The Legend of Woodstock

Late one night in 1968, Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang, two young men who had grown up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood and had recently become friends again, were playing bumper pool and talking. Both loved music and worked in the music industry. Kornfeld had co-wrote songs for bands such as The Angels, Jan And Dean, abd the Cowsills, had performed in a rock band of his own, and had eventually become the vice president of Capitol Records. Michael Lang, on the other hand, managed a few bands of his own, and had recently produced a large music festival in Miami. Their minds on music, the two friends daydreamed aloud about having a party for their friends, and using their connections to get bands such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to come perform for them. They also thought about opening their own recording studio. The town of Woodstock, NY, where Lang was staying, was becoming a popular place for musicians, and the men figured that a recording studio there would be very successful. These ideas merged into the idea for a festival in Woodstock, NY. The festival would include not just music, but also things like arts and crafts, yoga, and spiritual direction The festival idea was the one that stuck, and soon Kornfeld and Lang decided to put it into action.

Somewhat haphazardly, Artie Kornfeld put together a business called Kornfeld Lang Adventures. Having a legit business, with a logo and a director, would make it easier for them to begin raising money for their music festival.

Meanwhile, two more young music lovers, both from wealthy families, were looking to do some investing in music projects. They put an ad in the New York Times that said, "Two guys with unlimited capital looking for investments." Michael Lang's lawyer found out about the ad, and soon it had been arranged for Lang and Kornfeld to meet with John Roberts and Joel Rosenmen. Roberts and Rosenmen soon agreed to be part of the music festival project, and the foursome created yet another business called Woodstock Ventures.

They began hiring people to book bands, do the lighting and the sound work for the festival, work backstage, sell tickets, advertise, etc. They hired artist Arnold Skolnik to create a poster advertising the festival.

The next order of business was to find a site for the festival. This proved to be easier said than done. The original plan had been for the fest to be in Woodstock, but the group quickly decided to look for a better suited place. They found a site in Wallhill, NY, but at the last minute the city council of Wallhill decided that the festival couldn't occur there. They didn't want their town being overrun by hippies! (Unfortunately, the Woodstock Venture people had already spent a lot of time and money building a stage in Wallhill and getting ready for the festival to be there!)

Next, the group heard about a dairy farmer max Yasgur, in Bethel, NY, who desperately needed to come up with $60,000 in order to keep his farm. Michael Lang went to speak with Yasgur, and secured the use of the dairy farm for the festival. Getting a festival permit in Bethel was not a problem. The person in charge of issuing such permits in the tiny town was Elliot Tiber, who also helped run the small motel his parents owned. Tiber, somewhat of a misfit himself in the conservative town, was totally on board with the idea of a festival. In fact, he'd originally offered to host the festival on his own property, but it turned out to be too small.

In order to prevent a repeat of the Wallhill conundrum from happening, Woodstock Ventures tried to get on the good sides of the people of Bethel. They arranged for a group called Earthlight Theater to come put on a free performance for the townspeople, at the site of the future festival. But choosing Earthlight Theatre wasn't a wise choice on the part of Woodstock Ventures. The off-beat theatrical group performed a musical comedy called "Sex, Y'all Come," which involved the performers stripping naked on stage. The people of Bethel were shocked and dismayed.

Despite the protests of the people of Bethel, the festival would start on Friday, August 15, and last through Sunday. An $18 ticket would buy a person not only entry into the festival, but a camping spot for the three days, and food vouchers.

Welcome To Woodstock!

With the Woodstock Festival snowballing into something huger than expected, Woodstock Ventures looked for help. They enlisted members of a hippie commune called the Hog Farm, which was founded by famous peace activist Wavy Gravy, to build fire pits and trails and run security. Wavy Gravy also insisted that the people of the Hog farm would also run a free kitchen at the festival. The Hog Farmers were among the first to arrive at Woodstock, a day before the music was scheduled to start. They were joined by many of the Merry Pranksters, a commune started by Ken Kesey. Hog Farmers and the Pranksters converted the festival grounds into a temporary commune, complete with a free "alternative" stage to be used by anyone who felt like performing, a free kitchen, and a free school and playground for children! There was also a Freaked Out tent that would be a safe place for people having bad drug experiences.

By Friday, though, all hell was breaking loose! Woodstock Ventures organizers had arranged for the state police, as well as some New York City offiers, to handle traffic. The police would have cars pull off the highway and drive to designated fields to park. But somehow, this didn't happen. Nobody seemed to know what to do. Many people simply parked their cars in the middle of the road and walked into the festival. Ticket takers were overwhelmed by the number of people coming in. It was getting fairly easy for people to just wander in without paying or handing over a ticket. Eventually the Woodstock Venturers decided to just take down the chain link fence that surrounded the festival, and make it a free concert.

Meanwhile, the festival was becoming jammed with hundreds of thousands of people. John Roberts and Joel Rosenmen actually suggested that the festival might be declared a disaster area, to get food and assistance for the festival-goers. Lang and Kornfeld didn't like this idea, because it could cause the National Guard to show up and shut the whole thing down. Luckily or unluckily, the governor of New York didn't consider a festival to be a disaster area. Some unexpected help did come from the people of Bethel and surrounding areas, who donated almost a thousand sandwiches to the free kitchen.

Performers were having trouble making it to the festival, because of the horrible traffic. Many had to go to motels along the way, and arrange for helicopters to bring them to the festival. Richie Havens was one of the performers who made it to the festival on time, and he ended up having to go on stage early and perform for three straight hours because other performers hadn't arrived yet. A few musicians who just happened to be there but weren't scheduled to performed ended up getting pulled on stage for impromptu performances. Country Joe McDonald was recruited to do the Fish Cheer and a few other improvised songs. Former Lovin' Spoonful guitarist John Sebastian was also pulled on stage, but he was too high to do anything but give a rambling speech to the crowd!

With the large amount of people, plus the thunderstorm that came on Friday evening and drenched the crowds, a medical tent needed to be hastily set up. The Woodstock Venturers pleaded for any nurses or other medical personell from the surrounding area to come help out at the festival. One of the biggest jobs the people at the medical tent had to do was help people who were having bad trips. Some medical personell had brought some antipsychotic medications, but learned from members of the Hog farmers that giving the meds to a person on drugs would do serious permanent damage to the person's mind. The only way to deal with a person having a bad trip was to speak softly to them and try to bring them back to reality. Some of the people didn't even take acid on purpose. The drug was being added to Kool-Aid and handed out, and some people were simply drinking it because they were thirsty. The medical tent also helped people whose eyes had been burnt from the sun. While high, people had been lying back and staring up at the sun until their eyes were damaged! Many other people came to the medical tent because they had stepped on broken glass with their bare feet. As the festival wore on, people came down with symptoms of both heat stroke from the sun, and pneumonia from being in the rain.

This went on until Monday, one day past the day when the festival was scheduled to end. By Monday, festival goers had to return to reality. There were many young people who had left home without their parents' permission, in order to go to Woodstock, and had to think about facing the consequences Many people had lost everything they'd brought with them... sleeping bags, clothing, shoes, etc. Some people had been separated from the friends and family members they'd come with, and at least one couple had been separated from their children. By the end of Woodstock, three deaths had occurred. Two were drug overdoses, and one was a seventeen-year-old boy who had been run over by a tractor while he slept. In addition, eight miscarriages had been reported.

But when you ask most people who were at Woodstock about it, their memories are positive. They remember music that played all night long, and waking up to the sounds of Jefferson Airplane. They speak of making friends who were instantly considered family, sharing everything they had and being shared with by other people, and feeling like they were a part of something huge. In a time when the country was at war in Vietnam and a crooked president was in the White House, the people at Woodstock felt like they were changing the world by bringing so many people together for a weekend of music, peace and love. In the words of one Woodstock survivor, "...Woodstock was more than drugs, music and fun. It was a gathering of people. A time where everyone lived in harmony for those 3 days. And we proved it to the world."

The Second (and third and fourth and fifth) Coming of Woodstock

Small, unpublicized anniversary festivals occurred in 1979 and 1989. But the most famous Woodstock sequel was organized.in 1994 and included such bands as Greenday, Blues Traveler, Candlebox, and the Violent Femmes. A few performers from the 1969 Woodstock came. And Bob Dylan, who had been invited to perform at the first Woodstock but had declined, performed at the 1994 version. In many ways it was similar to the first Woodstock..It once again became a free concert when hundreds of people crashed the gates, despite the polices' attempts to keep that a secret. And once again, many people who went to the festival found it to be an amazing experience, in which people bonded instantly with each other and shared what they had (In fact, the 1994 Woodstock earned the nickname of "Mudstock" because of a mudfight started by Greenday.) But unlike the first Woodstock, the 1994 festival was heavily sponsored by corporations such as Pepsi. Some of the original Woodstock veterans complained that the 1994 festival should have never used the name of Woodstock, because it wasn't the same idea as the original.

Another Woodstock festival was held in 1999, but that one went horribly awry. There was even more commercialization than at the 1994 version, with MTV filming it and selling it on Pay-Per-View. Food was being sold at alarming prices, with the prices of water and ice going up as the heat went up. People entering the festival were actually frisked, to make sure that they weren't sneaking in their own food and water, in order to force them to depend on the things being sold inside. This was a huge contrast to the original Woodstock with its free kitchen! And the 1999 festival was plagued with violence and crime. A group of peace activists had passed out small candles, intending to have a candlelight vigil later on, but people instead used the candles to light huge bonfires. ATM machines were broken into, vendor booths were looted and then set on fire, and portable toilets and even a bus were burned. MTV, which had people there filming the event, evacuated all of its staff. They compared the wreckage to a concentration camp! There were even reports of at least four rapes that occurred at the festival. Police eventually formed a riot line to force festival goers away from the stage, and the festival was shut down early.

Some have said that the bleakness of Woodstock 1999 shows that society has changed, and there can never be another festival of peace and love as large as Woodstock. But pockets of the spirit of Woodstock still exist all over the country. For instance, a few years after the original Woodstock, the Rainbow Family of Living Light came together. Each summer the Rainbow Family has a national family gathering in a national forest, where they set up a temporary commune similar to the one the Hog Farmers and Merry Pranksters created at Woodstock. Family members, who are defined as any well-intentioned people who want to be part of the family, share food and work for a week of peace and love Smaller Rainbow Family gatherings take place all year round in different states. If the organizers of Woodstock had decided to try to perfect their festival of peace in subsequent years, it may have turned out very similar to the Rainbow Family. And although Rainbow Family Gatherings don't include any formal music performances, other types of gatherings include music and craft vendors. One example is the annual Peace Festival in Missouri. For twenty dollars per person (and kids are free) peace lovers can camp for three or four days, enjoy free food, visit vendors, listen to music on a stage, swim in the river, and enjoy nature. Woodstock may not have been a total success... but it was the beginning of something special that will live on forever.