Woodstock by Stephanie T. When the word "Woodstock" is mentioned, what do you think of? Perhaps you think of the little yellow bird from the Peanuts cartoons, or maybe you think of a small town in New York. However, you also might know that the Woodstock was the largest and most famous of all rock festivals.The Woodstock Music & Art Festival took place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, August 15th, 16th, and 17th, 1969. As you can imagine, a concert like Woodstock would have had to be planned very carefully. It didn’t just happen. Woodstock was conceived by four young partners – Michael Lang, then the manager of a rock band, Artie Kornfeld, and executive of Capital Records, and two venture capitalists, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman. Their original plan had been to build a recording studio in Woodstock, a small town in the Catskill Mountains, which had become a rock center. To promote the idea of the studio, the four partners decided to stage a concert, which they called Woodstock. They called it Woodstock, naming it after the town in which it was originally going to take place in. It started out as a moneymaking venture – a rock concert, pure and simple. An attempt to duplicate or maybe even surpass the success of Monterey Pop, which attracted 50,000 people two years earlier. The Woodstock Festival was expected to attract 50,000 to 100,000 people. In the town of Woodstock, local residents became fearful about the possibility of a hippie invasion. The location was changed from the village of Woodstock, to the town of Wallkill, then finally to a farm at White Lake in the town of Bethel. The name was retained. They rented a 70 acre field from a prominent local dairy farmer, Max Yasgur, who owned land about 48 miles from Woodstock, in Bethel. Days before the festival, Upstate New York was ready. The city, county and state officials knew what to expect, and felt confident in their abilities to handle traffic, crowd control, sanitation, medical emergencies, and any unexpected problems. Finally, the day before the official opening, traffic jams up to 20 miles long blocked most roads leading to the area. On August 15th, the first day, the management was unable to monitor the estimated 400,000 or more people, and decided to abandon attempts at ticket taking because hundreds of thousands of people simply climbed over fences. For three days, the small town of Bethel, was the state’s third-largest city, with an estimated population range between 300,000 and 400,000 people. Because of the massive crowd, and lack of food, proper medical care, and sanitation, the concert site was declared a disaster area, but the show went on. Most of the people who attended Woodstock were known as "Hippies," who protested against the Vietnam War, supported the civil rights movement, dressed unconventionally, and experimented with sex and illicit drugs. College-age Baby-Boomers developed their own distinctive styles of dress and music, as well as new ways of speaking and behaving. They called these new ways of living a "counter-culture," referring to themselves as "freaks" and "hippies." Woodstock gave Baby-Boomers (people born between 1946-1964) a new identity – "Woodstock Nation." All the ideas of hippiedom, from the sublime to the ridiculous – long hair, love, peace, happiness, communal living and rock ‘n’ roll, were all exposed on an international media "clothes line" for the whole world to see. In other words, Woodstock helped display all the ideas of hippies, and those who shared similar beliefs, actually believed in. The immense crowd wasn’t all there was to see. The main reason people came to Woodstock was for the music. Helicopters flew in food, doctors, and medical supplies, along with many of the musical acts that were scheduled to appear. On Friday, August 15th, Richie Havens opened the concert at 5:07 p.m. Next, Country Joe McDonald performed solo, followed by John Sebastian and then Swami Satchadinanda spoke. At around 8:00 p.m. Sweetwater performed, then Tim Hardin around 9:00 p.m., and Ravi Shankar performed next, but had to quit at 10:35 due to rain. After the rain, Melanie performed, followed by Arlo Guthrie; finally, day one ended with Joan Baez. On Saturday morning, August 16th, the crowd rested for a while until Quill started day two off by performing first at 12:15 p.m. Keef Hartly was followed by Santana who performed around 2:30 p.m. Following Santana was Mountain, Canned Heat, the Incredible String Band, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, followed by Sly and the Family Stone at 1:30 a.m. The Who performed at 3:00 a.m., and Jefferson Airplane ended day two at 8:30. On Sunday morning, August 17th, the crowd settled down for some rest until Joe Cocker started day three at 2:00 p.m. The "Big Storm" (that wasn’t a band, it was an actual storm that caused many people to leave.) interfered with the concert. After it cleared up a bit, Max Yasgur, the owner of the land spoke to the crowd. The evening continued with Country Joe and the Fish, followed by Ten Years after at 8:00 p.m., The Band at 10:30 p.m., and Blood Sweat and Tears at 12:00 a.m. But the night wasn’t over yet. Johnny Winter performed, followed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at 3:00 a.m., then The Paul Butterfield Blues band, and Sha-Na-Na. Jimi Hendrix ended day three, and The Woodstock Music & Art Festival at 8:30 a.m., as he closed the concert to a mere 30 to 40 thousand people Monday morning. The Woodstock Music & Art Festival was officially over at 10:30 a.m. following Jimi Hendrix on Monday, August 18,1969. Although there were more then a few drug busts, there were no reports of violent crime in the surrounding communities. Three drug-related deaths were offset by three births. Despite the lack of water, food, security, sanitation, and the rain and mud, Woodstock was advertised, praised, and criticized by various film, radio, television, record, magazine and newspaper accounts of the event. The 600-acre cleanup was accomplished in less than five days by the Woodstock crew and fans. Promoters lost over a million dollars, but a documentary film about the festival made more than that back. In the spring of 1970, there was a three record set of highlights from the festival and a three hour motion picture documenting all the facets of the event. After Woodstock, a monument was placed at the huge tract of land, where Woodstock took place. Twenty-five years later, in 1994, Woodstock II was organized. A few critics called it "Greedstock" because ticket prices were so high, and corporate sponsors were involved, but crowds came anyway. Joe Cocker and a few other veterans from Woodstock I returned, but most of the performers, including Melissa Etheridge, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Salt-n-Pepa, and Arrested Development, were bands of the new generation. Once again, it rained, and once again, almost no one minded. Years later, a census was conducted to see what kind of people actually attended Woodstock. These people were asked to answer some different questions about themselves at the time. Out of the people that responded, 55% were male, and 45% were female, who said they had gone to Woodstock. For race, 95% said white, 15 said black, 1% Hispanic, 1% other, and 2% no answer. For their financial class, 3% said they were upper class, 30% said upper middle, 43% middle, 18% lower middle, and 5% lower class. For area, 30% came from the Northeast, 21% came from the South, 24% came from the central/ Midwest and 25% came from the West/Southwest United States. People born from 1950-1952 made up 43%, and 1946-1949, made up 40%, and 1940-1945, made up 17%. For a marital status, 43% were single, 30% were married, 14% cohabiting, and 13% were divorced. As for educational experience, 1% had some highschool experience, 5% had graduated from high school, 31% had some college education, 27% had graduated from college, and 35% had postgraduate work. It seemed virtually impossible to get over 400,000 people together in one place, for three days, but that’s what Woodstock did; it showed that there could be peace. Over 400,000 people could get together and watch the greatest concert ever and just have fun. The following quote by Richie Havens, the very first to perform at Woodstock, describes Woodstock extremely well. "The essence of Woodstock was not sex, drugs, and rock and roll. That was the press’s take on what happened there. The essence of Woodstock was bringing people of like mind together, into a place where they were gonna enjoy music, most of which they didn’t even know and had never even heard before. But it wasn’t just the music that brought them there. Woodstock was in essence a coming together, a gathering, a giant be-in. It was a people’s festival, where the people came together to celebrate their essences, their concerns, and their feelings for the world around them." -Richie Havens, "The Essence of Woodstock" Bibliography
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