake slapped him on the back to help him clear his windpipe, he noticed that Pete Townshend was booking it towards him, and he didn’t look happy.

“Oh fuck,” Jake muttered.

“Hey!” Pete barked at him as he abruptly stopped inches in front of Jake’s face.

“You were playing my guitar on Friday night!”

“Uh oh,” Josh whispered beside Jake, taking a step out of the way so he wasn’t in the line of fire.

Jake hated that he couldn’t think of a single thing to say to Pete Townshend, and instead started to nervously chuckle. That was the wrong move, since Pete grabbed Jake's Sgt. Pepper jacket and lifted him a few inches off the ground.

“No one touches my Gibson,” Pete snarled.

“Sounds like he did though,” Neil cut in, sounding relatively uninterested in the drama Pete was trying to stir. “What’s done is done, dude.”

That wasn’t enough to calm Pete down.

“You’re coming outside with me,” he told Jake, and before Josh or Sam could stop him, he started to drag Jake to the front door. Jake kind of just hung lip in his grasp, in a daze from everything that was happening. He couldn’t believe he was about to get his ass handed to him by the lead guitarist of The Who. Talk about a doozy.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Sly Stone called to Pete. “Let the kid go.”

Pete ignored him and brought Jake out into the parking lot and threw him on the hot pavement. All of the musicians who had been lounging inside of the diner came hurrying out to see what was going on. Josh and Sam tried to push to the front of the pack so they could try and stop whatever Pete was about to do.

“Get up and fight,” Pete ordered down to Jake. Jake looked up at him from the ground and considered his chances. Pete was a bit out of his weight class, so it wasn’t really an even match. Jake could picture himself being carted out of the fight on a stretcher, both of his eyes bruised and his face bloody. That wasn’t really how he wanted to spend his Sunday.

Jake slowly picked himself up, and he could hear Josh and Sam’s muffled voices screaming at them to stop over the buzzing in his ears. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Danny and Keith were hurrying to them, Danny waving his arms for Pete to calm down, and Keith hollering that they pound each others’ faces in.

It all happened so fast. With Jake back upright, Pete threw a quick punch towards his head, which Jake somehow managed to dodge. As Pete wound up another fist to hurtle in his direction, Jake hopped out of the way and, while he still had some momentum, he started to book it out of the parking lot, pumping his arms as fast as he could. The Woodstock musicians cheered as they watched Jake sprint down the county road and out of sight. Josh, Sam, and Danny gaped in disbelief. Pete looked like he was contemplating chasing after Jake, but he eventually dropped his fist back down to his side and shook his head.

“What a joke,” he grumbled. He’d have to find someone else to fight to unleash his daily testosterone build up. He didn’t like how the bassist from Blood, Sweat, & Tears had looked at him earlier: he could pound his face in.

As the crowd dispersed, Danny came up to Sam and Josh with a frown.

“We should probably find Jake, huh?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran all the way back to the festival grounds so he could hide in Dave’s van,” Josh replied. “But yeah, we should figure out where he went.”

So the three gave the diner one last look and then started to walk down the road after Jake, discussing the odds that he would have hypothetically beat Pete in a fist fight. They were all in agreement that his chances weren’t great.

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