Let's set the stage (no pun intended). 50 years ago this week on August 15-18 1969, at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in the town of Bethel, NY, 500,000 people came together for what was billed as "three days of piece of music" over that weekend.
Originally slated to be held in Wallkill, NY, the town backed out when they realized that armies of hippies, freaks, etc would be descending on their sleepy little hamlet for 72 hours.
With time running out, and with a generous cash payment, Yasgur stepped in to rescue the event with a month to go.
The initial purpose was to sell 50,000 tickets in order to fund a state of the art recording studio conceived by Michael Lang et al that was to be used by rock musicians the world over. That was the plan until 10 times that amount of people showed up and there was no way to keep them out so it became a massive freebie festival. It got so intense, that then NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller shut down the NY state Thruway as it had turned into one very large immobile parking lot.
Now as a young precocious child in sleep-away camp, little did I know that my parents were on the way up to camp to spend Shabbat there that weekend and surprise me. But with no cell phones, no internet, it was all they could do to turn around and make it back home in time. But not a total loss as it gave me the leeway and ability to "stretch out" a bit and let my "freak flag fly", so to speak.
I was fortunate to be raised by parents who had an appreciation of what could be called "modern" music of the time and indulged my musical proclivities on bass and percussion. My mother was a huge Beatles fan, to the point that when "A Hard Day's Night" opened in NY, we went to see it on a Friday afternoon, in the winter, barely making it home for Shabbat with my father freaking out at home waiting for us. The follow-up concert at Shea Stadium a year later was a bit more orderly and a family event.
Speaking of Dad, Elvis did it for him so the cultural clashes and fights for record player time between him and Mom were interesting. Fortunately I had older cousins that continued my musical evolution when I would visit them, which was often. We would literally spend hours around the old stereo record player listening to Crosby Stills and Nash (later "and Young"), the Stones, the Who, The Kinks, Dylan; the list was endless. So I was well-prepared or so I thought for that fateful weekend. When the strains of Richie Havens' opening "From The Prison" breezed across the pre-Shabbat Friday air to open the show, we knew something special was going on. That and the fact that camp ownership decided to lock down the camp and post guards ("From The Prison", indeed) to prevent unwanted entry as we had heard that camp Magen Avraham woke up on Friday morning with about 50 pup tents pitched on their basketball court. Oops.
I really didn't care about most of the acts as they came and went throughout Shabbat. It was Motzei Shabbat that things started to get interesting for me as Mountain came on at 9PM, followed by the Grateful Dead. My counselor was a guitar player and worshipped Pete Townsend. We had a vinyl copy of "Tommy" and a portable record player that we would jam to in the bunk continuously as we wore out the vinyl over the course of the summer. Mike my counselor (yes, he was at that point, the coolest Jew I had ever met), had clipped the Woodstock schedule from the papers and we snuck down to the lake with sleeping bags to lie under the stars and listen to the Who as they were scheduled to come on about midnight. Rain, tech delays pushed starting time back as Creedence Clearwater Revival didn't come on until 1230 AM (what an amazing set) followed by Janis Joplin and then Sly and the Family Stone. At around 5 AM, the Who hit the stage with a set that included Tommy and an incredible encore of "My Generation".
We high tailed it back to the bunk, nearly getting caught in the process. While watching some of the staff that got permission to go to Monticello on Sunday come back with "glassy-eyed expressions", musical highlights of Sunday included Joe Cocker, Ten Years After, and The Band. We knew that Jimi Hendrix had insisted on being the last performer and was scheduled to go on at midnight Sunday night/Monday morning. We decided to take a chance at the lake again but more rain and tech delays pushed off everything. We did catch CSNY at around 3 AM (amazing) but Hendrix didn't come out until 9 AM when most of the crowd had gone. As we heard the Star Spangled Banner during his set while at activities, a number of us stopped, started doing our air-guitar thing and then joined in on vocals, as he segued into "Purple Haze".
In summation, Woodstock was a once-in-creation event. It will never be duplicated. Like most great things (penicillin), it was an accidental discovery that had the right timing and the right amount of musical talent, that converged to make it what it was, and defying any type of carbon copy through the ages. The chemistry, the degree of musical talent back then is just not there today, nor will it ever be. Rock and roll today with very very few exceptions, is a pale echo of that generation. Lastly, like most great (and some not so great) things in human history, the Jews (Lang, Kornfeld, Yasgur, et al) were at the head and the heart of it.
Some personal notes:
I found out that my very frum cousin and a group of friends, including her drummer boyfriend, walked from the bungalow colony they were staying and spent the entire Shabbat at Woodstock as the drummer knew Lang from Brooklyn (of course). To this day, her parents never knew (what she told them to get out, I'll never know) or they might have killed her.
Almost as interesting as the performers at Woodstock were,
A). Some interesting Woodstock cancellations:
1. Jeff Beck Group (The band broke up in July, forcing cancellation)
2. Iron Butterfly (Stuck at the airport, their manager demanded helicopters and special arrangements just for them. Were wired back and told, as impolitely as Western Union would allow, "to get lost", but in other 'words'.)
3. Joni Mitchell (Joni's agent put her on "The Dick Cavett Show" instead)
4. Lighthouse (Feared that it would be a "bad scene".)
5. Ethan Brown (Arrested for LSD three days before the event.)
and;
B). Some interesting Woodstock Declined Invitations:
1. The Beatles (John Lennon said he couldn't get them together)
2. Led Zeppelin (Got a higher paying gig at the Asbury Park Convention Hall in New Jersey that weekend)
3. Bob Dylan (Turned it down because of his disgust of the hippies hanging around his house)
4. The Byrds (Turned it down because of a melee during their performance at the first Atlanta International Pop Festival, held at the Atlanta International Raceway on July 4 and July 5, 1969)
5. Tommy James & the Shondells (Turned it down because of being misinformed about the size and scope of the event)
6. Jethro Tull (Turned it down because they thought it wouldn't be a big deal.)
7. The Moody Blues were included in the original posters as performers, but backed out after taking a gig in Paris on the same weekend.
8. Spirit (they had other shows planned and did not want to back out of their commitments; not knowing how big that Woodstock would ultimately become).
Hat tip: DigitalDreamDoor.com
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