Woodstock festival - Definition and Overview

The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was the most famous rock festival of its era. It was held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre (2.4 km²) dairy farm in Bethel, New York, on 15, 16, and 17 August, 1969. The festival bears the name "Woodstock" because it was originally scheduled to take place in the town of Woodstock, in Ulster County; local opposition arose, however, and the event was almost cancelled altogether. But Sam Yasgur persuaded his father Max to allow the concert to be held on the family's property, located in Sullivan County, which lies to the south and west of Ulster County.

Although the show had been planned for a maximum 50,000 attendees, over 400,000 eventually attended, most of whom did not pay admission. The highways leading to the concert were jammed with traffic as people tried to make it to the concert. The weekend was rainy, the facilities were overcrowded, and attendees shared food, alcoholic beverages, and drugs. However, no violence was reported and the fact that attendees were remarkably well behaved was particularly noted. The Woodstock Festival represented the culmination of the counterculture of the 1960s and the high point of the "hippie era".

The festival did not initially make money for the promoters, although, thanks to record sales and proceeds from the highly regarded film of the event, it did eventually become profitable.

There were two deaths and two births at Woodstock.

Woodstock is also the name of the famous documentary film about the concert; the film, directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited by Martin Scorsese, was released in 1970 and won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The film has since been deemed "culturally significant" by the U.S. Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Artists who performed at Woodstock

• Joan Baez
• The Band
• Jeff Beck Group
• Blood, Sweat & Tears
• Paul Butterfield Blues Band
• Canned Heat
• Joe Cocker
• Country Joe and the Fish
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
• Grateful Dead
• Arlo Guthrie
• Tim Hardin
• Keef Hartley
• Richie Havens
• Jimi Hendrix
• Incredible String Band
• Janis Joplin
• Jefferson Airplane
• Melanie
• Mountain
• Quill
• Santana
• John Sebastian
• Sha-Na-Na
• Ravi Shankar
• Sly and the Family Stone
• Bert Sommer
• Sweetwater
• Ten Years After
• The Who
• Johnny Winter

Myth of Woodstock

Woodstock has been romanticized and idealized in American popular culture as the culmination of the hippie movment -- a free festival where nearly 500,000 people came together to celebrate peace and love. Although the festival was remarkably trouble-free given the number of people and conditions involved, the reality was less than perfect: Woodstock did have some amount of crime and other misbehavior, as well as drug overdoses and logistical headaches; as stated before, Woodstock was not intended for such a large crowd and thus, many needed facilities were not present, such as toilets and first-aid tents. Some who attended the festival felt that it was chaotic and did not report having a positive experience.

Also sometimes forgotten is that Woodstock began as a profit-making venture -- unlike the Monterey Pop festival in 1967, which was free -- and that it only became a free festival after it became obvious that the concert was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had expected or prepared for, and that the entry gates erected had been torn down by eager arrivals. The money taken for the tickets sold before the festival was not refunded.

The film

• Title: Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music ( 1970 )
• Producer: Bob Maurice
• Script and direction: Michael Wadleigh
• Awards:
  • Oscar for Bob Maurice ( Best documentary film )
  • Oscar-nomination for Thelma Schoonmaker ( Best cut )
• Appearing musicants: Joan Baez / Joe Cocker / Country Joe & The Fish / Crosby, Stills & Nash / Arlo Guthrie / Richie Havens / Jimi Hendrix / Carlos Santana / John Sebastian / Sha-Na-Na / Sly and The Family Stone / Ten Years After / The Who
• Additionals musictitles: "Going Up The Country" by Canned Heat / "Woodstock" by Joni Mitchell

The longplay

woodstock - music from the original soundtrack and more ( 1970 )

See also

• Woodstock II (1994), Woodstock III (1999)
• Monterey Pop Festival