Line #21 UsefulNotes/Woodstock


1	[[quoteright:315:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/woodstock_1969_poster.jpg]]
2
3	->''"Three days of peace, love and music."''
4
5	In the Summer of '69, a couple of extremely rich young men wanted to create something they could invest in related to entertainment, art, and creativity. After initially planning a TV series and an artists' colony, they decided to hold an outdoor festival in a field, with a few big-name acts. After a long fight to secure a venue, they made a deal with dairy farmer Max Yasgur for the use of his 600-acre property in Bethel, UsefulNotes/{{New York\|State}}. The festival, held on the weekend of August 15–17, 1969, was called the Woodstock Music & Art Fair.
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7	Originally tickets were sold by mail and through magazine ads, with plans to sell more at the door. Over 100,000 tickets were sold, but people started arriving several days early, before the fence and ticket gates were completed; faced with the choice between completing the stage and completing the fence, the promoters decided to get the stage in order and call it a free concert. With such an open invitation in place, over 500,000 people are believed to have shown up. Then [[FromBadToWorse it got worse]].
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9	In many ways, Woodstock was a giant catastrophe. The various artists couldn't get to the concert site and had to be flown in. Food and other facilities were ostensibly planned for 50,000 (even though the aforementioned 100,000 tickets had been sold), but city councilmen and others recognized that the provisions weren't even sufficient for that number, leading to the National Guard airlifting in food and water by helicopter. There was lots of rain and a giant thunderstorm struck, shutting things down for hours, and two people accidentally died.[[note]]Plus one from a burst appendix, but that probably would have happened anyway.[[/note]]
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11	But, at the same time, the festival was heralded for its sense of peace and community. The crowd was so well-behaved over the three days that even mainstream media like ''[[UsefulNotes/AmericanNewspapers The New York Times]]'' and ''Magazine/{{Time\|Magazine}}'' magazine praised the event for being so orderly. People were getting along and showing love to each other. And, of course, the roster of musical artists was impressive, featuring the likes of Music/TheWho, Music/JimiHendrix, Music/JanisJoplin, Music/CrosbyStillsNashAndYoung, Music/JoeCocker, Music/{{Santana}}, Music/TheBand, Music/TheGratefulDead, Music/JeffersonAirplane, Music/SlyAndTheFamilyStone, Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival, Music/JoanBaez, Music/RaviShankar, and Music/ShaNaNa to name a few.
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13	The festival was filmed and turned into the documentary [[{{Film/Woodstock}} of the same name]], which proved to be so big a box-office hit that its earnings more than paid off the losses from the festival itself. In addition to the original three-record vinyl album and the followup two-record set ''Woodstock Two'', there have been several CD box sets, multiple DVD and Blu-ray releases of the film (the latest version is 2014's, which presents all the footage in HD and includes interviews, radio coverage and art), and the independent, unauthorized ''[[https://woodstock.fandom.com/wiki/Woodstock_Complete Woodstock Complete]]'' project.
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15	In August 2019, ''Back to the Garden,'' an authorized complete version of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair, [[https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/woodstock-box-set-829716/ was released]] on Creator/RhinoRecords. The product of painstaking research and audio production, it had 38 audio discs plus a Blu-ray of the film and cost $800.
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17	The festival's original location is currently home to the nonprofit Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. When visiting, be sure to check out its [[http://www.bethelwoodscenter.org/the-museum honest-to-goodness Woodstock Museum]], which provides an in-depth look at the '60s counterculture that birthed the festival, as well as the events leading up to it.
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20	!! Woodstock performers (in order of appearance):
21	* '''Friday night''' (mostly folk-oriented acts to ease the crowd into the festival)
22	** Richie Havens[[note]]The FolkMusic singer was hurriedly asked to go on when scheduled opener Sweetwater got stuck in a traffic jam[[/note]]
23	** Sweetwater[[note]]PsychedelicRock band whose incredible string of near-misses and bad luck gained some attention later on, including a Creator/{{VH1}} movie with Creator/AmyJoJohnson as lead singer Nansi Nevins[[/note]]
24	** Bert Sommer[[note]]A former ''Theatre/{{Hair}}'' cast member and one-time bandmate of Creator/MichaelMcKean in The Left Banke, making his debut as a singer-songwriter. He failed to get much boost from his appearance, mostly because as a Capitol Records artist he couldn't appear in the film or record album, which were from Warner. He died in 1990 at age 41.[[/note]]
25	** Tim Hardin[[note]]Talented, but self-destructive, FolkMusic figure, who wrote [[Music/BobbyDarin "If I Were a Carpenter"]] and [[Music/RodStewart "Reason to Believe"]]. He also died young (at age 39 in 1980)[[/note]]
26	** Music/RaviShankar
27	** Melanie[[note]]A folkie from New Jersey, Melanie Safka's BreakthroughHit came in 1970 with a song she wrote about Woodstock, "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)". She is also known for "Brand New Key" and "Peace Will Come." She is still around as of 2021 and still performing, often with her children.[[/note]]
28	** [[Music/AlicesRestaurant Arlo Guthrie]]
29	** Music/JoanBaez
30	* '''Saturday afternoon[=/=]night into Sunday morning''' (mainly a showcase for big-name acts from UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco)
31	** Quill[[note]]This Boston-based ProgressiveRock band was easily the most obscure act at Woodstock. With a strong local following in their hometown, they were chosen for the festival despite not having a recording contract. They also did some advance work before the festival, entertaining the festival employees as they were setting things up, and acting as goodwill ambassadors by playing free shows in the area around Bethel. They scored a record deal in the wake of their Woodstock performance, but only released one album[[/note]]
32	** Country Joe [=McDonald=][[note]]The leader of Country Joe & The Fish was asked to go on and do a solo acoustic set when a reshuffling of the schedule left the organizers with some open slots[[/note]]
33	** Music/{{Santana}}
34	** [[Music/TheLovinSpoonful John Sebastian]]
35	** The Keef Hartley Band[[note]]Hartley was a longtime figure on the UK rock scene, having taken over as drummer of Rory Storm & The Hurricanes after Music/TheBeatles poached Music/RingoStarr, then drumming in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. His band played a {{Jazz}}/{{Blues}}/{{Rock}} mix[[/note]]
36	** The Incredible String Band [[note]]British [[PsychedelicRock Psychedelic Folk]], considered a CultClassic in some circles, as well as an acknowledged influence on Music/LedZeppelin's acoustic ballad material. They were scheduled for Friday, but didn't want to play in the rain (Melanie took their slot) and got moved to Saturday[[/note]]
37	** Canned Heat[[note]]{{Blues}} Rock. Yes, they ''did'' perform "Going Up the Country", the [[BadToTheBone official Hollywood "hippie" song]][[/note]]
38	** Mountain[[note]]Considered HeavyMetal pioneers. A song they debuted here was later recorded as "For Yasgur's Farm".[[/note]]
39	** Music/TheGratefulDead
40	** Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival
41	** Music/JanisJoplin
42	** Music/SlyAndTheFamilyStone
43	** Music/TheWho
44	** Music/JeffersonAirplane
45	* '''Sunday afternoon[=/=]night into Monday morning''' (a mix of headliners and acts who got moved after the schedule was reshuffled)
46	** Music/JoeCocker
47	** Country Joe & The Fish[[note]]Their formal set after Joe's solo set the day before[[/note]]
48	** Ten Years After[[note]]British {{Blues}} band, featuring the memorable EpicRocking performance of "I'm Going Home"[[/note]]
49	** Music/TheBand
50	** Johnny Winter[[note]]The guitarist was joined by his brother Edgar Winter[[/note]]
51	** Blood, Sweat & Tears[[note]]The {{Jazz}}-Rock band had a huge year in 1969, with a #1 album and three songs that got to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100[[/note]]
52	** Music/CrosbyStillsNashAndYoung
53	** The Paul Butterfield Blues Band[[note]]Another Woodstock performer who died tragically young, at age 44 in 1987[[/note]]
54	** Music/ShaNaNa
55	** Music/JimiHendrix
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58	!!References to Woodstock in fiction:
59
60	[[AC:ComicBooks]]
61	* One story in a ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' annual has the Human Torch pulled into the past to encounter some of the LongLived superhumans of the Characters/ClanDestine, who are attending Woodstock at the time.
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63	[[AC:{{Film}}]]
64	* The 2009 film ''Film/TakingWoodstock'' tells a fictionalized version of the story behind the concert.
65	* ''Film/AWalkOnTheMoon'' is set in the summer of 1969, against the backdrop of the moon-landing and Woodstock.
66
67	[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
68	* Woodstock, the bird in ''{{ComicStrip/Peanuts}}'', was named after the festival.
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70	[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
71	* In the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S2E211969 1969]]", SG-1 is accidentally sent back in time to the titular year. They hitch a ride with a couple of hippies named Michael and Jenny, who are headed to "upstate New York, some big concert."
72	* In the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E18DeathWish Death Wish]]", it is revealed that, after receiving a lift from a member of the Q Continuum later known as Quinn, the tower three spotlight operator Maury Ginsburg noticed that an extension cord had been disconnected and reconnected it. Had he not noticed it, the festival would not have been able to go ahead as the entire sound system had failed.
73	* In the ''Series/WeirdScience'' episode "By the Time We Got to Woodstock", Lisa attends the festival as she is suffering from amnesia and believes that she is a hippie. Gary Wallace, Wyatt Donnelly and his brother Chett see her on television and manage to restore her memory when they get to Woodstock. Lisa then returns the four of them to 1996.
74	* In the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E3SchoolHard School Hard]]", Spike mentions that he fed off a flower person at Woodstock and [[MushroomSamba spent the next six hours]] [[ContemplatingYourHands watching his hand move]].
75	* In the ''Series/{{Taxi}}'' episode "[[Recap/TaxiS2E03ReverendJimASpaceOdyssey Reverend Jim: A Space Odyssey]]", Reverend Jim mentions that he was at Woodstock. ("Half a million people. Hey, you know, if I hadn't been there, there'd only have been... 499,999 people. Lucky thing for them I went.")
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77	[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
78	* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' short "Woodstock Slappy", Slappy Squirrel and her nephew Skippy go to spend a quiet weekend in a tree in the country in 1969, not knowing that it's on the Woodstock concert site. Awoken by the cacophony, an incredibly-annoyed Slappy tries to end the concert, memorably getting into an extended WhosOnFirst argument with Skippy over the names of Music/TheWho, Music/TheBand and Music/{{Yes}} (who Skippy kept pointing out weren't even at the festival). Besides The Who, it also features NoCelebritiesWereHarmed versions of Music/JoeCocker, Country Joe [=McDonald=] and Melanie (and a very brief appearance of a Music/JimiHendrix caricature).
79	* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyMakeYourMark'': The eponymous music festival in "Bridlewoodstock" is a reference to the real-life Woodstock concert.
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82	->''"If you remember Woodstock, you weren't there."''
83	-->-- '''Anonymous'''
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Context UsefulNotes / Woodstock