Open Discussion: 40 Years Later - What is the legacy of Woodstock?

The show's underway...Kerri's just introduced Richie Havens. What he says about going out on the stage after 2 hours of singing - unplanned. "I personally have always looked for the things that are going to be the changes in our lives...The things that have pushed our age groups to have their own voice, and most have done it with music...'No, no, no, no, no, I'm not a juvenile delinquent...'"

The seventh time he was asked to go out on stage (the next band didn't show up), he realized he had no idea what he was going to do "That long pause on the record...that's me figuring out what the heck I'm going to do..."

Pete: reading from his book Back to the Garden: "...in a moment of otherworldly possession, he knew what to do..." He sang, "Motherless Child." He hadn't sang it since he was 14.

Great analogy - Richie compares the festival to a Nieman painting.

Caller saying that this was a moment in history, and everything earlier in the decade was coming to fruition: Freedom Summer, freedom rides...

Maurice: "It was like an expected part of the American story [all the different types of music, from hip-hop to urban]...worked together in this more traditional setting."

Pete: "It was a living organism" in description of Woodstock. Describing the cohabitation and sharing of those who attended.

"Some of kind of fundamental change was in the offing. Young people were going to make a difference," says Maurice - describing how Woodstock served as a culmination of the 1960s.

Question to Maurice: Does Woodstock mean anything to your students today?

"I think students are sometimes jealous...you just can't reinact it...Other festivals like Lollapalooza that have taken their own direction have done better. I brought my 14 year old son to the Woodstock museum. Everything is pristine, much cleaner...I felt like a Civil War veteran, walking around Gettysburg...trying to figure out where I was sitting." His son was very interested, he says.

Pete: "Woodstock of '69 stands alone. There has been nothing like it before, will be nothing like it after." More about the messages it sent - "There's no way this could happen in a post 9/11 world."

I think I just wasn't mature enough to enjoy it, and that is part of why I hated the experience so much. It was very much not the culture I was used to at that time, just having turned 17. I didn't at all share in this comraderie that people seemed to feel, and I felt more disconnected than connected.

I do remember vividly the opening with Richie Havens, beads of sweat gleaming in the torrid sunlight from his bare chest. We were right in the front just about 100 yards away from the stage, a waste for me. I didn't like his music, and I thought he was just as weird as everyone else.

To me, it wasn't peace, love, and music at all, but more a circus of people with whom I felt no connection, (except for those cute boys from MI who were next to us) lots of noise, and a skewed interpretation of love.

"...beads of sweat gleaming in the torrid sunlight from his bare chest." That right there is awesome, Sue B. I think I understand not being used to the culture, though. That's a really good point - I think I got into rock and alternative music later than my peers.

Cute boys from Michigan, eh? Oo la la.

Eliza, I had three teenage sons who wanted to go, but my husband and I knew that it was going to be a mess. My husband was a state police officer, but this was not our reasoning, we just didn't want our kids to be pushed into that drug mess that was going on up there. I saw a young boy go, one of their friends who was about 18 years old and working for the company where I worked, he talked to me about going, just for one night, he didn't show up back to work for five days or so, and was stoned, and he was fired. Not too many years later, he committed suicide. Not to say this had to do with 'Woodstock, but he was never the same again, The hippie generation was in full bloom,
long hair and anything goes attitude. I am so glad our kids paid attention to us, they all had jobs at the time, and they are glad now too. We have visited there and my grandson who is 21 rides his motorcycle up there now and then just to see what is going on, It is not to far from where we live. I guess it was supposed to have a theme of Peace and Love, but got out of hand when there was too much besides love going on, and I don't think a lot of Peace was up there either.

Interesting perspective, Elsie. Thanks for sharing it! It's always horrible to hear about a suicide. It's actually helpful to hear a fuller picture of what was going on at Woodstock, mainly because its so deified and mythologized.

Does your son notice a lot of stuff going on up there when he rights through on his motorcycle?

No, it is quite dead up there now, there are some guys on sidewalks playing guitars with their hats out for money, and some gift shops, the event has made it a tourist attraction I believe.

That's what I'd heard from others. Some hippies remain, stuck in that moment in time.

Actually, Elsie, it was "peaceful." In the two days I was there, I saw no violence, and really no 'fighting.' Drugs galore, yes. A lot of very stoned people, yes. Some bad acid, yes. But, no violence; it was 'peaceful.'

I think many of us realized just how tenuous the situation was, between the rain, mud, and taxed facilities. There was a spirit of communality that carried it off.

I don't see how it could happen again in these times.

two people died. One died of a drug overdose. The other unfortunately made the mistake of putting his sleeping bag on a road, and in the early morning a farm worker ran him over with a large tractor and killed him.

This is out of what, 400,000 people?

So your saying good odds, then, Chris? Cute, Jim. I like the quotation marks around 'fighting' and 'peaceful.' There's a lot of meaning vested in those marks, no?

I was a young mom with 2 kids. I don't think I knew anything about Woodstock for a long time afterward. It just wasn't part of my culture. I'd graduated from college in '68 and then went back to nursing school in '70. I had no time for concerts, etc. I grew up in a fairly small town atmosphere with parents who were much older. My dad was 62 when I was adopted so we listened to Lawrence Welk, not Woodstock type tunes!! LOL

It's interesting, Wilma - you illustrate the diversity among people, even in a "Woodstock Nation." Not everyone was feeling the love in upstate New York during Woodstock - for a lot of people, it was business as usual, or there just wasn't the option to attend. I understand, sort of, the disconnectedness from your generation fostered by your dad - while my generation grew up with R Kelly and Hanson, I grew up knowing better the Beethoven Symphonies (thanks to my dad). You say it wasn't part of your culture - did it become part of your culture later in life by any means?

Not really. I was busy with myyoung family, went to 4 yrs of college at the same time, then decided to go into nursing so had 3 more years of college. This is a fairly conservative area and I was quite conservative leaning at the time. I've never been one for concerts and don't even know who appeared at Woodstock. I might recognize the names if you listed them.

That makes complete sense. One can't just generalize the entire nation as a Woodstock nation, though that is sometime what happens. I don't expect you to be familiar with the festival (I'm not entirely, considering it was 20 years before my time), it's just interesting to realize that it didn't necessarily affect everyone as drastically as it claimed to, even in the years following.

I was not yet in this country and I was then a kid. I found out about Woodstock when I came to this country while watching TV.

Well, that makes sense, Gessy. Where are you from originally, out of curiosity?

I am originally from Haiti Eliza.

Awesome! What sorts of things characterized your adolescence there? (If one could say Woodstock characterized the adolescence of many American teens in the 60's).

I was there--

In 1969, I had a foot in two worlds: I was a HS English Teacher (and soccer coach) in North St. Paul by day, and after work I lived on West Bank and spent much time volunteering with the Youth Emergency Service (YES).

A former roommate from my undergraduate days and then a grad student of Ann Arbor, invited me to go with he and his circle of friends to Woodstock. We spent two days there, arriving later Friday. We set up a tent or two, and then most of us simply found a place to spread our blanket, drank some wine, smoked some dope, and enjoyed the music.

By Sunday morning, the weather had done us in. As the "responsible adult" for this mangy group, I ended up driving most of the way back to Ann Arbor, piloting a huge Chrysler wagon with seven other stoned souls in it.

The "atmosphere" at Woodstock, that allowed 400,000 people to coexist under lousy conditions, I've never seen before or since. The music was wonderful to our young ears--I missed Ritchie Havens, but caught ones I really did want to see, such as Canned Heat, and Janis Joplin--and the image of The Who running out "See Me, Feel Me" as the sun came up remains part of my life.

I returned to teaching that fall, somehow changed. Three months later, a student in my Basic Communications class stood up and shouted at me, "Well, it was your generation that screwed things up, and it's our generation that has to fix it. I was 24 years old; he was 17.

Later in August, Time published an essay speculating about the meaning of Woodstock. (It's available online now, here's the link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901295-1,00.html Written in the McLuhanesque language of the day, it nonetheless was prescient: It closed like this:

But the Second Comings of history carry with them no guarantees of success, and a revolution based on unreason may just as easily bring a New Barbarism rather than the New Jerusalem. As Yeats so pointedly asked:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

This is amazing, Jim! (I particularly enjoyed the part about the soccer coach smoking dope, but anyway...) It's awesome you have such vivid memories of it - I'd kill to have similar memories of anything, really. Thanks for the link to the article, too - I can't wait to read it! It's such an iconic event in American history, and I so love hearing about it from people who experienced it firsthand!

I've seen the movie and countless documentaries. The defining moment when I was much younger was Jimi Hendrix. He played guitar so effortlessly and his sound is still charged with energy.

Are you talking about his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, William?

'He played guitar so effortlessly' is my answer. One specific moment is not. I don't compartmentalize this experience.

Good way to describe how not to think of Woodstock, William. I think most people would agree that it was really mainly about the feeling and the oneness and the music, and not an organized period of time. Gah, I'm gnashing my teeth with envy. ;)

Just a warning to everyone - I thought you might like to know that this Sunday night at 6 p.m. CDT, MPR News will be airing a documentary entitled "Back to the Garden - Woodstock Remembered" in honor of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. For two hours, MPR News will be taken over with music and memories of the artists, performers, organizers, and audience members from the festival. Be sure to tune in and come back here to share your thoughts!

We watched it Eliza, and it was fascinating. Remarkable the team that set up the concert, lost all their money, then gave away the film rights in order to recover their losses.
The film rights that were worth millions when "Woodstock" came out. Ouch.

It was a once in a lifetime event, and I am sorry that I missed it. it was about the MUSIC. I think of today's music groups, and I don't think they possess the freshness that was exhibited by so many of the performers at woodstock. Okay, I am a 53 year old has been talking about how it was back in the day. But my 22 year old daughter agrees with me, that the late sixties was a high point of popular music.

I think many people would agree with you, Chris. I'm a fan of lots of the indie alternative bands of today, but more often than not I find myself wishing I were a teenager in the 60s!

The thought of Woodstock stimulates joyous and comforting thoughts of the burning bush speaking to Moses and of Jesus feeding the thousands. It also stimulates sad and angry thoughts of the establishment DAREing generations since Woodstock not to be like them.

Interesting Biblical connection, Philip.

Anyone else? What are your memories of or thoughts on the Garden? If not that, what are your thoughts on the new movie that is coming out in commemoration?