The History of Woodstock

The History of Woodstock

        The counterculture of the 1960s was influenced by the beats in the 1950s: a group of intellectuals who went against social standards. During the 60s, hippies, or flower children, were known for experimenting with drugs, protesting the Vietnam War, and advocating for peace and love. The typical look of the hippie generation was bellbottom jeans or pants, beads, long hair and beards, sandals (or going barefoot), and tie-dye. The way the hippies lived and what they advocated for was a result of rebellion against their parents’ materialistic life; they didn’t want to be tied to material items. A common slogan they had was “make love, not war,” which demonstrated their go-with-the-flow spirit. The height of this movement was captured during the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in upstate New York in 1969. Originally planned to be a relatively small concert in order to raise money to build a recording studio, Woodstock turned out to be a festival populated by half a million people who shared values and bonded over music, art, and love. (Source 6 and 7)

        The organizers of Woodstock were Mike Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman, and John Roberts. Rosenman and Roberts put an ad in the newspaper that read, "Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions.” Lang and Kornfeld of course were the men who responded to the ad, and the four began working together to make money. Kornfeld and Lang wanted “to build a recoding studio and a retreat for rock musicians up in Woodstock, New York,” (source 1) and in order to pay for the construction of the studio, all four men decided on having a two-day rock festival that would be big enough for 50,000 people to attend. (Source 1 and 4)

        Initially, the location for the festival was supposed to be in Wallkill, NY, but the citizens of Wallkill were extremely opposed to having hippies running around their town. The citizens were so opposed; in fact, that they passed a law (on July 2nd) that prohibited the concert from happening in Wallkill. Luckily for the Woodstock organizers, a man named Max Yasgur suggested they use his 600-acre dairy farm for the location. Yasgur’s farm was located in Bethel, NY, but the name of the festival remained as “Woodstock” because of the musicians who actually lived in Woodstock (such as Bob Dylan). Changing the location of the concert pushed back the starting time of construction, and some things, such as the playground for children, concession stands, and parking lots for the vicinity were barely finished before the debut of Woodstock. (Sources 1, 2, and 4)

        Once Lang, Rosenman, Kornfeld, and Roberts began the actual construction of the festival, they quickly realized that their estimation of 50,000 people was far too low. An effort was made to bring in more bathrooms, food, and water, but no such luck was found. Workers threatened to quit if the organizers couldn’t figure out how to handle the shortages, and during the festival, the lines for food and bathrooms were overwhelmingly long. As of August 13th, two days before the anticipated start of the festival, 50,000 people were already setting up camps near and around the venue in hopes to get in. At the time, no gates had been put up where they were supposed to go, so the people in line for Woodstock just walked through the holes were the gates were planning on being placed. Since 50,000 had already arrived inside the venue and there was no way to remove all of them and make them pay either $7 for one day, $13 for two days, or $18 for all three days, the four young men who put the event together were forced to make Woodstock a free event. Having free admission had two major effects on the festival: 1) The organizers lost a tremendous amount of money because of the lack of ticket sales to all of the attendees, and 2) The amount of people estimated to attend the concert skyrocketed from 50,000 to half a million. Since the organizers lost so much money, they were unable (at this time) to pay the 32 bands that performed at Woodstock, and also unable (at this time) to pay for the construction of the recording studio, which was their original intent for organizing Woodstock. (Sources 1)

        More and more people began arriving in Bethel, NY, to attend the Woodstock Festival. Highways were at a standstill; and people abandoned their cars and just walked from their cars to the festival site. Arlo Guthrie, an American folk singer of the 1960s, said in the 1970 film titled Woodstock that the New York State Thruway was shut down. However, the “director of the Woodstock museum” (source 4) said that the thruway never did close. Since the roads were so crowded and no traffic was moving, the only way for the performers to get to Woodstock was by helicopter. They were literally flown into the venue so that they could practice before they had to perform. (Sources 1, 4, and 8)

        On Friday, August 15th, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair officially began with a performance by Richie Havens that lasted for two hours and 45 minutes. Havens wasn’t supposed to perform until later Friday night, but the “organizers convinced him to take the stage around 5:15 p.m.,” (Source 3) because the festival actually began several hours later than anticipated. Each time Havens thought his performance was coming to a close, he was urged to continue playing for the crowd of half a million people until the festival could really get started. He played every song he knew, and he even came up with a song on the spot called “Freedom,” which was based off of a traditional tune called, “Motherless Child.” Richie Havens’ performance of “Freedom” was one of the most iconic performances at Woodstock, and he would continue to play that song for the rest of his career. Other bands that made an appearance at Woodstock included The Grateful Dead, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin (those were a few of the bands who names are still very well-known). The concert was a mud fest because it rained for most of the weekend, so Jimi Hendrix didn’t even get to perform until Monday morning, August 18th due to rain delays during the festival, and had a crowd of about 30,000 or so. (Sources 1, 3, 4, and 5)