Woodstock - 40 Years

The current hoopla over the anniversary of Woodstock impresses me somewhat. I'm too young to have been at Woodstock, and given the logistics and the lack of amenities there, I don't think I would necessarily have wanted to be there - but I do have a grudging respect for the four hundred thousand hippies who were just as responsible in making it a memorable event as the performers. Maybe more so. Nobody remembers Sweetwater, one of the bands that played on the first day of the festival. No one who was there wants to admit that Sha Na Na or Blood, Sweat and Tears - both of whom became symbols of seventies cheesiness - were among the acts, or that sometimes you couldn't hear the acts that were worth sitting in the mud to see (the Who, the Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, etc.).

The main reason the Woodstock Art and Music Fair (as it was called) was a success was because the audience took the rain, the delays, and the boredom of listening to Melanie's warbling in stride and made the best of it. They listened to whatever music they could hear - and I have a feeling everyone heard Hendrix, he was so darn loud - took it easy, smoked pot, and generally enjoyed themselves. The festival started as a concert charging admission, but when the hopeful attendees stormed the gates, it became a free concert and there was no trouble. Max Yasgur, the owner of the farm the Woodstock festival was held on, said it best when he told the crowd that they proved they could successfully have three days of peace and music.

Unfortunately, three days of peace and music was all the Baby Boom generation could sustain. The Altamont festival headlined by the Rollins Stones four months later was full of violence and mayhem, including the stabbing of a black Rolling Stones fan by the Hell's Angels who were supposed to provide security for the concert. The annual Isle of Wight festival in the United Kingdom was such a headache when held a third time in 1970 that it wouldn't resume for another 32 years. Today's annual music festivals - Bonnaroo in the United States, Glastonbury in Britain - are less about making a cultural statement on the need for a better tomorrow and more about a good weekend's entertainment. And after Live Aid - the 1985 all-star bi-national concert that, if remembered for anything, will be remembered for Phil Collins managing the hat trick of performing at both the London and Philadelphia shows - no one imagines that the English-speaking world's biggest pop acts can make the Third World a better place by raising money to help lift it out of poverty, much to the chagrin of Bob Geldof.

Still, Woodstock was a concert that had some good music and some good vibes, and it proved that people could get together en masse and get along. I'm all for preserving the spirit of Woodstock, as well as the field the show was held on.

But a Woodstock museum? Don't we have enough music museums? And isn't the very idea of such a thing kind of dumb?

So where was I in the summer of 1969? My parents and I went to Ocean City, New Jersey. I was three years old. I only know I was there because Mom took pictures. I don't remember being there.

Just like a lot of the folks who went to Woodstock - thanks to too much pot - don't remember being there.

And just like I don't want to remember being at Live Aid.