Woodstock was a 3-day music festival held in Bethel, New York in August 1969 that attracted nearly 500,000 people. It featured iconic performances by Richie Havens, Janis Joplin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and others. Though poorly planned, it united people in peace and music and became a defining moment for the counterculture generation of the 1960s. It was later documented in a highly successful film and album that helped pay off the festival's debts.
2. WOODSTOCK: 3 DAYS OF PEACE
& MUSIC
• When? August 15 – 18, 1969
• Where? Max Yasgur’s 600 acre dairy farm
in Bethel, NY
• What? 32 concert acts performed in front
of 500,000 people
• Who? Initiated through the efforts of
Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel
Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld
3. PLANNING OF WOODSTOCK
• Original plan was to hold the festival in the 300 acre Mills Industrial Park in the
town of Wallkill, NY
• Town residents protested when they heard that 50,000 people were
supposed to show up
• Wallkill officials banned the festival from coming to their town
• Less than a month before the festival, they decided to hold it on Max
Yasgur’s dairy farm
• People also protested this, but town officials approved it
4. PLANNING CONT.
• Because of the last minute change in venue, pavilions, the stage, parking
lots, and concession stands barely got finished in time
• Unfortunately, gates and ticket booths were not finished
• 3 days before the festival started, people began to come through the gaps
in the fences and started camping out near the stage
• Because they could not get these people to leave, it forced them to make
the festival a free event
5. SO MANY PEOPLE
• Estimated 1 million people began
heading to the festival
• 500,000 people were turned away in
their cars
• Massive traffic jams, highways turned
into parking lots as people left their
cars and walked the rest of the way
• Facilities not prepared for this many
people
• Food shortages
• Poor sanitation
6. THE FESTIVAL
• Despite poor planning, festival started
on time
• Richie Havens was the first of 32 acts
on the night of Friday, August 15, to
perform
• Music started up again shortly after
noon on Sat. the 16th, and continued
non-stop until 9 am Sunday morning
• Jimi Hendrix was the last to perform
on Monday morning, with 25,000
people left
• The four days were full of
sex, drugs, and nudity
7. MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES
• Richie Havens
• “Freedom”
• Joan Baez (Happened to be 6 mo. pregnant)
• “Joe Hill”
• Janis Joplin
• “Piece of My Heart”
• The Who
• “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
• Joe Cocker
• Covered The Beatles’
“With a Little Help From My Friends”
• Jimi Hendrix
• “Star Spangled Banner”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPauXWjY4T8
8. WHO ELSE WAS INVITED?
• The Beatles – Refused to play if Yoko Ono wasn’t allowed to perform
• Led Zeppelin – Was playing in NJ at the time
• The Doors – Jim Morrison disliked performing outdoors
• Bob Dylan – His son was ill at the time
• The Moody Blues – Performing in Paris at the time
9. WOODSTOCK MOVIE & ALBUM
• The founders of the festival made Warner Brothers and offer to make a
documentary
• The success of the film was enough to pay their debts from the festival
• Received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature and was a
nominee for best sound
• Live album of the concerts was released in 1970
10. DEATHS
• There were unfortunately two deaths at Woodstock
• One was from a heroin overdose
• The other was a sleeping man in a nearby field being run over my a tractor
11. SIGNIFICANCE OFF WOODSTOCK
• United the people of the counterculture/hippie movement through peace
and music
• Everything that the counterculture meant – the music appealed to the
generation that was questioning the common American society
• Protest to the Vietnam War
• Held the record for world’s largest music audience at the time
• Regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history
• Listed in Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the “50 moments that changed
the history of Rock & Roll”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StFhvAIv3Js
