The fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock is creeping up on us, and the 49th anniversary passed with barely a mention. That's probably how it should be. Maybe not, though. Woodstock is viewed differently by many people. For some it was a political event. For me it was purely music and culture. Regardless of how it's viewed, the history is deep, it resonates with different generations, and it was full of lessons. It was a turning point.
I was only 7 at the time. I remember it as 'an event'. At the time, I remember some vague political commentary surrounding it, I was too young to really care. The only thing I was aware of was visiting my cousins in the nearby town where they lived, and thinking the dirty hippies were scary.
Several years ago, I moved closer to the empty nest phase of life, having dropped my second son off at Syracuse (followed in dad's footsteps) for his freshman year. I had fun regaling him with my past life experiences. It was a period of time when past lives were looming. Mrs. Bulldog and I had been married 22 years, and only 2 had been sans children. That's a big gap, and if you've had kids you know what I'm talking about.
A former co-worker, who had been unemployed at that time, landed a job that started in September. He asked if I wanted to take a trip up to Bethel and see the Woodstock museum. I asked my wife if she had any interest, she didn't, so I signed on with him and one other former co-worker to take in some cultural history. Another bit of a past life.
I was already fairly well informed on the topic of the Aquarian Exposition. I viewed this trip as a mixture of gaining historical context, as well as putting my own personal cultural foundation on better footings. I knew what I knew, but there was plenty I didn't. I hoped to gain new perspectives and understand not only my own past better, but that of our national mindset. Little did I know how much I'd learn.
The Bethel Wood Center for the Arts has done a first-class job of preparing the space, the information, and the delivery. The museum is well designed with top notch features, lots of research, and great cultural links. The staff is well-informed (though I think at times a bit too idealistic and ideological) and happy to help.
Many readers may have better memories of what the US was like at the time, and what it had gone through. As I mentioned, I was only seven years old and couldn't really get a feel for what Woodstock represented at that time. Thankfully, I love history and had a good idea of what had gone on during the 1950s and 1960s. Understanding those decades is critical as the lifestyles of the 1950's, and the events of the 1960's form a backdrop. The US was in a position of hegemony and stability in the developed world. Life was good, the economy was healthy, but there were threats from nuclear conflict, communism, and a space race was taking place with ideological opponents. We'd only just landed a man on the moon to claim a major victory, but we were struggling against a presumably much weaker enemy in Vietnam (at least that's what we were being told). As much as the US was a dominating force, a stable and powerful nation, cracks in our veneer of invincibility were appearing. What were the expectations the crowd which would attend? Peace, love, music, art. Pretty simply, escape from reality of the times. Being only seven years old at the time, I had minimal ability understanding this. My primary link was two-fold. Cousins who actually lived in the real town of Woodstock (where the event was originally supposed to take place), and the music which eventually formed the foundation of my musical library.
Over the years, I'd watched documentaries about Vietnam, listened to stories of relatives who were actually there, met people who were both at Woodstock or "at Woodstock" (since more people attended than actually were there). I had no idea that as much as I'd seen leading up to a visit to Bethel Woods, there was so much more. The museum provides short movies, radio clips, books, albums and a host of pre-1969 paraphernalia, leading to a 30 minute documentary and 3 rooms of gear from Woodstock itself.
The museum is work. Enjoyable work, parts make you smile, laugh, or even wistful, but it is work nonetheless. Going outside, being on the field, walking the grounds, that's where the action happened. There is a karmic feeling. I mentioned to one friend it was not unlike the scene in Patton when he is revisiting a battlefield, knowing what happened and reliving it. It's also a realization that it was an event which is unlikely to ever be matched.
Woodstock was, in many ways, a turning point. For some like Duke Devlin, a young man from Amarillo Texas in 1969, who came up for the festival and never left, it was a defining moment. Duke is now a 'site interpreter', sitting by the field when we arrived, with his car and its "Yasgur69" New York license plate. Duke is personable, funny, and knows quite a bit about the event having been in attendance and making it the defining moment of his life. He is the unofficial spokesperson of the Bethel Arts Center, both because he says he is, and because he's a central character in the documentary at the museum. He enjoyed himself so much and it meant so much to him he made a life in Bethel, NY.
From my own perspective (and that of many others), it was the point at which Baby Boomers crossed over from young and carefree existence to one of responsible adulthood. It was supposed to be a simple series of concerts, fun, engaging. It turned into so much more. What started as a carefree excursion for many became a major effort to remain healthy.
Unlike many other large festivals of the time which were marred with tragic events, Woodstock was relatively calm and peaceful. Despite having 2 deaths (tragedy in itself, though the deaths were accidental in nature), Woodstock is primarily known for its relative calm. It almost wasn't. As food ran short, the crowd turned on the first time caterers, accusing them of price gouging and eventually burning down some of the concessions.
What ultimately kept the peace was the care of local citizens and, ultimately, the National Guard. Local farms and residents provided as much food as they could. The Hog Farm Collective, led by Wavy Gravy, purchased as much available food at local farms as they could, and provided granola to the massed attendees. However, by far the most important factor was the governor declaring Sullivan County a disaster area and having the National Guard fly in food, water, and medical assistance. Many histories of the event try to focus on the attendees helping each other. Certainly they did. But the desire of these people to show the world how peace and love could rule the day ultimately relied on a bailout from the US Government, provided by the National Guard. The attendees biggest asset was not getting in the way of the real help which outsiders provided.
In some ways, today's bailout culture can also be traced to the Woodstock generation. The old adage "20% of the people do 80% of the work" would best apply. Certainly the attendees were well-meaning, many well-behaved, all were there for a good time of peace, love, and music. Yet many were simply there because it had become free. The vast majority were, for lack of a better term, freeloaders who took advantage of a situation which had gotten beyond the control of the first-time promoters.
It is largely forgotten that Woodstock meant to make money for its investors and eventually fund the creation of a recording studio in the area. The investor/promoters were not able to make money from ticket sales, but they were smart enough to have movie cameras running both on the performers and within the crowd. Ultimately, the rights to the movie were sold by the promoters for $100,000 to Warner Brothers. The promoters were just trying to make ends meet.
The movie went on to earn well over $100 million worldwide and earned an Academy Award for best documentary for Warner Brothers.
In a twist of fate, Alan Gerry, owner of Cablevision Industries, eventually sold his company to Time Warner. He used a portion of his earnings from the sale to build the current Bethel Arts Center. In essence, Warner Brothers twice played savior to Woodstock and its place in cultural history. It was the drive of capitalism which created the event, the desire for profits which made the movie and album a huge success allowing this touchstone moment to live on, and the self-interest of capital which allowed it to be memorialized by saving the field and creating the non-profit, privately funded museum. Warner Brothers, or some form of it, is the gatekeeper to what is felt, by many, to be the cultural moment in which peace and love overcame the crass inhumanity of capitalism.
As I mentioned, the guides are idealistic and ideological. As they told this story, and how Woodstock was the "antidote" to capitalist greed, I asked a question. "Without the desire to create a studio, without the music on a best-selling album, without the movie rights, and without the sale of a cable company - all capitalist activities - where would Woodstock be today as an antidote to Capitalism?" I did not receive an answer, just a funny look from the guide.
How odd and ironic that this myth remains so ingrained in the memory of so many people.
However much some people believe it was, Woodstock was NOT a political event. There were some small political statements made by performers. Others who were there, and many who carried the history forward, try to use it as a political statement. There is none to be made. It was a cultural event, and its crowning moment occurred just after The Who finished Pinball Wizard, when Pete Townshend forcibly removed Abbie Hoffman with a "Get the fuck off my fucking stage."
Even today it's not a political event. Perhaps the best summation was by Max Yasgur's wife Mimi who, when asked why she didn't have another Woodstock festival, replied "you can't have another anything."
Max and the promoters had done something unique. It can be imitated, but it can never be recreated. The best we can do is to seek to relive small parts of it, the best parts of it, and remember what it represented. My hours walking the grounds, visiting the museum having a beer at Hector's and talking to locals who attended is as close as I'll ever come to seeing Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon or Janis Joplin perform.
I don't get to ever be one of the many millions who claim they were at Woodstock. Even today, several years after attending, I get to feel what it was like to be there and bathe in the glow of the era it represents. For as much 'bad' as there was in the 1960's, and as much 'bad' as there was at Woodstock itself, there was more good and great behavior which is worth learning from. It takes effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, but it's all there, even if revisionists would like us to believe a Utopian version of what happened. I like to believe the real-life version is a better story, because it's the version from which we gain valuable lessons.
There was peace and love. There was a tremendous amount of caring for others. Those are good stories. The real story, though, is that this was a mess, a completely mismanaged affair which ultimately proved to be a success in spite of many failures, mainly because many people completely outside of the event itself, gave of themselves to the attendees. The attendees, particularly the freeloaders, were in many ways oblivious to the mess they were creating. Out of that mess, however, a highly profitable market was developed. It was the crassness of an attempted socialist utopia which finally had a light shone on it because the greatness of the marketplace put the event itself on a stage. Not judging, just enjoying - to make a buck and have fun doing it.
