This Is Why Woodstock 50 Was Just Canceled

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property ^ | August 12, 2019 | John Horvat II

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Of the rock festivals of the sixties, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was by far the most famous. Held on a 600-acre dairy farm near Bethel, N.Y. on August 15–17, 1969, the festival is the iconic representation of the drug-addled culture and sexual revolution that upended American life. This August marks the fiftieth anniversary of the era-defining event. Some have called for celebrating with another concert.

The occasion is hardly a cause for celebration—so many of the cultural changes after Woodstock had catastrophic consequences. Most do not know that the concert was a disaster—even from an organizational point of view.

What Went Wrong

Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.

The organizers planned an event for 200,000 people. Nearly 400,000 people crashed the gates where they demanded and received free admission. Security fell apart. The highways were clogged with cars trying to get to the event. Heavy rains created a sea of mud that mixed with the promiscuity, drugs and marijuana that dominated the festival.

John Fogerty, from the rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival, described an early morning scene as “sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud.”

Saving Woodstock

The “establishment” that the hippies condemned saved Woodstock. Professionals had already arranged to attract concertgoers by promising a star-studded cast that included Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Santana, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and the Jefferson Airplane. A sympathetic media turned the logistic and moral disaster into a hippie legend by repackaging the event as “three days of peace and music.” When order broke down, the government stepped in with personnel from nearby Stewart Air Force Base. They flew in performers and put men on the ground to keep things from descending into total disorder.

[a fool in paradise]

Lang says that “non-compete” clauses in contracts (from performers already booked within a year in the Baltimore/DC area) kept him from getting such Woodstock notables as Miley Cyrus at the proposed “free” event at the end of negotiations for 2019.

Michael Lang was behind the boondoggle at Altamont as well. And Woodstock 1999.

How that fool is still trusted with any big money event is a question I can’t answer. He screwed the original Woodstock investors and never has stopped.

[a fool in paradise]

The Leftist crowd burned down the burger vendor’s booth in 1969. You can even find reference to the arson in the original movie. “and if you still don’t think that capitalism is just a freaky idea, you may want to go help him out and buy a burger...”

The Black Panthers and Yippies blackmailed the promoters for $25,000 to buy them off from slagging the event in the underground press leading up to Woodstock.

The cash payoff wasn’t enough, they were also given booth space at the event and a printing press they used on site. And STILL Abbie Hoffman tried to take over the microphone during the Who’s set AFTER the band had been spiked with LSD.

The famous Leftist agitators also tried to steel by arme force all of the camera crew’s rented equipment.

“peace and love” was a big fat lie.

[a fool in paradise]

10% of the crowd was still there when Jimi Hendrix played.

[a fool in paradise]

Sha Na Na went on just before Jimi Hendrix. They opened and closed their set with "GET A JOB!"

[cgbg]

Lawyers—and liberals—destroy everything they touch!

[Hot Tabasco]

Walkers and wheel chairs don’t function well on grass......

[MarDav]

I used to teach in a suburban district in New Jersey where the teacher in an adjoining room would teach a class on The 60’s. I would hear all kinds of music blaring through the walls as my colleague’s students were treated to one video after another (all of which my class would clearly hear). The teacher of that class was one of those stuck in the 60’s types who saw only positives about that decade. During one of the videos, the Woodstock event was celebrated for its focus on peace and love, a new consciousness. I remember turning to my class and remarking how America itself had all piled into a VW bus, driven up to Woodstock, partied its brains out and then, instead of coming home, that VW bus got stuck in the mud.

America hasn’t been seen since.

[Cecily]

Conservatives tend to believe the teachings of the Bible, so they are not likely to embrace hedonism. They may for a season, but will ultimately reject sinful behavior. Conservatives may like the music of Janis Joplin or CSNY, but they are not likely to pursue the recreational drug or free love culture.

[ml/nj]

MY 50th anniversary of Woodstock will begin after work next Wednesday when I again drive up to Saratoga for Travers Weekend. 50 years ago when I did this, albeit from Hartford, I wondered why there could possibly so many hitchhikers I passed. That was my second Travers. Next week I will attend my 52nd. (I missed the 2010 renewal.)

ML/NJ

[Jimmy The Snake]

Then came Altamont, and Peace Love Drugs and Flower Power was over.

[GSWarrior]

What went wrong? Headliner Miley Cyrus, for starters.

[DoodleBob]

Of course bad things can happen in a crowd of 300,000 people. My point was that the relative order probably has more to do with their elders than they'd care to admit.

I also believe, in many ways, The Who at Woodstock says more about America (ironically) than the other performers. Think about it...most of the other performers were hippie-sympathetic. You'd expect that they'd have been heralded as the New Beatles. However, the hippie music generally sucked and didn't stand the test of time. Who wants to hear "Joe Hill" on acoustic guitar anymore? But what did The Who Do?

-they ran the photographers off the stage,
-Pete Townshed knocked a petulant Abbie Hoffman into the pit in front of the stage with his guitar (as you noted)
-they put on a pure rock show of power and volume; no peace and love during their set. In fact Townshend said "My 1460s (Doc Martens boots) released me from psychedelia and all the nonsense that went with it."
-God smiled on them with a sunrise at the end of their set.

The Who are playing to sellout stadiums this summer while other Woodstock vets...not so much. It seems a working class bunch of mods from Sheppard's Bush and their non-nonsense blistering (dare we say...anti-Establishment?) music style resonated better with American culture than acoustic folk songs.

[a fool in paradise]

At the core there was corruption. Black Panthers and Yippies weren’t part of the 300,000 and neither were the thuggish theives and arsonists.

It was top CommieRat activist names. and Lang partnered them with the event.

$25,000 extortion in 1969 was a lot of money. The Who only got paid $18,000 which reportedly is $125,000 today.

[a fool in paradise]

and someone was dosing people unexpectedly. bad trip man.

[DoodleBob]

You are absolutely correct. Townshend had taken something called STP on a flight back from America around 1967 and he said it basically turned him off from psychedelics. However he kept smoking pot until someone told Pete that his guru, Meher Baba, was against drugs. From then until the 1980s, Pete was off drugs (of course he became an alcoholic but that's another story).

At Woodstock, I think it was a Dave Marsh who put it best..."The Who were flat-out tripping against their will." Small wonder they all hated the set and festival, small wonder they were so angry, and small wonder it was the best set at all of Woodstock (Hendrix came close but his stage presence suffered due to drugs and a really heavy vibe around his management at the time).

[a fool in paradise]

The footage of Hendrix was after an hour of giving him drugs to attempt to negate some of the other drugs. He ended up canceling his scheduled appearance on Dick Cavett that night.

The Who and the Grateful Dead each demanded that they get a cashier’s check that weekend. The organizers had to fly a helicopter into town and get someone out of bed in the middle of the night to open a bank and draw the checks.

The Dead were free lovin’ but capitalists chasing that dollar.

[DoodleBob]

I highly recommend spending 90 mins watching a video of Juma Sultan who played conga and percussion for Jimi at Woodstock. Juma is a really knowledgeable cat, who is more of a jazz guy but who helped Jimi to move more in a direction that Jimi wanted.

I met Juma - he's the real deal: a "hippie" who totally gets that all those drugs and socialism wasn't what it was cracked up to be.

[a fool in paradise]

Gil Evans was supposed to work with Jimi Hendrix on an album. Later Gil Evans did an early 70s jazz album of covers of some of Jimi’s hits but they probably would’ve done new material had they collaborated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vurjvuu8DxA

12 tracks
Angel Crosstown Traffic Medley: Castles Made From Sand - Foxy Lady
Up From The Skies 1983 - A Merman I Should Turn To Be
Voodoo Chile
Gypsy Eyes Little Wing
Angel (alt tk) Castles Made Of Sand (alt tk)
Up From The Skies (alt tk) Gypsy Eyes (alt tk)

And who knows if Jimi might’ve done more with Arthur Lee/Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6qPocCekJE

or Johnny Winter (with whom he’d jam in the studio and clubs)