Woodstock 69

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 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.

Four young partners Michael Lang, the manager of a rock band, Artie Kornfeld, and executive of Capital Records, and two venture capitalists, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, created Woodstock. 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. 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 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 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 a storm that caused many people to leave.) interfered with the concert. After it cleared up a bit that 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,

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