Any board members were at the orignal Woodstock?

[Hardbopjazz]

It is 40 years ago August 15th that the first Woodstock took place. Was anyone here at the first Woodstock?

40 years later, Woodstock still fascinates

By MICHAEL HILL (AP) – 3 days ago

BETHEL, N.Y. — Forty years after Richie Havens sang and strummed for a sea of people at Woodstock, he still gets asked about it and he still gets requests to sing "Freedom."

He's not surprised.

"Everything in my life, and so many others', is attached to that train," Havens said.

The young hippies who watched the sun come up with The Who in 1969 are now eligible for early bird specials. Many of the bands are broken up or missing members who died. But Woodstock remains one of those events — like the moon landing earlier that summer — that continues to define the 1960s in the popular imagination.

Consider the bumper crop of Woodstock nostalgia marking the 40th anniversary. There's a new director's cut DVD of the concert movie, a remastered concert CD, director Ang Lee's rock 'n' roll comedy "Taking Woodstock" and a memoir by promoter Michael Lang. There are also performances scheduled by Woodstock veterans at the old site, now home to a '60s museum and an outdoor concert pavilion.

The Woodstock legend stems from big names such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin playing at a show where everything went wrong but turned out right.

The town of Woodstock didn't want the concert and promoters were bounced from another site at the 11th hour. Lang settled on a hay field in Bethel owned by a kindly dairy farmer named Max Yasgur. The concert did come off Aug. 15-18, 1969, but barely. Fences were torn down, tickets became useless. More than 400,000 people converged on this rural corner 80 miles northwest of New York City, freezing traffic for miles. Then the rains doused everything.

It should have been a disaster. But Americans tuning in to the evening news that weekend saw smiling, dancing, muddy kids. By the time the concert movie came out months later, Woodstock was a symbol of the happy, hippie side of the '60s spirit.

It still is.

Baby boomers are the "Woodstock Generation" — not the "Monterey Generation" or the "Altamont Generation." Bethel's onsite museum has logged more than 70,000 visitors since last summer, a fair number of them college students born well after Woodstock. A roadside monument there regularly logs visitors from around the planet.

"It's almost a pilgrimage," said Wade Lawrence, director of the Museum at Bethel Woods. "It's like going to a high school reunion, or it's like visiting a grave site of a loved one."

From Lollapalooza to All Points West, there have been plenty of big festivals focused on youth culture. The continent-hopping Live Aid shows of 1985 did that and more, enlisting top names such as U2 and Madonna to fight hunger in Africa. None have the cultural cachet of Woodstock. Who would ever ask a Generation X-er: "Were you really at Live Aid?"

People who went to Woodstock say the crowd set it apart as much as the music. The trippy anarchy of Woodstock has become legend: lots of nudity, casual sex, dirty (and muddy) dancing, open drug use. The stage announcer famously warned people to steer clear of the brown acid.

Many who were there recall Woodstock as an oasis of good vibes during a time of unrest over the Vietnam War. Ilene Marder, then an 18-year-old who hitched from the Bronx, saw people feeding one another and respecting one another. She knew she found her tribe.

"The music was nice, but it was being with so many people who looked like us, who looked like me," said Marder, who later moved to Woodstock some 50 miles away. "I remember telling myself 'Don't forget this! Don't forget they way you feel right now!'"

Former Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten remembers hearing buzz that something special was up at the nearby hotel where the band was staying. The scale of the event sunk in when the band choppered in over the mass of people. While artists like Joe Cocker and Santana boosted their careers at Woodstock, the Dead were notoriously flat.

Jerry Garcia, the band's late guitarist, told interviewers that his guitar was being hit with bouncing blue balls of electricity — the kind that comes from bad wiring, not strong psychedelics. Constanten said he wasn't as bothered as his band mates.

"Actually, I had a wonderful time. The guitarists were not. Because of electrical problems, they were getting shocks from their strings and all," he said. "Aversion therapy like that, no one needs."

Constanten contends the music and spirit of Woodstock was not a revelation to the people there. But it was to the millions who saw the movie and listened to the album.

As they say now, Woodstock went viral.

"This juggernaut of a music scene burst in their awareness," he said. "It didn't feel different to us. It was their response."

Woodstock has been resurrected a couple of times since then, at least in name.

Promoters staged a 25th-anniversary concert near Woodstock in 1994 that was a musical success. But a 30th-anniversary performance at a former Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y., ended in disaster after crowds lit bonfires and looted on the last night. The unrelenting heat and $4 bottles of water taxed any vestiges of Woodstock spirit.

Yasgur's old farm, meanwhile, has gone establishment in recent years. Local cable TV billionaire Alan Gerry quietly snapped up the land in the 1990s and started a not-for-profit foundation to run a museum and concert space. The gently sloping hill that provided a natural amphitheater in 1969 is nicely tended and fenced in.

Concerts are regularly scheduled over the hill from the original stage at a modern, 4,800-seat amphitheater.

Constanten and Havens are among the 1969 performers returning to the site on the 40th anniversary weekend. Havens will play a solo show that Friday, a day before a larger show featuring other Woodstock veterans such as Levon Helm, formerly of The Band, Ten Years After and Canned Heat. Though long separated from the Dead, Constanten said he'll play the band's songs that weekend.

No electric shocks are expected under the multimillion-dollar pavilion, and probably no generation-defining magic either.

"Then is then," Constanten said, "and now is now."

Woodstock story

[Free For All]

Here's a previous thread on this topic....

EDIT: I'll be curious to see what the word is on that upcoming Ang Lee film Taking Woodstock.

Edited August 13, 2009 by Free For All

[The Red Menace]

Yes!!! I was there, comrades, actively helping to direct nefarious countercultural activities as part of a long-range Soviet plot to bring about an end to the American way of life. Sadly, somebody spiked my vodka with a tab of brown acid... The plot failed and I have never been the same since.

[Big Al]

Yes!!! I was there, comrades, actively helping to direct nefarious countercultural activities as part of a long-range Soviet plot to bring about an end to the American way of life. Sadly, somebody spiked my vodka with a tab of brown acid... The plot failed and I have never been the same since.

Well, you can be forgiven, comrade: you were only two at the time and I was still a few months away from making my debut, otherwise I mighta helped out!

[AllenLowe]

my brother and I were thinking of going, but then we heard how far traffic was backed up on the New York State Throughway. And hippies always annoyed the crap out of me.

I DID go to the first Grateful Dead concert in Central Park in 1967. That was terrific.

and I accidentally attended Duke Ellington's funeral - but that's a weird story -

And I played on stage in Bed Stuy the same night as Eubie Blake's coming-out concert (he'd been retired for a long time).

I met Adolph Zukor in 1968.

but I missed Woodstock -

Edited August 13, 2009 by AllenLowe

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

one of my old bosses, this awesome black dude, went to woodstock he told me because his father was building a cabin in update NY close to the grounds and he was in the area so he went- i asked him what his recollection of it was, he said: "everybody was drunk".

[mjzee]

Woodstock concert's undercover lovers

[Teasing the Korean]

So glad I wasn't with those unwashed hippies listening to endless blues jams! I would have enjoyed drinking scotch with their parents in their modern ranch houses.

[BeBop]

Not that I remember.

[GA Russell]

I've never wished that I was at Woodstock, but I've always wished that I was at the Monterey Pop Festival in '67.

[JSngry]

I've never wished that I was at Woodstock, but I've always wished that I was at the Monterey Pop Festival in '67.

Now there's a motion worth seconding!

[RDK]

I have a friend, in his 40s, who remembers being at Woodstock as a child. He'd been telling everybody this story for years, but one day mentioned it to his parents, who informed him that no, they didn't take him to the concert but to the movie a couple of years later!

[AndrewHill]

I have a friend, in his 40s, who remembers being at Woodstock as a child. He'd been telling everybody this story for years, but one day mentioned it to his parents, who informed him that no, they didn't take him to the concert but to the movie a couple of years later!

[fasstrack]

I was there. It was muddy. We thought we were saving the world----which, of course, was bullshit.

It never made it to any movie, but Hendrix picked out a girl in one of the front rows and said 'hey, sweet thing----a dirty old mann's gonna lick your bicycle seat'.

The best bands were Butterfield and Canned Heat, I thought. John Sebastian and Janis Joplin's band were good, too.

The funniest thing I remember is something everyone saw: the genius promoter, Michae Lang, with his curly Afro, after almost being trampled to death by kids who broke the flimsy fence down and snuck in saying (I think while supine) 'this is now a free concert'....

[GA Russell]

So glad I wasn't with those unwashed hippies listening to endless blues jams! I would have enjoyed drinking scotch with their parents in their modern ranch houses.

TTK, you slay me!

I've been listening to the Woodstock channel on Sirius today - all music recorded at the festival. Everything I've heard has been quite mediocre.

[Tony Pusey]

Does the Isle of Wight in the same month qualify? it was a big deal, because Dylan-ho hum-was to appear, as I recall Tom Paxton (!!!!?) stole the show from him! Isle of Wight 3. the next year was the real mc coy-Hendrix,French Maoists, doors_who I missed by falling asleep, Miles et al.... Actualy I also missed Miles performance since I was intent on pursuing my own entente cordial, helas my Maoist Marie found my politics to be an imfantile disorder.

And I was 5 days (!) late getting back to work afterwards! By the way, Wight numeto uno was just the Airplane, but I was too young and Mummy didnt let me go! Did see them-and the aforementioned Doors at the Roundhouse on the same tour.though..

me thinks Im getting old......

Edited August 15, 2009 by Tony Pusey

[Jazzmoose]

Woodstock concert's undercover lovers

Shit! They got old; I thought it was just me...

[mjzee]

Woodstock concert's undercover lovers

Shit! They got old; I thought it was just me...

Another photo...

Inside cover

[sidewinder]

I was interested to read that the Keef Hartley Band was in the lineup at Woodstock. At the time, Hartley was recording for Deram Records and some of his recordings feature trumpeter Henry Lowther. I wonder if Lowther made the Woodstock show? These days Keith Hartley runs his own joinery business in Preston, Lancashire I believe.

[Rooster_Ties]

I've never wished that I was at Woodstock, but I've always wished that I was at the Monterey Pop Festival in '67.

Now there's a motion worth seconding!

Ditto here!! Always dug Hendrix at Monterey '76 a BUNCH more than Woodstock. (For one, The Experience in ’67 were a MUCH tighter band than Gypsy Sun and Rainbows in ‘69 -- though both have their moments.)

Of course, with Monterey, there's always the commemorative action figure...

[mjzee]

I was interested to read that the Keef Hartley Band was in the lineup at Woodstock. At the time, Hartley was recording for Deram Records and some of his recordings feature trumpeter Henry Lowther. I wonder if Lowther made the Woodstock show? These days Keith Hartley runs his own joinery business in Preston, Lancashire I believe.

What is a joinery?

[Peter Johnson]

What is a joinery?

Let me google that for you!

[sidewinder]

I was interested to read that the Keef Hartley Band was in the lineup at Woodstock. At the time, Hartley was recording for Deram Records and some of his recordings feature trumpeter Henry Lowther. I wonder if Lowther made the Woodstock show? These days Keith Hartley runs his own joinery business in Preston, Lancashire I believe.

What is a joinery?

Wood-working business.

[A Lark Ascending]

I was interested to read that the Keef Hartley Band was in the lineup at Woodstock. At the time, Hartley was recording for Deram Records and some of his recordings feature trumpeter Henry Lowther. I wonder if Lowther made the Woodstock show? These days Keith Hartley runs his own joinery business in Preston, Lancashire I believe.

Im told you played at Woodstock. Which artists do you remember most from that?

I played at the famous Woodstock festival in August,1969, with the Keef Hartley Band. We played on the Saturday afternoon. Whether you played or not depended on whether you could manage to get on a helicopter. We were never included in the Woodstock film because our brilliant (sic) manager wouldn't let them film us without money up front! What a genius! During the two or three hours we were there I saw Santana and the compere, John Sebastien. The Incredible String Band were playing as we were leaving.

From: http://www.artsinleicestershire.co.uk/jazzinleicestershire/

[fasstrack]

I was interested to read that the Keef Hartley Band was in the lineup at Woodstock. At the time, Hartley was recording for Deram Records and some of his recordings feature trumpeter Henry Lowther. I wonder if Lowther made the Woodstock show? These days Keith Hartley runs his own joinery business in Preston, Lancashire I believe.

Yes, they were there. They were on the program and if memory serves they were the first band I saw the first day.