# I don't think Woodstock was as important as they say now **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 30, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263 "2009-08-30T16:24:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/41 "2009-08-31T20:41:16Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Somebody has to be right about when the “most important stuff ever” happened. It just sticks in your craw that it happens to be us boomers. Nobody says “Sticks in your craw” anymore. That’s REALLY old. 🙂 Actually, I’d wholeheartedly agree that Woodstock WAS the most important music festival ever. It’s wildly and very tiresomely overdone, but there’s sure as hell no other music festival ever held nearly as culturally significant. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/42 "2009-08-31T20:42:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > This is correct. And Altamont happening only a few months later made Woodstock seem even more special. > > There were not 500,000 person festivals taking place on a regular basis in the U.S. at the time. There was Monterey in 1967 and then Woodstock. Smaller festivals existed but these were the only ones that drew national attention. Two guys flying over the festival (paraphrased from [Woodstock Now & Then](http://www.history.com/content/woodstock)): “What sort of crop is that?” “That ain’t no crop! That’s people, man!” ---
**Author:** ![Never\_Say\_Dice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee59a6/32.png) [@Never\_Say\_Dice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Never_Say_Dice)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/43 "2009-08-31T21:30:52Z")
I don’t think the term “Woodstock” meant anything to me at the time. Even “Haight Ashbury” wasn’t a well known term then. When it’s happening the labels are different, more based on the feeling than places and events. Flower Power was strong, Summer of Love was strong. Anti-War, and various ways of saying hallucinogenic. Eventually people would look back and pick certain events as iconic, but at the time the feeling was that change was everywhere and the music was everywhere. It wasn’t a couple of localized events but something much bigger, more general. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/44 "2009-08-31T23:23:23Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It did become national news because of the attendance. > Aside from the performances (and how can anyone argue with the performances), Woodstock was also very notable in that, even with all of the overcrowding, lack of facilities, shortage of food and abundance of chemicals, there was no violence. There WERE, however, two deaths. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/45 "2009-09-01T00:11:02Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > To the boomers, everything that happened between 1965 and 1972 was the most important stuff that ever happened ever. I’d stretch that out to extend from 1963-1974 (to take in the JFK assassination and Watergate). Them were happening times (1968 had more bizarre and far-reaching events than any other year in which I’ve lived) and I hope nothing like them ever happens again. Every musical era since the days of Tin Pan Alley had a superficial frosting of hits (some good, some mediocre, some vomit-inducing) and a large undercurrent of interesting to great music which doesn’t get much attention from “popular music historians”. 70 years ago the top hits were stuff like the Andrews Sisters’ “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree” and other gag reflex-challenging songs, but you could still listen to the good stuff like Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald’s “Stone Cold Dead In The Market”. I’m sure 2007 had just as much good stuff going on in the background as 1967. Well, maybe it did. It’s just been remarkably well hidden. But I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. Possibly. As to Woodstock: It was a big deal for its time but it is so _over_. Can we please put it aside, both the demented nostalgia from those who mostly weren’t there and the whiny carping of resentful post-generational attention whores, at least for another ten years, at which time we can get sick of Woodstock-related yapping all over again? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/46 "2009-09-01T00:16:35Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > My sense is, the vast majority of the people who actually ATTENDED the Woodstock festival, whether as performers (like Pete Townshend) or as fans (like Billy Joel) hated every second of it, and will readily tell you “It sucked- you didn’t miss a thing.” I have a co-worker who went to Woodstock and while she thinks it’s neat she was “part of history”, the only reason she went was because her sister had an extra ticket. Even now, she doesn’t understand what was so special about it. ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/47 "2009-09-01T01:33:02Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > There WERE, however, two deaths. And one birth, so it kinda evens out. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/48 "2009-09-01T04:06:05Z")
> [@fuzzypickles](#): > > And one birth, so it kinda evens out. I’ll try to find it, but I read an article recently that said that may not be true. Said try as they might, no one’s been able to find the alleged person who was born there, nor any medical personnel who delivered a baby. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/49 "2009-09-01T04:31:47Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I’ll try to find it, but I read an article recently that said that may not be true. Said try as they might, no one’s been able to find the alleged person who was born there, nor any medical personnel who delivered a baby. Found it: [Happy Birthday Woodstock Baby, If You Exist: Babies Reportedly Born 40 Years Ago at Music Fest Remain a Mystery](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31968825/ns/us_news-life/) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/50 "2009-09-01T12:27:42Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Today, NOBODY remembers Lulu Sadly, she’s never stopped having a fairly regular media presence in Britain. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/51 "2009-09-01T13:01:35Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Well, there was lots of crappy music on the radio back then, too. It wasn’t the Beatles, the Stones, and Bob Dylan 24/7; much of the radio was given over to pap. You just don’t hear the crap anymore, because it doesn’t stand the test of time, and 30 years from now you won’t be hearing the Jonas Brothers, either. Exactly. When was the last time you heard Barry Manilow, the Partidge Family, Donnie and Marie or Leif Garrett on the radio? Those people were HUGE in their day, yet they didn’t stand the test of time. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263/52 "2009-09-01T13:25:54Z")
Totally indulgent, largely irrelevant, middle class, liberal nonsense, whether in the doing, the reporting or the deifying. Man. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-think-woodstock-was-as-important-as-they-say-now/508263.md?page=2)