WOODSTOCK FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY

This week marks the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. It's no surprise that Rolling Stone magazine listed it as one of the 50 moments that changed the history of Rock and Roll. And this was for several good reasons. The main one, of course, was the caliber of the artists who performed. From The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana and Jimi Hendrix, to name just a few.

Nothing like this had ever happened before. Not even close. The promoters told the city, in order to get a permit, that they were expecting no more than fifty thousand people. And that was considered a lot. Fifty thousand people attending a concert was unheard of back then. They sold 186,000 tickets at seventeen dollars a pop. That's around seventy five dollars today if you adjust for inflation. In the end, almost half a million people showed up. If I do my math correctly, that's almost ten times more than fifty thousand, which they thought was too much already. Traffic jams were twenty miles long.

The promoters wanted the best acts around and were willing to pay for it. So they told they agents they wanted the acts no matter what. They signed some acts for twice as much as they usually got. Jefferson Airplane, which was the top acid Rock band at the time, usually got around $5,000 to $6,000. They signed for $12,000. Once they signed, it became easier to sign other artists. Supposedly the only reporter around was a New York Times reporter. They were the only ones that thought this was a worthy news event. The newspaper wanted the event reported as a disaster. But the reporter, to his credit, refused to do so. Instead, the reporter did the story on what was actually going on. There were two deaths that occurred as well as two births. Incredibly for the amount of people who showed up and the conditions they lived in those three days, there were no violent crimes reported.

Can something like this happen now? I seriously doubt it. I can just imagine the lawsuits as a result of something like this. It truly is sad for the U.S. If you ask me. Not that I would go if something like this did occur. But I can still dream.

Canned Head played "Going Up the Country", the video of which I think distills the essence of the concert. The carefree attitude, the cameraderie, the zonked out kids, the dancing and of course the music. Oh yeah, and don't forget the nuns.