Could there ever be another “3 Days of Peace and Love”? Not the later 2 fake copies. The original where 50,000 people got along and they really created a community.
I think the problems are;
Well, Lallapalozza was sort of like Woodstock… sort of… but I don’t think we will see a meaningful return of either, mainly because music/rock music as a whole is dying out…
I thought there was nothing special about Woodstock, it was just a music festival. One of the first, or maybe one of the biggest, sure, but no big deal these days. There are forty* music festivals a year, around the world, and essentially they’re no different to what Woodstock was. No need to mythologise it.
*I have no idea how many there actually are. Maybe fifteen? Whatever.
Return of Lollapalooza? Did it ever go away?
I’d say Coachella revived the Woodstock vibe-ish festival. It, and others like Bonnaroo & Lollapalooza may not have the mystique that Woodstock had, but are probably far better festivals. And this ignores the Euro festivals.
What I mean is it had much better music in the 90’s…
Does it have to be a specifically music festival? Because Burning Man sounds a lot like what Woodstock was in the cultural sense (i.e. the one place you’d bomb if you wanted to thin the hippie herd but good).
My understanding is though it was originally slated to be a standard outdoor music festival, the number of people who showed up was far larger than expected, and they stopped charging an entrance fee around the time that some of the fence was breached. There was some announcement made that it would be a “free concert from here on out”. I guess the Who’s Pete Townshend was pissed because they weren’t paid for their appearance there. And concert tickets were much less expensive even factoring inflation.
Also, marijuana was legal and other drugs weren’t as criminal pre-War on Drugs, so there wasn’t as much of a police reaction as there would be today (except recreational marijuana has just recently become legal in certain jurisdictions).
Then there was the utopian hippy flower child idealism which disappeared by the 70’s, although summer festivals like the Oregon Country Fair retain a more sedate, for-profit Ben & Jerry’s version of it.
From Wikipedia: “Woodstock was designed as a profit-making venture, aptly titled “Woodstock Ventures”. It famously became a “free concert” only after the event drew hundreds of thousands more patrons than the organizers had prepared for. Tickets for the three-day event cost $18 in advance and $24 at the gate (equivalent to $120.00 and $150.00 in 2014).”
What mentality is that? “We should show up in New York and be let in to a concert for free”?
A real fear. Also from Wikipedia: “Approximately 80 lawsuits were filed against Woodstock Ventures, primarily by farmers in the area. The movie financed settlements and paid off the $1.4 million of debt Woodstock Ventures had incurred from the festival.”
“Another” Woodstock?
Woodstock wasn’t a Woodstock except in the rosy-tinged granny glasses of old hippies.
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Also, marijuana was legal and other drugs weren’t as criminal pre-War on Drugs, so there wasn’t as much of a police reaction as there would be today (except recreational marijuana has just recently become legal in certain jurisdictions).
Then there was the utopian hippy flower child idealism which disappeared by the 70’s, although summer festivals like the Oregon Country Fair retain a more sedate, for-profit Ben & Jerry’s version of it.
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Snip. Bolding mine.
Is this true?
Burning Man is that big and happens every year.
For sufficiently large values of 50,000, yeah… There were actually about 400,000 people at Woodstock.
Another Woodstock? I doubt it, since Charles Schultz died.
Wasn’t he the guard at Stalag 13?
And every year tons of trash is dumped alone the sides of lonely rural Nevada highways by members of the “community” that gather there.
:rolleyes:
Well, for about a year anyways (1969) due to Leary vs. the United States. But it wasn’t as criminalized as it wasn’t listed as a narcotic until the some time during the war on drugs.
I don’t think so. But it was an odd time in marijuana legalization history. There were federal laws that made sale and possession criminal activities but it was before Richard Nixon disregarded his own commission’s advice and declared active war. Weed was classified Schedule 1 in 1970, soon after Woodstock.
Again, an odd time. A lot of people I knew had barely even heard of marijuana in 1969 and law enforcement wasn’t busting balls big time looking for possession of it yet. So, with so many camped out on Max’s farm, and in frequently crappy weather conditions, local cops had plenty of other things on their plate than playing gotcha with thousands of joints making the rounds.
You need to have a generation as self-absorbed like us baby-boomers are. But when we tried it again, we got Altamont.
The only concert I know of that was what Woodstock purported to be was the Vortex Concert in Portland, OR in 1970. It was dreamed up by an aid to then-governor Tom McCall as a free rock concert and was designed to draw protesters away from the upcoming visit by President Nixon. It was a state-sponsored, not for profit event that successfully drew tens of thousands of would-be protesters. The cops on hand were ordered to ignore misdemeanor offenses like pot and nudity. Although it was rumored that Cream and Grateful Dead would play, no real name bands showed up.