No matter what type of festival Seattle-based Candlebox plays at in the upcoming years, one festival is implanted in the band's minds for all time - Woodstock '94.
"It was surreal," said drummer Scott Mercado during a phone call from the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. "It was a monster - exciting - and we were hanging around backstage with the Cranberries, Sheryl Crowe and Live. By the time we played, it was dark. There were purple floodlights from the sound board shooting at us, and there was steam rising from the audience, so there was a Jimi Hendrix motif going on."That's says something coming from a band that shares Hendrix's home town.
Candlebox - featuring Mercado, vocalist Kevin Martin, guitarist Peter Klett and bassist Bardi Martin - will be at the Saltair Pavilion, Saturday, Dec. 16. Seaweed and Fig Dish will kick off the show at 7:30 p.m.
"We were in and out," said Mercado about the Woodstock gig. "Now, we have our own cof-fee-maker and grinder because we're headlining."
Not only did the band play one of the most advertized musical event of the year, Klett was voted Best New Talent in Guitar World magazine's 1994 reader's poll, and Mercado won Modern Drummer magazine's Best Up and Coming Drummer award.
But the trip to top billing and recognition wasn't necessarily long for Candlebox - three years.
The band formed in 1991 and pawned some things to finance a demo. The band's first album, "Candlebox," headed up the charts and rested at No. 7.
"We started gigging immediately," remembered Mercado. "And we kept going like that stupid bunny."
When it came time to record the new album, "Lucy," the band had to face the pressures of following up a successful album.
"It was scary," Mercado confided. "It was difficult. But we tried not to think about it and focus on what we wanted to do - make music. Period."
And though the new album has received mixed reviews (some said the band was too hard rock and not enough modern and vice versa), there's nothing the band would do any different, said Mercado.
"There are times when we listen to the album and think of things that would have sounded better, but that's really not an argument," he said. "We don't dwell too much on them because we can express them live. The live shows are a lot different than the album. I think that's why many people come and see us. We also like to change the set list every night to keep things fresh."