By: Fern Sidman
Aging hippies, baby boomers and music lovers of all stripes gathered in upstate Bethel, New York this weekend to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Woodstock Arts & Music Festival, as they sported their tie-dyed t-shirts and 1960s ephemera.
Music history was made on the weekend of August 15th -18th on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, when 400,000 teenagers showed up for three days of music. Little did the organizers of the original event comprehend that this music festival would be etched into the annals of history as it became known as the flashpoint for the counterculture movement of the 1960s.
For three days in August of 1969, 400,000 young people stood shoulder to shoulder, with no police or security forces monitoring them and not one single act of violence occurred. Despite a torrential rain storm, lack of food and outdoor toilets, the mass of humanity fed each other, helped each other, and engaged with one another in a spirit of love and brotherhood.
Among the 30 musical acts that performed on that hot, summer weekend in 1969 included singers Richie Havens, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez and such bands as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, Canned Heat, The Who, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young, and Country Joe and the Fish.
Concerned that violence and general unruliness would prevail among the attendees of the original Woodstock, then New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller had threatened to call in the National Guard to disperse the massive crowd. He never took those measures, but did send National Guard medical helicopters to the Bethel site to help with those who had fallen ill or were experiencing bad acid trips.
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts was the host for a series of events from Thursday and going until Sunday at the picturesque 1969 concert site which is located 80 miles northwest of New York City, according to an AP report.
Arlo Guthrie, an original Woodstock performer, played an evening set atop the famous hill, but said he also wanted to play at least one song near where the 1969 stage was located, according to the AP report. Picking up a guitar, he sang the Bob Dylan classic, “The Times They Are a Changin.”
Speaking to a throng of reporters, Guthrie said of his performance at Woodstock 50 years ago, “It was a great time. For me, the Woodstock festival was a celebratory end of an era. It was not the beginning of anything. It was the end of something, and it was an end of a very turbulent time that was also very wonderful.”
Guthrie’s evening performance drew a crowd heavy on baby boomers, many with psychedelic-print shirts. In contrast to the 1969 show, there were plenty of seats and well-stocked vendors selling food, wine and beer, according to the AP report.
Guthrie’s show preceded a screening Thursday night of the Woodstock documentary at an amphitheater on the site.
Also appearing this weekend was another performer who appeared at the original Woodstock in 1969.
Carlos Santana, playing with his band Santana, wowed the crowd that had gathered at the venue that sits on the ground that once hosted the original Woodstock festival, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal.
It followed a performance by the Doobie Brothers on the pavilion stage. The four-night event is scheduled to end Sunday with a show from John Fogerty.
On Saturday afternoon, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported that Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang appeared at the Catskill Distillery/Dancing Cat Saloon in Bethel, to sign a gun control petition on a piece of the stage of the original festival.
Meanwhile in the Town of Woodstock, concerts and events have also been planned by local businesses, including the Colony, which is holding a free festival with local musicians.
Also appearing at the Bethel fair was author Mike Greenblatt whose recent book “Woodstock: Back to Yasgur’s Farm.” His seminal book explores nuanced personal recollections of the original 1969 festival in addition to providing readers with scintillating interviews with the concert organizers, musicians, sound and lighting technicians and others.
Speaking to the Reuters news service, an original Woodstock attendee recalled his memories of the music festival that impacted a generation in countless ways.
“Everything that could go wrong went wrong. But everything went right,” said Duke Devlin, 77, who hitchhiked to Woodstock from Texas and has lived near the festival venue ever since. “We were bombarded with bliss.”
