Woodstock Festival 1969

Woodstock Festival 1969

By Pete Clemons

Mention great music festivals of the past and the Woodstock festival would at the forefront of those to be remembered. It is considered to be one of the most memorable of them all. It was a springboard for the career of several bands and artists onto a greater carer path and yet, in hindsight, it was a miracle that the event ever took place at all.

The festival was held over the weekend of 15-18 August 1969 and it is estimated that it attracted around 400,000 people. It ended up being far bigger than ever imagined. And everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It could have been a total disaster and almost was.

John Roberts and Joel Rosenman went into business around 1966 when they set up Mediasound recording studios. Through that studio they met Michael Lang and Arty Kornfelt. The quartet joined forces and, being based in the town, formed the 'Woodstock Record Studio'. The idea being that the Woodstock based studio would be a hub for local artists such as Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, John Sebastian and many others.

This venture then led to the idea of putting on a big concert for those very same artists and January 1969 saw the seeds planted for such an event.

The proposed site for the event, which was now being muted as an arts festival, was in a nearby town called Wallkill. The festival would include all forms of arts and crafts and, after eventually being signed off by the council work began on a stage, and the site in general, during May 69.

A wish list of bands was penned but that list began to whittle away as first Bob Dylan then The Rolling Stones and finally The Doors all declined to take part.

A further problem came during July 1969 when the number of attendees at the festival would be capped, by the Wallkill council, to just 5000. This was despite knowing that far more than 5000 tickets had already been sold. Rumour has it that local people, not happy about it all, were trying to frustrate proceedings.

It soon became apparent that a new site was urgently required. Max Yasgur, a milk farmer, who believed in personal expression, had been following the story. Max invited the festival team to meet up with him. Max Yasgur took the event organisers to the brow of a field that was at the top of a natural amphitheatre.

It was ideal and the new site at White Lake, Bethel, more than 50 miles from Wallkill, was gratefully accepted. But time was against the organising team. With just over four weeks to go until the festival weekend, and ticket sales suggesting 100,000 sales, they were faced with the huge job of re-building a new stage, fencing off the site, providing power and erect lighting.

Five days before the festival was due to start, and with construction still not complete, festival goers began to turn up in droves. This meant that lots of food stalls had to be thrown together at the last minute in order to feed the throng. With the onset of more revellers, the roads to the festival site began to get clogged up.

This affected the delivery of construction materials. Decisions had to be made quickly and so priority was given for completion of the stage. This took man power from the fencing and other activities.

Chaos quickly rained. A knock on effect led to a situation where revellers who had tickets for the weekend were stuck in traffic along the way, while others, who had simply shown up on spec and were without tickets, were getting in for free.

A decision was announced that the fencing would be abandoned and that the festival would be free. Had sold out signs gone up, then things might have been different. However, the free festival decision led to the event organisers getting financially hurt, very badly indeed.

Friday 15th August: was acoustic day. An estimated 200,000 people were, by now, in attendance. Richie Havens opened the festival simply because he was the first of the artists to arrive at the festival site on time. It was soon to become clear that for the rest of the festival and, due to the severe traffic situation, alternative means to transport the bands and artists would be necessary.

Saturday 16th August: rock n roll day. The crowd had grown by a further 100,000 in anticipation of seeing bands such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Canned heat, Sly and the Family Stone, Mountain, Grateful Dead, Janice Joplin and, of course, Santana. In addition to the bands having now to be dropped in by helicopter, the national guard was sent in to provide additional food and medical supplies that had been hugely underestimated in terms of requirements. Additionally some of the people of Bethel (not all had been agreeable to the festival), who realised that it could be their offspring at the festival, also arranged to send in extra food and supplies. This seemed to give the festival a second wind as it had been on the verge of collapse.

The second day of the festival had ran late and resumed early Sunday morning 17th August. Max Yasgur came down from his farm to address the crowd. The music resumed with a performance by Joe Cocker and soon after Joe had hit the stage the heavens opened and a torrential storm ensued. This halted the festival for several hours. As soon as the rain diminished the festival continued with performances by Ten Years After, The Band, Blood Sweat and Tears and Crosby Stills Nash and Young amongst others. Incidentally CSN&Y were performing for the very first time.

Again, this time due to the storm, the event ran late into the night. Consequentially it resumed early the next morning. So day four began at around 6am on Monday 18th August although it could be argued that the festival had continued throughout the night. But there was some rest bite. The site was in a horrendous state. It was incredibly muddy and, during the night of Sunday 17th and Monday 18th, a great deal of the attendees had simply given up and left.

Consequentially an awful lot of people missed, firstly, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, then Sha-Na-Na and finally Jimi Hendrix who wound things up. Apparently one section of the crowd had slept through the first couple of acts and recalled being awoken by Jimi playing the national anthem. By all accounts ‘It was a surreal moment’.

The aftermath of the festival began as a huge clear up was organised by volunteers. They collected tons of discarded bedding and debris that had been left behind.

By way of a lavish double LP release of some of the many musical highlights along with money made from the film rights the Woodstock festival turned a profit over a decade after the event.