On this day in 1969, the grooviest event in music history–the Woodstock Music Festival–draws to a close after three days of peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll in upstate New York.
Conceived as “Three Days of Peace and Music,” Woodstock was a product of a partnership between John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang. Their idea was to make enough money from the event to build a recording studio near the arty New York town of Woodstock. When they couldn’t find an appropriate venue in the town itself, the promoters decided to hold the festival on a 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York–some 50 miles from Woodstock–owned by Max Yasgur.
By the time the weekend of the festival arrived, the group had sold a total of 186,000 tickets and expected no more than 200,000 people to show up. By Friday night, however, thousands of eager early arrivals were pushing against the entrance gates. Fearing they could not control the crowds, the promoters made the decision to open the concert to everyone, free of charge. Close to half a million people attended Woodstock, jamming the roads around Bethel with eight miles of traffic.
Soaked by rain and wallowing in the muddy mess of Yasgur’s fields, young fans best described as “hippies” euphorically took in the performances of acts like Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The Who performed in the early morning hours of August 17, with Roger Daltrey belting out “See Me, Feel Me,” from the now-classic album Tommy just as the sun began to rise. The most memorable moment of the concert for many fans was the closing performance by Jimi Hendrix, who gave a rambling, rocking solo guitar performance of “The Star Spangled Banner.”
With not enough bathroom facilities and first-aid tents to accommodate such a huge crowd, many described the atmosphere at the festival as chaotic. There were surprisingly few episodes of violence, though one teenager was accidentally run over and killed by a tractor and another died from a drug overdose. A number of musicians performed songs expressing their opposition to the Vietnam War, a sentiment that was enthusiastically shared by the vast majority of the audience. Later, the term “Woodstock Nation” would be used as a general term to describe the youth counterculture of the 1960s.
A 25th anniversary celebration of Woodstock took place in 1994 in Saugerties, New York. Known as Woodstock II, the concert featured Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills and Nash as well as newer acts such as Nine Inch Nails and Green Day. Held over another rainy, muddy weekend, the event drew an estimated 300,000 people.
As a young kid in 1969 was playing cowboys and soldiers with one of those fold out metal forts(un ps I know!) under a big tree at end of friends drive,his long haired older brother with a pack said see yas as he hopped in a car with friends.Years later talking with him ho told me he went to Woodstock.He said in many ways a disorganized rat fuck but the music good and was amazed he said at number of strangers gathered together and yet saw no violence,didn’t mean there was not violence,just he didn’t see it.
And I was there.
So? you want a medal?
No I want you to suck my dick.
I heard the hippies were queer. You can take the queer out of Woodstock…
Sorry, I assumed you were both women.
“…acts like Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.”s
I had seen these acts and more including Hendrix shredding the Star Spangled Banner just before he closed his performance with Purple Haze – during my 4 years of undergrad in SoCal where I would graduate and matriculate to grad school in 1970.
In the Graduate and Professional Dorm in Atlanta there were a bevy of x-ray tech wannabes. High school girls with daddy’s money getting an education. I was sweet on one, a Judge’s daughter from Brunswick. Her suite mate had been to Woodstock and was a winsome lassie with an open smile who attended the festival with her slightly older hippie boyfriend. The boyfriend was shot and killed in a simple drug deal gone bad, in a convenience store parking lot, less than a year later.
And a decade after WS I became friends with a married couple who had been living on ‘the farm’ in a communal situation prior to the festival; Susan and Wendall. They had poached deer and did what they could to get by on the farm. Of course after the festival everything was different and they packed up and moved to Florida. She was the consummate hippie woman. I traded dental work for her hand thrown pottery and furniture pieces from her master carpenter husband. He had a school bus outfitted for living and using as a work shop for his woodworking ways. He also had built a 30 foot trawler type house boat with the intention of living on it. The boat sat in their front yard until the day the beer swilling chain smoking man died. My ex retained the good furniture he had made for me and the complete dinner set of dishes she had made and fired in her kiln. I still have the chest of drawer sets he made for me. She was really into fabrics and weaving too with a studio filled with skeins of exotic threads. They had two children, Zhea and Zen who grew up to be quite normal children. I was honored to be their dentist as they left home and became adults.
Nowadayz the young female who garners my attention as a good white witch satisfies her communal celebration needs by attending Miami’s Ultra music festival, which seems like moar of Woodstock to the tune electronica, trip hop, dubstep, chill, ambiant, techno, trap, acid house and dozens of different house music.
Where have all the flower children and hippies gone?
They have been remixed each and every one
Time marches on…
Nowadayz the young female who garners my attention … is the nurse who comes to change my bedpan. – Keep it real, KS.
I gave you the thumbs up. Actually I have two Filipino house maids who work topless who take out the trash and clean like meth addicts.
I guess hippies really did turn into Yuppies, all that capitalist pig music was bound to have an effect.
They became Progressive Yuppies voting for Obama and Hillary and screaming over Trump.
He mentioned that Bob Dylan was at Woodstock 2. Dylan was widely criticized for skipping the original. I surmise that Dylan is the jester who stole Guthrie’s thorny crown. And this isn’t meant to be cryptic, Maggie.
Glad my favorite band, the Beatles, turned down the offer to perform.
Bunch of halfwits wallowing in the mud, loving the one they were with, and tripping on the deadly brown acid.
A second of any event is always bad. Even the 2s are terrible.
A lot of big gigs turned down their invitations to Woodstock besides the Beatles, including Led Zeppelin; the Rollings Stones; Bob Dylan, who lived nearby and was pissed when the hippies congregated around his home; The Doors; Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention; Jethro Tull; the Byrds, and the list goes on. Some artists had sense.