Dylan's Benediction -- At Woodstock '94, the silver-anniversary ritual of rainy communal bonding in August, there were epiphanies for two generations. Baby boomers rallied to the renascent Bob Dylan, 53, dressed in outlaw black and singing from the heart. He riveted the throng with songs both apocalyptic and cautionary; then he obliquely blessed the younger crowd with a long-awaited chorus: "Everybody must get stoned."
A Muddy Green Day -- Woodstock '94 went gleefully haywire when, all of a sudden, Green Day and its fans dissolved any peace-and-love nostalgia. The three-man band from Berkeley, Calif., supercharges tuneful songs about boredom and lack of motivation; it faced a weary but eager crowd. Fans decided to show their excitement by pelting the band with mud and then rushing the stage, ending up in a melee of audience members, security guards and band members -- an outbreak of pure punk anarchy.
The Canon of Cobain -- A shattering, defining moment for rock occurred in private, when Nirvana's leader, Kurt Cobain, killed himself with a shotgun in April. Nirvana had proved that abrasive alternative rock, and particularly Cobain's cryptic songs of self-mockery and desperate complaint, had a gigantic audience. But just as alternative rock was taking its place as the next big thing, Cobain's suicide made clear that the torment and confusion of his songs had not been solved by fame and fortune. There was more behind his fierce, bitter songs than the urge to cash in.
A Flight of Love -- Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, channeled her shock and anger into music when her band, Hole, performed a blistering set at the Academy in September. "I am the girl you know/ the one that should have died," she sang while Hole blared and churned out furious hard rock. At the end of her set, she hurled herself off the stage into the audience -- a brave, defiant leap into an audience that wasn't necessarily friendly.
