Woodstock was a art and music festival that was held on a dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel NY, from August 15 to August 18, 1969. It was 43 miles outside the town of Woodstock, NY. Thirty-two acts performed during the sometimes rainy weekend in front of nearly half a million concertgoers. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history. ☮
Woodstock was designed as a profit-making venture, aptly titled "Woodstock Ventures". It famously became a "free concert" only after it became obvious that the event was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had prepared for. Around 186,000 tickets were sold beforehand and organizers anticipated approximately 200,000 festival-goers would turn up. Boy were they wrong! ☮
Although the festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and the conditions involved, there were two recorded fatalities: one from what was believed to be a heroin overdose and another caused in an accident when a tractor ran over an attendee sleeping in in a nearby hayfield. There also were two births recorded at the event (one in a car caught in traffic and another in a helicopter) and four miscarriages. ☮
After the concert Max Yasgur, who owned the site of the event, saw it as a victory of peace and love. He spoke of how nearly half a million people filled with possibilities of disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. He states that "if we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future...☮
List of Musicians: ☮
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Joan Baez
Arlo Guthrie
Tim Hardin
Incredible String Band
Ravi Shankar
Richie Havens
Sly and the Family Stone
Bert Sommer
Sweetwater
Quill
Canned Heat
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Jefferson Airplane
The Who
Grateful Dead
Keef Hartley Band
Blood, Sweat and Tears
Crosby, Stills & Nash (&Young)
Santana
The Band
Ten Years After
Johnny Winter
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Joe Cocker
Mountain
Melanie
Sha-Na-Na
John Sebastian
Country Joe and the Fish
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
The Jeff Beck Group
Peace, Love, Music and Freedom, all of my favorite things. I would have loved to experience that weekend and survived it! What a story to tell their kids! "I don't think we will ever see as many creative and talented musicians in one place again as there was in the---Summer of '69--- at Woodstock".
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40 years and we still love Rock & Roll! Who knew?! ☮
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