... He was walking along the road

And I asked him, where are you going?

And this he told me ...

 

Forty years ago this weekend, some 500,000 dirty, smelly, sometimes-naked hippies gathered at a farm in upstate New York to celebrate "3 Days Of Peace, Love and Music." Some of the most incredible rock'n'roll performances in music history took place at Max Yasgur's farm that weekend -- although I've never figured out why Sha Na Na was part of it all -- and changed the landscape of popular music forever.

 

Interestingly enough, the author of the song listed above was not at the festival. Upon the (bad) advice of her manager, Joni Mitchell opted to appear on the Dick Cavett show and was instead in a hotel room in NYC, watching TV news reports about the festival and getting updates from her then-boyfriend Graham Nash. Nash and bandmates Stephen Stills, Neil Young and David Crosby would later record the tune, which reached No. 1 in Britain and No. 11 here in the US.

 

Of the tune, David Crosby later said in an interview for a documentary about Mitchell that she "had captured the feeling and importance of the Woodstock festival better than anyone who had been there."

 

Interestingly enough, the festival is clearly the apex of the peacenik spirit of the late '60s. The high water mark wouldn't stick around long, however, as the violence of the Altamont Speedway Free Festival less than four months later signaled a definitive end to the peace movement, and the '60s.

 

Subsequent efforts to recapture the spirit of Woodstock have all failed miserably, in large part because of the desire to corporatize and cash in on the event, as well as the violent reaction by fans to that corporatization.

 

I think it's safe to say there will never be anything like Woodstock again.

.

I think it's safe to say there will never be anything like Woodstock again.

 

....despite many failed efforts.

I was too young (13) to go.:irked:

I was too young (13) to go.:irked:

 

I was there ... in a previous life. :sssh:

 

-- and changed the landscape of popular music forever.

 

 

Jim - your thoughts on how WS changed the landscape??

Jim - your thoughts on how WS changed the landscape??

 

For one thing, up until that point, efforts toward translating rock concert performances to the visual medium had been met with scattershot results. The film documentary of the concert was revolutionary, and while the subjects and styles in the film seem dated now, the filming techniques and the finished product remain cutting edge.

Jim - your thoughts on how WS changed the landscape??

 

Another, it brought to light a number of artists who, until that point, had only been heard at any length and depth on the underground FM radio stations of the time. It introduced a wide variety of musical styles and tastes to the mainstream and AM radio (the preferred medium of the time).

Jim - your thoughts on how WS changed the landscape??

 

Another is it can now be used as something of a playbook for organizers and promoters of large concert festivals as far as what to do, and what not to do. Same goes for the local governmental entities where such large events are held.

The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited by Martin Scorsece and Scorsese's longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who has won Oscar's for Raging Bull, The Aviator, and The Departed.

I read somewhere that it wasn't until the late 80's or 90's that the promoters finally broke even.

I was there ... in a previous life. :sssh:

 

My first concert was a Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers concert when I was in the womb:thumb:

A different viewpoint of Woodstock:

 

Myth has it that Woodstock was a mystical and cosmic gathering of the tribes that ushered in the age of Aquarius, and altered the course of history. The facts are: a group of incompetent businessmen put on a concert. They presented the music, but provided hardly any other amenities for the audience. Parking was in the mud three miles from the site. It rained. A lot of kids showed up and got smashed out of their young minds. They didn't riot. They didn't overthrow the government. Hell, they were so stoned they could hardly stand up.

 

All there was to eat was that horrid organic rice the Hog Farmers passed out in Dixie cups. There wasn't one sign in a Port-O-San saying, "Hog Farmers must wash their hands before serving granola," if you smell what I'm cookin'. The only thing that would have made the meal perfect would have been a tall glass filled with ANYTHING TO DRINK!

 

Woodstock wasn't even in Woodstock, it was in Bethel. After the locals realized that The Grateful Dead and Joe Cocker were involved in this "Arts Fair" they figured the whole deal would frighten their cows, corrupt their daughters, and in general, ruin their weekend. So they had a judge issue a court order blocking the entire event.

 

40 YEARS AFTER . . . THE GREAT WOODSTOCK MYTH

Joe Cocker was pretty well unknown before Woodstock, so I doubt his impending presence was a driving force behind the denial of permits.

 

There were actually a couple of different places they tried to host it, but late efforts by the citizenry in those communities were successful in getting local governments to deny permits. Many of the governmental leaders who allowed it to take place at Bethel were promptly tossed out by the electorate upon the next election day.

 

It wasn't all great. It wasn't all bad. But it was something special and unique, because of the spirit of cooperation that existed while it was going on even moreso than the music.

My first concert was a Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers concert when I was in the womb:thumb:

 

Now waitaminute. That math don't add.

And while, yes, lots of drugs were taken, that site RTS linked to sure did oversimplify things by alleging that EVERYBODY was. If everybody there were completely whacked out, there would have been a lot more deaths than just two.