Position:Home>History> Woodstock Festival in 1969??????

~Woodstock was NOT intended to be a free concert!. The organizers, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang, planned on making money!. They formed Woodstock Ventures, Inc!. for the purpose!. They also hoped for a gate of 50,000 or so!. Some people actually paid to get in, but the Peace and Love generation figured they were entitled to a free ride and broke down the fences!. When the fences were broken down, it became free!. Because of the traffic jams on NYS Route 17, many who had paid couldn't get to the site!. Lang and company had to refund something in the neighborhood of 12,000 tickets!.

The concert was NOT organized as either an anti-war demonstration or as a political statement!. It was organized strictly as a commercial venture!. What it has become in folklore is far different than what it was intended to be or what it turned out to be!. The myth and legend is always better than the fact, and the truth seldom gets in the way!.

Between the machinations of the Wallkill Town Board in denying the permit, the fact that Ken Kesey wanted some privacy and the Hog Farm wanted some publicity, it took off in directions no one really expected!. Because of unexpected publicity for unanticipated sources (especially over the Wallkill Town Board and its games surrounding the permit) It became the place to go that August weekend!. Of course, the permit eventually used was supposed to be for a string quartet and a crowd of 150, intended to fill the empty rooms in a nearby hotel!.

Because the bands were paid far more than the going rate to show up (except Jimi Hendrix, who took less on the condition that he was the "headline" act and no one could play after he left the stage) it was fairly easy to line up acts!. Since they got paid up front, they could have cared less whether the ticket booths had been delivered and set up (most of them weren't, through no fault of the organizers)!.

Security could have been better but the dozens of hand-picked NYPD off duty officers that Woodstock Ventures Inc had hired for the purpose were told by NYPD that if they worked the concert they'd be facing disciplinary action when they returned to New York!.

Abbie Hoffman blackmailed the organizers!. He threatened to bring in a herd of yippies to disrupt the concert unless he got 10 grand!. Woodstock Ventures paid!. Hoffman tried to disrupt the concert anyway, but Pete Townsend knocked him off the stage with his guitar while the Who was their set!. (The Who had finally been paid, so they had taken the stage!.) The crowd cheered!. Hoffman was a hero in his own mind, but the sentiment was not as universally shared as he would have had his minions believe!. Actually, Hoffman and Rubin were jokes and did much more damage to the sincere counter-culture than good!.

Max Yasgur was one shrewd dairy farmer!. He rented his farm in Bethel (the concert, after all, was not in Woodstock - the concert was named for Woodstock because Bob Dylan and others were recording in Woodstock and the organizers wanted to capitalize on that mystiaque) for three days and got more in rent than the farm was worth!.

Enterprising souls made tons of money selling raincoats - and selling garbage bags to be used as raincoats!. The guy selling hot dogs was actually providing a valuable service since the organizers couldn't provide food for half a million people and many of the morons who crashed the gates didn't bring anything to eat!. At least he was providing a service until his stand got burned down because he wouldn't give away free food!. Drugs were rampant, of course!. Some were shared!. More were sold!. A lot of people took bad trips inadvertently!. One gets thirsty after a day or two!. Since folks were spiking everything with acid, including watermelons, and not warning people what they were drinking or eating, there were hundreds (thousands!?) of kids who took involuntary trips!. A lot of the sex that took place would have been called rape had it happened elsewhere!. There was a direct connection between the electric koolaid and the 15 and 16 year old girls doing the deed with a dozen guys at a stretch!.

The mythology about Woodstock didn't start until the concert was over!. The attendance was between 400,000 and 500,000 (maybe - there will never be an accurate count: estimates range as low as 150,000 and as high as 750,000)!. There are literally millions of people who claim to have been there!. Some of the people who attended actually heard the music!. Naturally, when the storms blew in and the bands, standing in water, were getting shocks from their guitars, the quality of the music left more than a little to be desired!.

Two people died, one from a heroin overdose and Ray Mizak was run over by a tractor that was supposed to be hauling sewage from the portable toilets!. Ray, 17, was asleep as the tractor plowed indiscriminately through assorted garbage bags and sleeping bags!. Perhaps if adequate medical personel had been hired, he could have been saved!. Probably not!. Then, too, the medical staff on hand was very poorly trained (if trained at all) in treatment for bad trips and overdoses!. The Hog Farm folks Jolly Pranksters did far more good in that area than the medics!. The reputed babies born there (two) have never been confirmed legitimately - but it makes the mythology sexier to say they were!. Had people figured out that walking around on broken glass and pop tops (they were pulled off of the cans back then) was dumb, the acres of feet torn to shreds would have been avoided - along with the miles of stitches sewn and the inevitable infections that followed!. There was crime!. There was violence!. There was more than a little misery!.

Still, it was one of the best outdoor party weekends ever held!. However, the organizers had to beg the bands to play through the night (the music was supposed to stop at midnight) because they were afraid of a riot!. The whole place was a powder keg waiting for a match!. The tireless efforts of volunteers and anonymous good samaritans managed to keep the flame away from the fuse for weekend and the skirmishes that broke out everywhere never turned into a battle royal!.

After Woodstock, laws were passed across the nation to insure that nothing like it could ever happen again!. The whole affair was poorly planned, plagued by one snafu after another and, for the organizers, was a complete and utter failure!. To those in attendance (I won't say in the audience, because scores of thousands never heard a note of the music or even say the stage - and many never tried), it was a good time simply because they could say they were there!. Being there wasn't that big a deal, however, until the myths began!.

There were many varied groups of people there!. Some were 'hippies'!. That term has been so overused and misused to have lost any semblance of its true meaning!. Most of the folks at Woodstock were not 'hippies'!. Most of the people wearing tie-dye, long hair and doing "drugs, sex and rock and roll" in the 60s were not hippies!.

If you want legitimate information on the concert, especially on the background, read Elliot Tiber's account!. It is not only informative, but it is reliable!. Don't listen to people who claim to have been there!. Most who make the claim weren't!. The movie is a poor source, too!. It shows maybe two hours of the three days, and it shows only very select scenes chosen to support the fable and not to document the event!. Of course, to those who weren't there, who would know!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Check out these websites for personal stories and images of the music festival:

http://www!.woodstock69!.com/file1!.htm
http://www!.celticguitarmusic!.com/woodsto!.!.!.
http://www!.celticguitarmusic!.com/Program!.!.!.
http://www!.landyvision!.com/photos/Woodst!.!.!.
http://www!.artsandmusicpa!.com/music_page!.!.!.
http://www!.yasgurroad!.com/howwoodstock1!.!.!.!.

Hope this helps!Www@QuestionHome@Com

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http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Woodstock_F!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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3 days of rain, mud, rock music, pot and love-ins

http://www!.woodstock69!.com/Www@QuestionHome@Com

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It rocked!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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