Woodstock, 40 years ago

Many of the best-known musicians of the time performed during therainy weekend and though attempts have been made over the years to recreate the festival, the original Woodstock festival of 1969 has proven to be unique and legendary.

It was forty years ago this summer that farmer Max Yasgur gave over 600 acres of upstate New York countryside to the heady, frenziednearly exploits of half a million hippies. Anyone with any interest in popular culture in the 20th century will be aware of the significance of this event. But that significance, history can now show us, worked in two ways.
Obviously, there is the fact that this event has come to represent the hippy ideal. Essentially a massive commune with a live soundtrack.
Woodstock was free, drugs were plentiful and a true spirit of 'help your brother' pervaded the event. The likes of Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Crosby, Stills and Nash paid tribute to this spirit between their songs. Crime and violence was fairly low for such a huge amount of people congregating and those who were there and were sober enough to remember it, largely recall Woodstock with a smile. Let's also not forget that as the festival achievedlegendary status over the years, it turned into a lucrative commercial tool. The film of Woodstock, directed by Michael Wadleigh and first released in 1970, is being re-released for the 40th anniversary this year, while the soundtrack has sold well too. There are even t-shirts, with the famous dove symbol, available the world over.
Yet there is a shroud of darkness around Woodstock, and there always has been.

There is good reason for it being frequently referred to as representing 'the endfirst of its kind of the sixties'. Woodstock was the and set a blueprint for the rock festival concept, and like everything else about the 60s counterculture, was ultimately exploited for commercial gain. Taken as a one-off event, Woodstock was a beautiful thing, but what it set in motion brought the peace and love era to an end.
First of all, two weeks later in England there was the Isle of Wight Festival, with a stellar line-up including Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis and The Who. Unlike Woodstock, this was not a free event, and there was a sizableclashes amount of people who thought it should have been. Of course, violent ensued and the festival did indeed become free entry, causing the organisers to make a horrific loss.
Worse was to come on the global festival circuit when on 6 December 1969 at Altamont Speedway in California, a Western answer to Woodstock took place. In a move of gross irresponsibility, organisers employed the Hell's Angels as security, whose over-zealous aggression resulted in the death of an 18-year-old female Rolling Stones fan. Three other accidental deaths took place. The uniqueness of Woodstock is truly extraordinary when you consider the often tragic results of large festivals ever since.
Because there have been a lot since. If you go to any large festival in the UK this summer you will see corporate sponsors everywhere: the music festival is now a prime profit-making business of its own, which while those pacifist reactionaries in 1969 would certainly be dismayed, is nevertheless a legacy that can be traced back to those three days in August in 1969.

By bani82