MOVIES
WOODSTOCK
SORRY COACHELLA AND LANEWAY BUT THIS IS THE BEST MUSIC FESTIVAL OF ALL TIME. OF ALL TIME! BY SARAH BUENDIA
Whenever we try to recall any pivotal moment in rock and roll history from the last 50 years, we would probably never be able to dissociate it with the image of the youngblood, feeling for the first time, what it’s like to live. Here, I am speaking from the perspective of our parents, and maybe of our grandparents, from whose generation we owe a lot of the pioneers of great music as we know it today. Their belief was simple, and it is by the two words that The Woodstock Festival held by. Peace and Music. The year was 1969—yes, kids, 1969—when over 500,000 people came over to a little town in New York to experience three days which promised anything and everything that involved these two things. Performers included some of the biggest names in rock and roll, including Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, The Who, and our favorite heroine Janis Joplin. Imagine that. Perhaps, to call it fun would be embarrassingly inadequate—to describe it as anything, even, would result only to feeble attempts to encapsulate what had taken place in those three days. Luckily for us, a talented team that included the highly respectable Martin Scorsese (as editor), was thoughtful enough to have captured that which may not be rightfully described in words. The result was a 3-hour documentary that included the highlights, the troubling rains, and everything in between. It did not only serve as a kind of memorabilia for those who were there or had lived during the time of Woodstock, but also as a gift to us, generations later, in order for us to see the kind of surrendering that had won wars, both in and out of oneself. I call it surrendering, as it was not just that the people in it fought relentlessly for the cause they fervently believed in. It was more that the festival symbolized a complete concession of oneself to music, trusting that it would bring everybody together in a moment of
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/August 2012
unselfishness, allowing it to move them completely. More famous and more heavily-attended festivals have sprung up over the decades. There is of course, the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which provided for many of us not fortunate enough to afford time and tickets to go to California the wonders of live streaming, and which we have relentlessly talked about year after year. But Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock remains relevant, and will most probably remain relevant for decades more, because it is perhaps the first, and the best, to exhibit the type of freedom we find ourselves foreign to these days. As more and more cultural events and changes happen, the farther away we become from experiencing a life devoid of many wants and needs. We become enslaved by the things we encounter, and by the pressure to always get our hands on something, afraid that we are always missing out. And while this isn’t necessarily a misfortune for our generations as it provides us with more opportunities and the maximization of our potentials, there is that state of being which we are missing out on. It is that state of being we get whenever we allow ourselves to forget everything else for a little while, and just enjoy the music. Surrender. There is, though, a reason behind why festivals are usually no longer than three days. Besides the financial reasons, most of us have to go back to fulfilling our roles as responsible members of society. Or, at least, as the Internet celebrities that some of us are. And as much as we wish these festivals last forever, we know that there are limitations to our freedom no matter how noble and nonthreatening our intentions are. But, once in a while, Woodstock reminds us that we still own this freedom. And that we can all afford to be back in 1969, lost within the sea of Peace and Music.