crispyagain
108 posts
Nov 26, 2015
5:35 PM
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I was just sitting here watching the Arlo Guthrie-Alice's Restaurant 50th anniversary concert on PBS and was wondering how many forum members were present at Woodstock. Would love for you to check in and post a few lines about your experience there. Personally,I was in diapers at the time. Thanks
Last Edited by crispyagain on Nov 26, 2015 5:36 PM
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TetonJohn
287 posts
Nov 27, 2015
8:02 AM
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I was 16. Missed all of Friday because of traffic congestion, but had fun walking along the road from Monticello when traffic was stopped and riding on car hoods when traffic was crawling along -- very laid back, friendly vibe. Was a bit shocked to see some resident parents overseeing their kids selling cups of water (jeez, at least have the kids make lemonade if you are going to teach them to capitalize on the situation!).
I recall, after an announcement from the stage about maybe taking just a half hit of some acid, a naked guy just a few feet from us enthusiastically yelling "F**k you, take the whole thing, it's great!"
One of the best parts was realizing how many of us there were -- many feeling like outcasts back home.
I was with 4 other guys my age, and after getting soaked and shivering on Sunday, we decided to leave -- could not get a bus out of Monticello, so the local cops let us crash in a storage room at the station -- see, I told you good vibes!
Oh, did you want to hear anything about the music? The Who performing (parts of?) Tommy as the sun was coming up was pretty cool! I also recall Santana and Joe Cocker being great (oh, and Sly).
My cousin and I were pretty blissed out about the whole experience -- made my Mom think maybe we had taken drugs!
Edit: So, it appears from what I have said, that the "scene" was more impressive to me than the music. And as it was going on, it had not become a cliché yet -- more like "Wow, is this really happening?"
Last Edited by TetonJohn on Nov 27, 2015 8:19 AM
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florida-trader
828 posts
Nov 27, 2015
9:02 AM
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I grew up in a little hamlet named Hurleyville about 15 miles from Bethel, NY, where Woodstock took place. In 1969 I was 14 years old so I didn’t have a lot of independence. Woodstock was held on Max Yasgur’s Dairy Farm. In those days you could have milk delivered to your house and we did. Yasgur’s delivered milk to our house twice a week in glass quart bottles. We had a small cooler on the back porch where we would put the empty bottles and the Milkman would put the fresh milk. I just did a quick search on eBay and those bottles are selling for $399 - $650.00. I did not attend the actual event, however a few days before it I visited the site. My girlfriend’s parents liked to take a drive on Sunday afternoons and sometimes we went with them. One Sunday we went out to check out what was going on in Bethel. Woodstock was originally billed as “An Aquarian Festival” as in the 5th Dimension’s “Age of Aquarius”. The road through the property was about 20 feet from where the stage was set up. When we passed through on that Sunday afternoon, workers were busy erecting scaffolding for the stage. I was pretty much clueless about what was going on. I was just a 14 year old kid on summer vacation. In later years after reading about the history of Woodstock I learned that the stage was built at the last minute as the promoters rushed to prepare the site for the event. When you watch the movie or look at pictures you will see Pantel Electric and Wilson Bus Line. The Pantel boys were high school classmates of mine and the Wilsons also lived in Hurleyville and I rode their buses to and from school. The N.Y. State Thruway was shut down as people poured out of New York City to attend Woodstock. The Thruway doesn’t pass within 30 miles of Bethel. You had to take Route 17 to get to Monticello and then follow the two lane country roads to reach the concert site. To say that they were unprepared to handle the traffic caused by 500,000+ people is a huge understatement. That said, the locals know all the back roads and my older brother Jack, who was 18 at the time and little more hip, was able to drive to and from the Bethel in the evenings to attend the performances. Of course, everything about Woodstock was front page news in the local paper and it was all over the local radio.
Woodstock was a landmark event. It changed the world. It also changed the little community in which I lived. A lot of people were more or less stranded in Bethel. It also became something akin to Holy Ground. People didn’t want to leave. And so they didn’t. In the aftermath of Woodstock people continued to camp on the grounds. They helped clean up the mess and gradually a lot of them started to assimilate into the local community. I remember that all of a sudden, there were a couple of long haired hippie freaks (nothing derogatory – a term of endearment) riding the garbage truck picking up trash. We didn’t have a lot of long haired hippie freaks in the area at the time – before Woodstock. But post Woodstock all that changed. It definitely had a cultural impact. Today, there is a Bethel Woods Center for the Arts on the site of the original Woodstock festival and they draw some big name acts.
So Woodstock has a special place in my memories. I was there, but I wasn’t.
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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
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Goldbrick
1194 posts
Nov 27, 2015
9:03 AM
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My buddy and I drove all night in my old rag top galaxie from South Philadelphia. It rained most of the way but we just went faster so the rain would just blow over the car
We counted broke down, overheated VW bugs along the Ny state thruway- over rated cars fer sure.. We saw a 10 point buck run into one such bug turning it on its roof and running off into the woods.
I was 17 , my pal 18 so he could buy beer in NY. We drank Jenny cream ale and toasted spam and cheese sandwiches over a metal milk crate grill. Brought my Colt 22 woodsman in case any tasty wabbitts crossed our path but no such luck
Place was crazy- bastard townies pointing at the freaks and selling cups of water We made sure to take a dump in their backyard on the way home.
Saw Jerry Garcia and some of the guys cruise around in a pickup bed playing to the folks who couldnt get near the stage. Love you Jerry- RIP
Made out with some canadian girls but they split when they found a ride north- I still love hippie girls
Quite an experience- we didnt know it was history- we were just young, dum and fulla cum
Long strange trip huh?
Teton is right the culture was more important than the music--most of the bands toured frequently at better listening venues.
69 was a crazy year. I graduated Hi School, got laid, got smoked up and moved outta the house to be an " artist" Got draft number 276 so got to stay home. My best friend volunteered cause he hated school, became a SeaBee and ran his Cat over a mine in the Nam - never made it back. Always rememeber him when I hear Otis as he turned me on to that sound
Wouldnt effin trade those days for anything tho
Last Edited by Goldbrick on Nov 27, 2015 9:40 AM
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florida-trader
829 posts
Nov 27, 2015
10:15 AM
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Goldbrick - the "townies" you refer to. Yep, Bethel was out in the country. Down south we would call them rednecks. In upstate NY we called them Scoopers. Many of them have never seen the inside of a dentist's office, if you know what I mean. Think Deliverance.
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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on Nov 27, 2015 10:16 AM
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ME.HarpDoc
40 posts
Nov 27, 2015
1:30 PM
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I had just graduated from college in Vermont and was heading to Binghamton NY for my roommate's wedding and went by the crowd on the thruway heading to Woodstock. I had no idea at the time this was going on but was pleased to see a lot of naked women in cars and bathing in streams. However duty called as I was best man at the wedding. So I didn't attend but the memory of missing it will last forever. BTW the sound of harmonica from Canned Heat stuck and simmered until I took harp just under two years ago!
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groyster1
2826 posts
Nov 28, 2015
6:15 AM
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I was stationed in long bien at the time....we were made aware of Woodstock via armed service radio...about the same time when moon landing took place
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jbone
2076 posts
Nov 28, 2015
9:27 AM
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I was a tender and geeky 14 that summer. A couple of cousins were going, from Elmira, and came through Corning to see if they could hijack me to come along. Mom was almost decided yes but in the end I stayed home in Corning. Probably a good thing since I suppose I'd have fried my brains like some people did. Today I count my blessings I missed that one. I may have not gotten back in one piece!
Five years later though, Summer Jam hit Watkins Glen racetrack, about 25 miles from my front door. Two weeks before the vent a bud and I had hitched to the village of Watkins Glen and on the way back some guys from Jersey picked us up and showed us the grounds. They were drinking local wine in gallon jugs and they were helping build the stage for the show. We ended up staying the night and my bud took something that sent him far far away. I got him back to Corning next day, and we headed for the show together two weeks later, and promptly got separated when we got there.
The Dead, Allmans, and The Band headlined. I was a bit hipper by then and we had joined the huge mass of partyers headed up Rt. 414 for the weekend. In excess of a million people from coast to coast were en route there, and most never made it. It was pure chaos in the village and surrounding towns, with front yard campers, theft from local stores, and drugs just everywhere. I spent the weekend in a stupor myself. Got about a half mile from the stage- it was about the size of a matchbook from where I was- and just pretty much wandered from campsite to campsite partying with everybody. And it was a huge party! The aftermath was not so pretty. The promoters were sued all over the place since they'd insured for 10,000 people and the turnout was over 500k. I think quite a few people were busted for drugs and drunk driving as well.
During that era we saw a lot of beautiful people in town, both before and after.
It's true, that era was pretty amazing in a lot of ways, but by '73 it was headed from the WE to the ME generation.
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http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000386839482
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbTwvU-EN1Q
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The Iceman
2782 posts
Nov 28, 2015
5:21 PM
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Mom wouldn't let me go, but I did go the next year to the great Goose Lake Festival in Michigan - 3 days.
Sitting in the sun the second day in front of the stage. Hot. Guy next to me said "Thirsty?" and handed me a jug of water. I took a big gulp. Then he said "oh, I forgot to tell you that there are three hits of acid and five hits of mescaline dissolved in there".
boy, did the festival take off for me an hour later!
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The Iceman
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Barley Nectar
957 posts
Nov 28, 2015
7:13 PM
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I was 14 and could not go to Woodstock. A buddy and I went to the Jersey Shore during the same time the Glen concert ran. We were cruising back home in my spotless 63 Electra, groovin Ummagumma on the Craig quad powerplay when we picked up a hitchhiker near the Jersey PA line. Low and behold, the guy live about a half mile from my home. It was his lucky day and ours too, he had some killer smoke!
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indigo
185 posts
Nov 28, 2015
8:09 PM
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Iceman.. the "Hot Guy" bit surprised me.
Then i saw the full stop.;-)
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crispyagain
109 posts
Nov 29, 2015
3:46 PM
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Thanks folks.....good stories
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garry
612 posts
Nov 29, 2015
4:32 PM
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A friend of mine started playing harp at Woodstock. He had long wanted to, but had never made himself actually start. He found a lost harp in a puddle of mud, cleaned it up and started learning. He's now a local legend and member of the blues hall of fame.
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nacoran
8791 posts
Nov 30, 2015
3:03 PM
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I wasn't around for the first one. I very nearly went to the last one, but ultimately, and unfortunately, my OCD wasn't up to large crowds and porta-potties. My friend did come back having been mistaken for Jon Popper though (reports of Popper's presence even made MTV, along with a rumor that he was going to play a tune with Metallica, but that's a longer story I've told before.)
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Nate
Facebook
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First Post- May 8, 2009
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Barley Nectar
963 posts
Nov 30, 2015
3:14 PM
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Garry, that harp was a "Gift from God"...
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garry
613 posts
Nov 30, 2015
7:16 PM
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@barley: Certainly changed his life.
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