WOODSTOCK

Benedict 1

Three days that Defined a Generation

The Woodstock music festival of 1969 is often considered cultural icon of the 1960’s. Its story is as timeless as any, and has transcended to my generation as a symbol of a peaceful time. While most people have heard of the festival, most know almost nothing about the festival itself or what it stood for. A few years ago I watched Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, a documentary about the festival and was instantly infatuated with revolutionary event. Soon after I spoke with my neighbor who had attended the festival over 40 years ago, searching for what had made Woodstock so amazing. He quickly avoided my enthusiastic questioning and simply stated, “Those who went to Woodstock, never left”. I had heard this expression before, and I returned home slightly agitated, but even more intrigued than before.

Many questions flooded my mind as I yearned for answers. What was it about Woodstock that was so mystifying? And moreover, how did Woodstock define the culture of the youth of the 60’s, and was any aspect of that culture still alive today?

Before we can assess and analyze the answers to these questions, we must first gain an understanding of what Woodstock was, for much of the youth today regard Woodstock as a cultural icon without much knowledge of the festival itself.

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 1969 was three-day festival in a farmland field a few miles from rural Bethel, New York. The festival, dedicated to peace, love and music drew in an unprecedented amount of young people, estimated at 450,000 (Sheehy 1). What was so controversial about the festival was not the festival itself,

Benedict 2 but the immediate impact on traffic control and sanitation. As hundreds of thousand of people flooded so a small rural area, traffic jams blocked up highways and country roads miles from the festival site itself. Even more problematic was the inevitable resource production problems faced at the festival: “Food, water, and sanitation facilities were insufficient for the large crowd, widespread drug use was resulting in overdoses and “bad trips”, and heavy rains were turning the festival grounds into a muddy quagmire” (Sheehy 1). While these factors were saturating the press with distain and distaste for the hippy, anti-government youth of the generation. The negative coverage from leading media like The New York Times shaped the public opinion of the festival and reflected the little attention the perspective of the youth’s culture of the 60’s the media recognized. As journalist Michael Sheehy depicts in his article on Woodstock, “This further reflected points of tension between the generations and what older Americans might have perceived at the time as additional threats to the social order”. While it seems that much of America felt threatened and angered by the youth’s reaction and dedication to the festival, we must consider the true meaning of such a massive gathering, and what it said about the values of the youth at the time. Do these values transcend into our generation?

As I dug deeper, I began searching for answers through my own experiences.

Music has always been a big part of my life whether I was playing music on the guitar, trumpet or piano, or if I was purely listening to it. My freshman year of high school I began seeing live music shows, which soon became an obsession to my friends and I. Concerts were a place to relax and de-stress from the hectic grind on modern society. A place of solidarity and community for those who shared three

Benedict 3 common values: The very same values that defined the Woodstock festival and those who attended; Peace, love, and music. The chills that run up your spine and resonate through your body when hundreds of people sing in unison, or scream in uncontrollable satisfaction as the bass bumps and the song plays. One concert in particular sticks in my mind as what I would call my modern day Woodstock. In August of 2010, just as the summer was fading and the first signs of a new school year crept in, my friends and I attended the Legalize It tour at the Buffalo city harbor.

The well-known reggae artists were headlining the event; Collie Buddz, Cypress Hill, and Slightly Stoopid. As we entered the venue, thousands of people dressed from head to toe in Grateful dead shirts, bandanas, and hemp walked around peacefully, enjoying drinks with friends. Before long, Collie Buddz came on and people flooded to the front of the stage creating an immense hippy cluster of peace and love. People began lighting up joints, blunts, pipes, bowls, and I even saw someone smoking a bong! I saw a guy next to me drop LSD and soon after sit down with glossy eyes and a grin from ear to ear. The music played deep into the night and a smoky haze filled the air around the harbor. But there was something more than illegal substances in the thick cloud. Yes! These people had gathered here to enjoy what has often become unattainable in modern America. Shunned be the narrow-minded and restricted by the law, festivals like these were the culmination of the remnants of the “lost Eden and an aborted utopia� (Gates 5) that saw momentary existence during the 1969 Woodstock festival. No doubt people got sick at the concert, no question people got arrested, but they were far outnumbered by the amount of people who enjoyed the richest of human emotions.

Benedict 4 Many have argued that Woodstock was a one-time event. They claim that modern society would not allow for such a scenario to occur. In part they are completely right. For one thing, the sanitation issues that plagued the original Woodstock would prove detrimental to its success. As writer David Gates explains, “[a]t Woodstock, you couldn’t pick up much that penicillin or Kwell insecticide lotion wouldn’t handle”. After prolonged use of over the counter medications in past decades diseases and infections have become much more sophisticated and severe.

The fact is that in a present day Woodstock, severe illness and even death would a regular occurrence. Another prevalent reason for the ultimate failure of any modern day Woodstock is the nature of the music industry. Over the past decades the music industry has been taken over by the corporate world, for better or for worse. As author David Gates writes, “Now you’ve got huge multinational corporations putting on festivals without any real sense of history”. This rings true, as advertising for modern festivals focuses more on the beer company that is paying for a tent at the festival than the Woodstock values of peace, love and music. While the corporate takeover is beneficial to many bands that receive a bigger fan base and more tour opportunities from corporate affiliation, there is definitely a deterioration of the mystical pure value independent bands that saw so much love at Woodstock. So was Woodstock just a sliver of purity in a society of tainted corporate power? Well, no.

As Gates states in an article on the impact of Woodstock in today’s society, “[t]he Dionysiac triad of sex, drugs and rock and roll now dominates private life and popular culture”. Moreover, “the principle that laws are for killjoys has been put into practice everywhere from the inner city to Wall Street”. While I find these

Benedict 5 accusations extremely biased, I agree with them to a certain degree. There is certainly a sense of questioning authority and the laws that govern our lives without simply accepting them amongst the youth. There is also a growing shift towards the hippy-like peaceful youth of the Woodstock era. As pro-Marijuana movements spread across the nation. As new party, and club drugs increase in use. As a growing distaste for the War on Terror continues, we can only question if another Woodstock-like watershed event is on the horizon.

Works Cited Gates, David. "Twenty-Five Years Later, We're Still Living In Woodstock Nation.

(Cover Story)." Newsweek 124.6 (1994): 38. Academic Search Complete.

Web. 9 Oct. 2012.

Benedict 6 Gates, David. "Twenty-Five Years Later, We're Still Living In Woodstock Nation.

(Cover Story)." Newsweek 124.6 (1994): 38. Academic Search Complete.

Web. 17 Oct. 2012.

Sheehy, Michael. "Woodstock." Journalism History 37.4 (2012): 238-246.

Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Oct. 2012.