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Woodstock Festival

1969 music festival in New York, United States

Woodstock Music & Art Fair (informally, Woodstock or The Woodstock Festival) was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at a dairy farm nearly 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969.

Woodstock flyer

During the sometimes rainy weekend, thirty-two acts performed outdoors in front of 500,000 concert-goers. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most pivotal moments in popular music history and was listed among Rolling Stone's 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.

Quotes

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Chronological order
  • I'm not worried about the security particularly. If people have enough to do, there won't be trouble.
    • Wesley A. Pomeroy, head of security, quoted in the New York Times June 27, 1969.
  • The cream of the underground will be there. Everybody's coming from all over the country. There'll be drugs and psychedelics and music and riots.
    • Peter Franklin, a young actor, quoted in the New York Times August 15, 1969.
  • My parents knew there'd be drugs there, that it'll be a bit wild. They didn't want me to come. I know there'll be drugs everywhere and I wonder what it will all be like. I've never been away from home before. I wonder what will happen to all of us.
    • Unidentified 16-year-old, quoted in the New York Times August 15, 1969.
  • Anybody who tries to comes here is crazy. Sullivan County is a great big parking lot.
    • Wesley A. Pomeroy, head of security, quoted in the New York Times August 16, 1969.
  • As far as I know the narcotics guys are not arresting anybody for grass. If we did there isn't enough space in Sullivan or the next three countries to put them in.
    • An unidentified State Police sergeant, quoted in the New York Times August 16, 1969.
  • Stop Max's Hippie Music Festival. No 150,000 hippies here. Buy No Milk.
    • Sign in the town of Wallkill, protesting the festival held on Max Yasgur's dairy farm, as reported in the New York Times August 16, 1969.
  • Don't bother Max's cows. Let them moo in peace.
    • Sign at the festival in support of Yasgur, as reported in the New York Times August 16, 1969.
  • Good morning! What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for four hundred thousand.
    • Wavy Gravy, speaking from the stage, quoted in Woodstock: Three Days That Rocked the World By Mike Evans, Paul Kingsbury, Martin Scorsese. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2009 ISBN 9781402766237.
  • It's about the quietest, most well-behaved 300,000 people in one place that can be imagined. There have been no fights or incidents of violence of any kind.
    • Michael Lang, festival producer, as reported in the New York Times August 17, 1969.
  • If we had any inkling that there was going to be this kind of attendance, we certainly would not have gone ahead. … We've had a very averse situation here. … Financially speaking, of course, the festival is a disaster.
    • John P. Roberts, president of Woodstock Ventures and promoter of the festival, to the New York Times August 17, 1969.
  • You aren't taking poison acid. The acid's not poison. It's just badly manufactured acid. You are not going to die. We have treated 300 cases and it's all just badly manufactured acid. So if you think you've taken poison, you haven't. But if you're worried, just take half a tablet.
    • A festival announcer speaking from the stage, as reported in the New York Times August 17, 1969.
  • I hope David can hear it.
    • Joan Baez, following her performance of "We Shall Overcome", in reference to David Harris, her husband who was imprisoned for draft resistance, as reported in the New York Times August 17, 1969.
  • We're vestiges of our former selves.
    • An unidentified 20-year-old at the New York City Port Authority Bus Terminal, upon returning from the festival, as reported in the New York Times August 17, 1969.
  • The whole thing is a gas. I dig it all, the mud, the rain, the music, the hassles.
    • A long haired young man identified as "Speed", as reported in the New York Times August 18, 1969.
  • I guess this was meant to happen, and everybody is still with us. We're going to go on all night with the music.
    • Artie Kornfeld, Woodstock Ventures partner, in regard to the rain, as reported in the New York Times August 18, 1969.
  • Like wow, these people are really beautiful, the cops, the storekeepers, the army, everybody.
    • Laura Glazer, an 18-year-old attendee, as reported in the New York Times August 18, 1969.
  • Notwithstanding their personality, their dress and their ideas, they were and they are the most courteous, considerate and well-behaved group of kids I have ever been in contact with in my 24 years of police work.
    • Lou Yank, head of the police department in Monticello, New York, as reported in the New York Times August 18, 1969
Undated
Country Joe McDonald: Gimme an F!
Crowd: F!
Country Joe McDonald: Gimme a U!
Crowd: U!
Country Joe McDonald: Gimme a C!
Crowd: C!
Country Joe McDonald: Gimme a K!
Crowd: K!
Country Joe McDonald: What's that spell?
Crowd: FUCK!
  • Country Joe McDonald, from the stage, quoted in Woodstock: Three Days That Rocked the World

Quotes about the festival

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  • I think it was fantastic. I think the only way its been overdone was thinking it changed the world, politically and as far as the war went. It was only a part of things. It wasn’t it.
  • We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn... ...there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud.
  • And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: a quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic, and in the night I hear, 'Don't worry about it John. We're with you.' I played the rest of the show for that guy."
  • Men reached the moon in July 1969, and Woodstock began three weeks later. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this was when the hippies took over the country, and when the true cultural war over Progress was lost. Today's aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually might be getting worse.
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