Woodstock Festival

Iconic photo featured on the Woodstock album cover

It was all about the music both on and off the stage

The organizers of the Woodstock Festival were four young men: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld, and Mike Lang.  Roberts, an heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, and his friend Rosenman were looking for a way to use Roberts' money to invest in an idea that would make them even more money.  After placing an ad in The New York Times that stated: Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions, they met Kornfeld and Lang. The original plan was to build a recording studio and retreat for rock musicians up in Woodstock, New York (where Bob Dylan and other musicians already lived).  The idea morphed into creating a two-day rock concert for 50,000 people with the hope that the concert would raise enough money to pay for the studio.  Woodstock was designed as a profit-making venture, aptly titled Woodstock Ventures.

Grooving on a Sunday afternoon

Woodstock was originally scheduled to take place in the 300-acre Mills Industrial Park in the town of Wallkill, New York, which Woodstock Ventures had leased for $10,000 in the Spring of 1969.  Town residents immediately opposed the project.  In early July, the Town Board passed a law requiring a permit for any gathering over 5,000 people.  On July 15, 1969, the Wallkill Zoning Board of Appeals officially banned the concert on the basis that the planned portable toilets would not meet town code.  Reports of the ban, however, turned out to be a publicity bonanza for the festival. In mid-July, Max Yasgur offered up his 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York to be the location for the Woodstock Festival.  Despite resident opposition and signs proclaiming, Buy No Milk. Stop Max's Hippy Music Festival, Bethel Town authorities approved the permits, but the Bethel Town Board refused to issue them formally and stop work orders were posted.  Construction of the stage, a performers' pavilion, parking lots, concession stands, and a children's playground all got a late start and barely got finished in time for the event.  Some things, like ticket booths and gates, did not get finished in time.  It famously became a free concert only after the event drew hundreds of thousands more patrons than the organizers had prepared for.

The rain, mud and bad brown acid became legendary

On Wednesday, August 13 (two days before the Festival was to begin), there were already approximately 50,000 people camping near the stage.  These early arrivals had walked right through the huge gaps in the fence where the gates had not yet been placed.  Since there was no way to get the 50,000 people to leave the area in order to pay for tickets and there was no time to erect the numerous gates to prevent even more people from just walking in, the organizers were forced to make the event a free concert. This declaration of a free concert had two dire effects.  The first of which was that the organizers were going to lose massive amounts of money by putting on this event.  The second effect was that as news spread that it was now a free concert, an estimated one million people headed to Bethel, New York.  Police had to turn away thousands of cars.  It is estimated that about 400,000 people actually made it to the Woodstock Festival. No one had planned for near half a million people.  The highways in the area literally became parking lots as people abandoned their cars in the middle of the street and just walked the final distance to the Woodstock Festival.  Traffic was so bad that the organizers had to hire helicopters to shuttle the performers from their hotels to the stage.

Dawning of the age of aquarius

Despite all the organizers' troubles, the Woodstock Festival got started nearly on time.  On Friday evening, August 15, at 5:07pm Richie Havens got up on stage and officially started the Festival.  Swami Satchidananda gave the festival opening speech/invocation. Performers: Sweetwater, Bert Sommer, Tim Hardin, Ravi Shanker, Melanie, Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez finising the night at 2:00am Saturday morning. The music started up again at 12:15pm Saturday, the day of Psycheldelic bands, with Quill and continued non-stop with Country Joe, Santana, John Sebastian, Keek Hartley, Incredible String Band, Canned Heat, Mountain, Grateful Dead, CCR, Janis Joplin, Sly Stone, The Who and the Jefferson Airplane finishing their set Sunday morning around 9 am.

Are you going to be there, at the love-in?

Sunday's line-up was Joe Cocker (on stage at 2:00pm), Country Joe (again), Ten Years After, The Band, Johnny Winter, Blood Sweat & Tears, CSNY, Paul Butterfield and Sha-Na-Na. It was obvious to everyone that on Sunday, the Woodstock Festival was winding down.  Most of the crowd left throughout the day, leaving about 150,000 people on Sunday night.  When Jimi Hendrix, the last musician to play at Woodstock, finished his set at 11;10am Monday morning, the crowd was down to 25,000. After the concert, Max Yasgur, who owned the site of the event, saw it as a victory of peace and love.  He spoke of how nearly half a million people filled with potential for disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe spent the three days with music and peace on their minds.  He stated, If we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future...

Wanderin' Spirit
September, 2014
Woodstock

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