Woodstock Festival

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Woodstock
Location(s)	United States Bethel, New York (site of original festival) New York City Saugerties, New York Rome, New York
Years active	Original festival ("the" Woodstock in a widely-used, purist sense) held in 1969; namesake events held in 1979, 1989, 1994, and 1999.
Date(s)	Original festival booked for August 15–17, Friday to Sunday, 1969 (for three days), although it actually ran from August 15–18 (thus, for four days), due to the late start of the August 17th performances. Later namesake festivals were held at various dates.
Genre(s)	Rock and Folk, including Blues-Rock, Folk-Rock, Jazz-Rock, Latin rock and Psychedelic rock styles. Alternative Rock and Rap were played at post-1969 Woodstock festivals.
Website

The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was a rock festival held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre (2.4 km²) dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969. For many, it exemplified the counterculture of the 1960s and the "hippie era". Many of the best-known musicians of the time appeared during the rainy weekend, captured in a successful 1970 movie, Woodstock. Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock", which memorialized the event, became a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Though attempts have been made over the years to recreate the festival, the original Woodstock festival of 1969 has proven to be unique and legendary.

Contents 1 The festival 2 Myths, realities, and the legacy of Woodstock 3 The Abbie Hoffman incident 4 Media coverage and The New York Times 5 Performing artists and sequence of events 5.1 Friday, August 15 5.2 Saturday, August 16 5.3 Sunday, August 17 to Monday, August 18 6 Cancelled appearances 7 Refused invitations 8 The film 9 Woodstock today 10 Tributes 11 Trivia 12 References 13 See also 14 External links

[edit] The festival

The festival bears the name "Woodstock", because it was originally supposed to take place in the town of Woodstock, in Ulster County, New York. However, the town offered no appropriate site to host such a large event, due to their belief that over a million people would attend, so a substitute site was found in the town of Wallkill. When local opposition arose there as well, the event was nearly canceled, but Sam Yasgur persuaded his father Max to allow the concert to be held on the family's alfalfa field (later immortalized in Joni Mitchell's song as "Yasgur's farm"), located about a mile northwest of Bethel in Sullivan County, some 40 miles southwest of Woodstock.

Although the show had been planned for a maximum of 200,000 attendees, over 500,000 people eventually turned up — most of whom did not pay admission. The highways leading to the concert were completely jammed with traffic. People abandoned their cars and walked for miles to the concert area. Then-governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller threatened to send national guard troops to break up the festival when he saw how huge the crowd was.^{[citation needed]}

The weekend was rainy and the ground muddy, facilities were overcrowded, and attendees shared food, water, alcoholic beverages, and recreational drugs (such as LSD and marijuana). Local residents of the modest tourist-oriented area (including those at nearby Camp Ma-Ho-Ge), gave blankets and food to some of the concert goers.

Three people died at Woodstock: one from a heroin overdose, one from falling off a scaffold, and one from being run over by a tractor while sleeping in a nearby hayfield. Two unconfirmed births reportedly occurred as well.

Among the stars of Woodstock were The Who and Jimi Hendrix. Due to arguments with the promoters about their pay, The Who did not take the stage until about four o'clock in the morning. One highlight of their performance was "See Me, Feel Me", with the sun rising just as lead singer Roger Daltrey began to sing the chorus. At one point during The Who's set, political activist Abbie Hoffman interrupted the show and attempted to rally the crowd with yippie slogans, but was knocked off the stage by the swinging guitar of the band's leader, Pete Townshend, to the delight of the audience. At the conclusion of the set, Townshend slammed his guitar into the stage and threw it into the crowd. This moment helped establish the band as superstars and boosted their album, Tommy, to multi-platinum sales.

Hendrix had a major impact with his performance, notably including his unique, alternative version of "The Star Spangled Banner". The piece was somewhat controversial, as the Vietnam War was underway and the sound effects that Hendrix generated with his guitar echoed the sounds of violence of the conflict. These two performances are held by fans as among the greatest moments in rock history, though both The Who and Hendrix considered them sub-par.

Woodstock's promoters were Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman. Roberts was the financier, backed by a trust fund bankroll; his friend Rosenman, a graduate of Yale Law, was an amateur guitarist. Their associates were Kornfeld, a vice-president at Capitol Records, and Michael Lang. An unlikely businessman, Lang was a light-hearted hippie who had owned a head shop and hoped to build a recording studio in the Woodstock area to serve artists such as Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, who had homes nearby. When Lang and Kornfeld presented the idea to Rosenman and Roberts, Rosenman hatched the idea of a rock concert with the same performing artists. After toying with an Age of Aquarius theme, they settled on the slogan "Three Days of Peace and Music", partly as a way to placate suspicious local officials and partly to appeal to anti-war sentiment. They hired commercial artist Arnold Skolnick to design the artwork, which incorporated a catbird design.^[1][2]

The festival did not initially make money for the promoters, but it did eventually become profitable through record sales and proceeds from the highly-regarded documentary film of the event. Lang went on to produce successor concerts in 1994 and 1999, but did not participate in the Woodstock-named concerts of 1979 and 1989.

[edit] Myths, realities, and the legacy of Woodstock

Woodstock has been romanticized and idealized in American popular culture as the culmination of the hippie movement — a free festival where nearly 500,000 "flower children" came together to celebrate peace, love and togetherness. Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman crystallized this view of the event in his book, Woodstock Nation, written shortly afterwards.

Although the festival was remarkably trouble-free given the number of people and conditions involved, the reality was less than perfect. Woodstock did have some amount of crime and other misbehavior, as well as a fatality from a drug overdose, an accidental death caused by an occupied sleeping bag being run over by a tractor, and one participant died from falling off a scaffold. There were also 3 miscarriages and 2 births recorded at the festival as well, and logistical headaches. Furthermore, because Woodstock was not intended for such a large crowd, there were not enough facilities such as toilets and first-aid tents. There was some profiteering in the sale of "electric Kool-Aid".

Woodstock began as a profit-making venture; it only became a free festival after it became obvious that the concert was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had prepared for, and that the entry gates erected had been torn down by eager arrivals. Tickets for the event (sold in 1969) cost US$18 to buy a ticket in advance (which would be US$95.58 in 2005 with inflation factored in) and $24 to buy a ticket at the gate for all three days. Ticket sales were limited to record stores in the greater New York City area, or by mail via a Post Office Box at the Radio City Station Post Office located in Midtown Manhattan.

Yet, in tune with the idealistic hopes of the 1960s, Woodstock satisfied most attendees. Especially memorable were the sense of social harmony, the quality of music, and the overwhelming mass of people, many sporting bohemian dress, behavior, and attitudes.^[3]

[edit] The Abbie Hoffman incident

Abbie Hoffman interrupted The Who's performance during Woodstock 1969 to attempt a protest speech against the jailing of John Sinclair of the White Panther Party. He grabbed a microphone and yelled, "I think this is a pile of shit! While John Sinclair rots in prison ...". The Who's guitarist, Pete Townshend, unhappy with the interruption, cut Hoffman off mid-sentence, snarling, "Fuck off! Fuck off my fucking stage!" He then struck Hoffman with his guitar, sending him tumbling offstage. Townshend later said he actually agreed with Hoffman on Sinclair's imprisonment, though he made the point that he would have knocked him offstage regardless of his message.

According to Hoffman, in his autobiography, the incident played out like this: "If you ever heard about me in connection with the festival it was not for playing Florence Nightingale to the flower children. What you heard was the following: 'Oh, him, yeah, didn't he grab the microphone, try to make a speech when Peter Townshend cracked him over the head with his guitar?' I've seen countless references to the incident, even a mammoth mural of the scene. What I've failed to find was a single photo of the incident. Why? Because it didn't really happen."

“

I grabbed the microphone all right and made a little speech about John Sinclair, who had just been sentenced to ten years in the Michigan State Penitentiary for giving two joints of grass to two undercover cops, and how we should take the strength we had at Woodstock home to free our brothers and sisters in jail. Something like that. Townshend, who had been tuning up, turned around and bumped into me. A non incident really. Hundreds of photos and miles of film exist depicting the events on that stage, but none of this much-talked about scene.

”

A fifteen-second sound bite of the incident can be heard on The Who compilation set entitled Thirty Years of Maximum R&B (Disc 2).

[edit] Media coverage and The New York Times

As the only reporter at Woodstock for the first 36 hours or so, Barnard Law Collier of the New York Times was almost continually pressed by his editors in New York to make the story about the immense traffic jams, the less-than-sanitary conditions, the rampant drug scene, the lack of "proper policing," and the presumed dangerousness of so many young people congregating. Collier recalls: "Every major Times editor up to and including executive editor James Reston insisted that the tenor of the story must be a social catastrophe in the making. It was difficult to persuade them that the relative lack of serious mischief and the fascinating cooperation, caring and politeness among so many people was the significant point. I had to resort to refusing to write the story unless it reflected to a great extent my on-the-scene conviction that 'peace' and 'love' was the actual emphasis, not the preconceived opinions of Manhattan-bound editors. After many acrimonious telephone exchanges, the editors agreed to publish the story as I saw it, and although the nuts-and-bolts matters of gridlock and minor lawbreaking were put close to the lead of the stories, the real flavor of the gathering was permitted to get across. After the first day's Times story appeared on Page 1, the event was widely recognized for the amazing and beautiful accident it was."

[edit] Performing artists and sequence of events

[edit] Cancelled appearances

• The Jeff Beck Group was scheduled to perform at Woodstock, but failed to make an appearance due to the band's break-up the week before.
• Iron Butterfly was stuck at an airport, and their manager demanded helicopters and special arrangements just for them. They were wired back and told, as impolitely as Western Union would allow, "to get lost", but in other 'words'.
• Neil Young joined Crosby, Stills & Nash, but refused to be filmed; by his own report, Young felt the filming was distracting both performers and audience from the music. Young's "Sea of Madness," heard on the album, was actually recorded a month after the festival at the Fillmore East dance hall.
• Joni Mitchell was slated to perform but her agent informed her that it was more important that she appear on "The Dick Cavett Show" on Monday, with its national audience, rather than "sit around in a field with 500 people". Ironically, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Jefferson Airplane (who both performed at the festival) also made it to the show. She wrote and recorded the song "Woodstock" that was also a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and was recorded by Richie Havens on his 2004 album Grace of the Sun.
• Ethan Brown was a solo guitarist highly admired by the 'hippie' youth, but he was arrested three days before the festival on LSD related charges. Known best for his earlier childhood friendship with The Doors piano player, Ray Manzarek.
• Canadian band Lighthouse was originally scheduled to play at Woodstock, but in the end they decided not to, fearing that it would be a bad scene. Later, several members of the group would say that they regretted the decision.

[edit] Refused invitations

• The promoters contacted John Lennon, requesting for The Beatles to perform. Lennon said that he couldn't get the Beatles, but offered to play with his Plastic Ono Band. The promoters turned this down.
• The Doors were considered as a potential performing band, but cancelled at the last moment. Contrary to popular belief that this was related in some fashion to lead singer Jim Morrison's arrest for indecent exposure while performing earlier that year, the cancellation was most likely due to Morrison's known and vocal distaste for performing in large outdoor venues.^[4] There also was a widely spread legend that Morrison, in a fit of paranoia, was fearful that someone would take a shot at him while he was onstage.^{[citation needed]} Drummer John Densmore attended and can be seen on the side of the stage during Joe Cocker's set.
• Led Zeppelin were asked to perform, but refused after they were offered a gig with higher pay. The band later deeply regretted not performing, a possible reason why they accepted an offering at the Texas Pop Festival, held a short time after.
• Jethro Tull refused to perform, claiming that it wouldn't be a big deal.
• The Moody Blues for unknown reasons declined to perform. They later regretted not performing. They were however promoted as being a performer on the third day on early posters that stated the site being Wallkill.
• Tommy James and the Shondells declined an invitation to perform at Woodstock, which they later regretted. Lead singer Tommy James stated later, "We could have just kicked ourselves. We were in Hawaii, and my secretary called and said, 'Yeah, listen, there's this pig farmer in upstate New York that wants you to play in his field.' That's how it was put to me. So we passed, and we realized what we'd missed a couple of days later."
• The Clarence White-era Byrds were given an opportunity to play, but refused to do so after a melee during their performance at the Atlanta Pop Festival earlier that summer.
• Bob Dylan was in negotiations to play, however he had to pull out as his son was taken ill. He also was unhappy about the number of the hippies piling up outside his house near the originally planned site. He would go on to perform at the Isle of Wight Festival several weeks later.
• Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention Quote: "A lot of mud at Woodstock. We were invited to play there, we turned it down" - FZ. Citation: "Class of the 20th Century", U.S. network television special in serial format, circa 1995.

[edit] The film

Main article: Woodstock (film)

A documentary film, Woodstock, directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited by Martin Scorsese, was released in 1970. It received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The film has been deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress. In 1994, the "director's cut" was released; it included performances by Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin, who were not in the original version of the film.

[edit] Woodstock today

In 1997, the site of the concert and 1,400 surrounding acres was purchased by Alan Gerry for the purpose of creating the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. It opened on July 1, 2006 with a performance of the New York Philharmonic. On August 13, 2006, Crosby Stills Nash & Young wowed 16,000 fans at the new Center — exactly 37 years after their historic performance at Woodstock. A new interpretive center dedicated to the Woodstock Festival and its meaning is scheduled to open in the summer of 2007.

A plaque has been placed commemorating the festival. The field and the stage area remains preserved and well kept in its rural upstate New York setting. On the field are the remnants of a neon flower and bass from the original concert. In the middle of the field, there is a totem pole with wood carvings of Jimi Hendrix on the bottom, Janis Joplin in the middle, and Jerry Garcia on top. A concert hall has been erected up the hill, and the fields of the old Yasgur farm are still visited by people of all generations.

[edit] Tributes

Tributes and re-incarnations of the Original Woodstock have taken place, and more are planned for the future. Currently, there is a Woodstock Tribute Festival being staged in Brisbane, Australia, at "The Good One", 255 Hawken Drive St Lucia.

The two day Woodstock tribute will also feature live music, food and stalls, and overnight camping facilities.

It is scheduled to take place on the 31st - 1st of April in 2007 See "The Good One"

[edit] Trivia

Jimi Hendrix's E-string broke when he was playing Red House and played the rest of the song with five strings which was a remarkable feat.

John Sebastian wasn't originally scheduled to perform. He was enlisted to perform when several of the acts were late in arriving due to the traffic going to the festival.

Richie Havens's song "Freedom" was totally improvised. He was called back for so many encores that he ran out of songs to sing, so he just picked up his guitar and started singing "Freedom". The song includes lyrics from the Negro spiritual, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child".

Country Joe McDonald wasn't scheduled to perform the first day. He was forced into it because many of the acts that were scheduled to perform that day hadn't arrived yet. He also performed on Day Three with the rest of The Fish.

A twenty-year old named Stephen Victor Tallarico (later known as Steven Tyler of Aerosmith) attended the festival.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young almost didn't perform at the festival. The helicopter that Graham Nash and the group's drummer Dallas Taylor were on was less than 25 feet off the ground when the tail rotor failed and it began to spin. The helicopter almost crashed and Nash and Taylor were almost killed.

Michael Lang once said that his original idea was to have Roy Rogers close the festival by singing "Happy Trails".

[edit] References

1. ^ How Woodstock Happened, webpage at http://www.woodstock69.com/wsrprnt1.htm
2. ^ Rosenman, John, Young Men with Unlimited Capital. Scrivenery, 1999.
3. ^ Simon Warner's chapter "Reporting Woodstock" in the book Remembering Woodstock, Ashgate Publishing, Andy Bennett, editor, May, 2004.
4. ^ The Doors decline Woodstock. Digital Dream Door (2007-01-26). Retrieved on February 1, 2007.

[edit] See also

• Woodstock '79 (1979)
• Woodstock '89 (1989)
• Woodstock '94 (1994)
• Woodstock '99 (1999)

[edit] External links

• 1969 Woodstock Festival & Concert
• WWW-VL: 1960s History
• CJFishlegacy.com
• Woodstock Project
• "Woodstock: A New Nation", Book excerpt from "Aquarius Rising" by Robert Santelli
• Blood, Sweat & Beers: The Woodstock Legacy 1969-1999
• Goodstock 2007