Woodstock 50th Anniversary

50 years ago this month. It was a
huge deal, huge. The album was
bought by everybody I knew.
That roster of names, Hendrix,, Janis Joplin,
Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Joe
Cocker, Crosby Stills and Nash,
Ten Years After, Country Joe and
the Fish, Santana, Jerry Garcia,
it was hard to believe they were'all
there.

The few people I knew who were
there had an awful time. Rain, bad
food, bad drugs, mosquitoes, not
enough bathrooms. But they got
to say they were at Woodstock.

It's been tired again and again to
replicate it, but it never works.
You cannot replicate the attitude
of 1969. The war in Vietnam,
the new drug culture, long haired
hippies. 68, 69 and 70 WAS the
60's in full swing counter culture
glory. How do you replicate that.

there was to be Woodstock 50 somewhere in Maryland but deposits and permits were slow, major groups dropped out.

There was a story a few months ago of a guy who spent a couple years putting every bit of audio and video of 69 Woodstock together. By everything, I mean every loudspeaker announcement, random sounds, feedback, etc., 36 hours of recordings, I believe.

Quote: Evenbob

It's been tired again and again to
replicate it, but it never works.
You cannot replicate the attitude
of 1969. The war in Vietnam,
the new drug culture, long haired
hippies. 68, 69 and 70 WAS the
60's in full swing counter culture
glory. How do you replicate that.

Don't know that I would want to replicate it. I was on the Thruway after Woodstock III in IRIC 1999. Never saw so many out of state plates in my life. But it was just some big music festival, corporate feel. Attended by people who wished they were at the first one. Saw people lined up to pay $5 ATM fee, unheard of then. Any TV coverage looked like the people there were playing pretend, trying to act like what they saw at the first one.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to live at the corner of Haight Ashbury and 1966, but when I went to a commune just north of Seattle I met a lot of people who were coming close to it. All those tie-dyed cottons and topless parading about, macrobiotic brown rice and girls who will move into your camper with you just as long as you eventually drop them in Santa Cruz.
Interesting lifestyles but reality always rears its ugly head.

Quote: Fleastiff

Yeah, it's kind of hard to live at the corner of Haight Ashbury and 1966, but when I went to a commune just north of Seattle I met a lot of people who were coming close to it. All those tie-dyed cottons and topless parading about, macrobiotic brown rice and girls who will move into your camper with you just as long as you eventually drop them in Santa Cruz.
Interesting lifestyles but reality always rears its ugly head.

It always looks better from the outside. How many of those girls were skanky looking that you might otherwise not give a second look?

Once or twice I have been asked what living in the 1980s was like. Sure you saw interesting history, the rest was bland day to day. No reason to think the 60s was different, just better card and McDonald's tasted better.

My mother wouldn't let me go along with my brother and sister. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. It looked like the apocalypse on the news.

with some of that bad acid it could have been a nightmare. Instead the real problems were traffic and rain.

Think of that much advertised Fyre Festival, eaten alive by insects, tropical heat with no drinking water or ice, of course there were lots of girls trading the use of their bodies for a few hours of shade.

Quote: AZDuffman

Don't know that I would want to replicate it. I was on the Thruway after Woodstock III in IRIC 1999. Never saw so many out of state plates in my life. But it was just some big music festival, corporate feel. Attended by people who wished they were at the first one. Saw people lined up to pay $5 ATM fee, unheard of then. Any TV coverage looked like the people there were playing pretend, trying to act like what they saw at the first one.

In '69 we were on vacation in Massachusetts and got stuck in the Woodstock traffic (passing through NY). Don't remember if we were coming or going, or if it was before or after the festival. all I remember is sitting in the station wagon with five brothers and sisters and my mother and father and feeling bummed about it.

Quote: Mosca

In '69 we were on vacation in Massachusetts and got stuck in the Woodstock traffic. Don't remember if we were coming or going, or if it was before or after the festival. all I remember is sitting in the station wagon with five brothers and sisters and my mother and her father and feeling bummed about it.

There is a Trivial Pursuit question about some act, Hendrix I think, screaming the NYS State Thruway is closed. Even today I cannot imagine that area handling 1/10 the traffic.