Not really - and that’s a primary reason that there wouldn’t have been a group of “Elvis fans” there as a separate group. There was no separate body of people there who would have identified as Elvis fans.
Even so, at that point in time there wasn’t any vast gulf between the people who would have been Elvis fans and those who were at Woodstock. Elvis wasn’t our parents’ music, but the music of our older brothers and sisters. It was the music we heard as kids. (I recall hearing and enjoying Hound Dog and Blue Suede Shoes when I was in grade school.) There was no hostility to the music of the previous decade - it was all still rock, and it was all good. There really wasn’t any reason why the crowd wouldn’t have appreciated Elvis or have been hostile to him.
Like I said, there wasn’t any body of separate Elvis fans there. But even if there had been, they would have had a hard time getting beer and liquor - I don’t recall any for sale at the site. And although Elvis himself was conservative, I’m not at all sure that at that point in time “most Elvis fans” would necessarily have been pro-war.
You can imagine all you want, but you weren’t there, and simply don’t have a very good sense what it was like at the time. I was not only at Woodstock but a lot of other musical events and festivals in the late sixties and early seventies, as well demonstrations and marches on Washington (and got tear gassed twice.) You’re suggestion has no connection with the reality of what the atmosphere at Woodstock was like, or the general attitude towards Elvis and his music in 1969. You are projecting your own experiences back on a different time.
What I remember back then was Elvis was someone else’s music. His movies were camp; no one in my group or class would actually pay to see one in a theatre, though we might watch one on TV if there was nothing more interesting to watch. Sure, he influenced Lennon and Macca in 1958, but that was 12 years before Woodstock and in that time he had sold out.
So far there seem to be 2 somewhat conflicting points of view:
one that there was a sharp divide/rift between the first rock wave (let’s call it rock’n’roll or rockabilly) and the second wave.
the second (to which I partly subscribe) that Elvis wasn’t quite old yet to be “dad’s and mom’s kind of stuff”. Unless you were 16 or less at the time (and I assume there weren’t many falling in that category at Woodstock), you hardly could regard Elvis as somebody from your parents generation. Maybe an older brother as Colibri said, or a young uncle at worst.
So probably the audience’s reaction would have been mixed too. Those who were a bit older and had broader taste would have welcomed Elvis (and maybe would have been in awe just to see him). The younger and more radical ones… not so much, which brings up another point: I think it’s a mistake to assume the young are automatically more open minded and more open to experience. Elvis’ fans scoffed at Sinatra, Beatles fans scoffed at Elvis (some of them at least), my high school buddies scoffed at Beatles and even Led Zeppelin and though Nirvana was the real deal. It’s always been so.
It would take some research I don’t have time for right now to calculate the average age of the performers at Woodstock. But my off-the-cuff guess is that it might be in the range of 25 or so, which means a birth date of 1944. A person of that age would have been 12 in 1956 when Elvis hit…just about the right age to have his mind blown and his lifetime musical course set.
You can read interview after interview with musicians of the 1960s era, and nearly all of them will fervently cite the impact Elvis and early rock ‘n’ roll had on them — including ones you might not expect from the music they went on to play (Roger McGuinn — who to this day performs “Heartbreak Hotel” in his solo shows — comes to mind).
So I will continue to assert that the majority of the musicians who performed at Woodstock would have been in awe of having Elvis on the bill with them — and would have conveyed the depth of their feelings to the audience. I would think this would have gone a long way toward quelling any discontent any of the younger and more clueless audience members might have been inclined to express.
I was 17 at the time, and probably one of the younger people there.
It’s true that within the rock era the music of the previous decade has often been regarded as passe or old hat, whether rockabilly or psychedelia or disco or grunge or whatever the newest phase happens to be. But the biggest divide has been between rock and non-rock. Nothing compares to the great schism between the big band/Sinatra era of the forties and the start of rock in the fifties. After that one might scoff a bit at music of the previous decade, but I don’t think there would have been outright hostility (well, probably disco;)). In contrast, in the fifties and sixties there would have been active derision of our parents’ generation. This was the period when the Generation Gap was at its widest. No comparable rift in musical tastes has really happened since.
It is really a huge gap that has so far not been duplicated. For instance take my mother. She is less than 5 years older than the members of the Stones or the Beatles or any of the other groups of that era. But she grew up a fan of Big Band Music. She was able to transition into liking Elvis too but anything after that was totally lost on her. She was in her late 20s into 30s by the end of the decade but she might as well have been 60. She had much more in common culturally with people in middle age than those 10 years younger or less.
Just as you are free to imagine that your perceptions of the event were anything other than that: YOUR perceptions filtered through your biases and your own world perspective.
If you want to imagine that Woodstock was some sort “peace and love” meeting rather than a commercial enterprise undertaken by its promoters to make money, then you free to do so. That, however, conflicts with the interviews and books written about the event detailing the planning undertaken and what was required to to get it going. You are also free to believe that people in 1969 would have gone to an all-inclusive concerts with large numbers of others with whom they disagreed both politically and socially and there not being any conflicts, but that line of thought itself conflicts with human nature of almost any era.
The question asked how Elvis would been received at Woodstock. Since he wasn’t invited, he didn’t go, and Col. Tom Parker wouldn’t have allowed it, all that be done is speculate what would have occurred. I have speculated that inviting Elvis to such an event would have changed the nature of the event (it certainly would have been more profit driven if he had, for one thing) and it would have brought fans of Elvis whose political and social views at the time would have diverged widely from those held by the majority of other attendees.
Elvis was never anti- Vietnam War and the same can probably claimed for the majority of his fans. He was drafted and served in the military when he easily could have wrangled a deferment. He never (to my knowledge) ever spoke against the war at its height and it can be presumed that his fans in 1969 felt the same that he did. In fact, any anti-war sentiment would have been received poorly by his fans and would have probably caused disruptions in the crowd ( harsher their buzz might be a good term).
And since the so-called “anti war movement” started around the time Woodstock (at least for most White Americans, as Dr. King, Muhammed Ali and other civil rights leaders had come out against the war several years earlier and had been widely disparaged for their stances) to presume that there wouldn’t have been numerous problems with Elvis fans and hippies meeting seems to be looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.
Again we are speculating about something which not only did not occur, but that would not have occurred. That means its’s possible that anything could have occurred. That’s the “fun” of part speculation: You don’t know what will or might occur or have occurred, leaving you free to guess at what might have happened.
I guessed.
You disagree.
That makes it a horse race.
two men see the same and think that something different is, or was, going to happen.
My perceptions are not filtered - they are based on having actually been a first-hand witness and participant in the event as well as having lived through the era. I know what the vibe was like in the crowd I spent three days in. Any knowledge you have is second hand.
Whatever conflicts the organizers went through doesn’t really have a lot to do with what the atmosphere was in the crowd itself. And that was certainly “peace and love,” as many of the observers besides myself attested.
You yourself made the point that Woodstock was not an “all-inclusive concert.” So there weren’t large numbers of others who disagreed socially and politically. You keep ignoring this fact.
The situation postulated in the OP was that Elvis wasn’t invited, but decided to attend under his own volition. Without previous publicity, a contingent of Elvis fans wouldn’t have been there.
Again, you keep postulating “Elvis fans” being there, but they weren’t as a distinct group. If Elvis himself had taken the occasion to express pro-War views, he would have gotten a hostile reception, sure.
Some outcomes are more probable than others, based the actual facts. The difference between my opinion and yours is that my opinion is based on actually having been at the event, and also having participated in many other events of the era. The outcome you postulate doesn’t accord with the actual facts of the event, in particular that a distinct contingent of Elvis fans was there. Your opinion is based on a situation that is contrary to the reality of the event.
But what does this have to do with what actually HAPPENED at Woodstock — that is, the behavior of the crowd under the various circumstances that were visited upon it? I don’t see how the commercial origins of Woodstock play into the question being addressed, which is: How would Elvis have been received at the event? (EDIT: I see Colibri made this same point as I was writing my reply.)
It’s an open question as to what extent there would have been “conflicting” groups of music fans at Woodstock. On the one hand, it would have been virtually Elvis’s first concert appearance since the late 1950s, so it might indeed have attracted considerable interest among his fans.
On the other hand, the venue itself (a large open field with no shelter) might have turned off many who would have otherwise gone to a more conventional setting. And what publicity there was about Woodstock prior to the event was spread through media (the underground press and radio) that was probably not widely seen/heard by Elvis’s fans. If his appearance had been nailed down enough in advance, I’m sure there would have been wide publicity. But the lineup at Woodstock was in flux up to the last minute, so this is an open question too.
For this part of your argument, you’ll have to prove that Elvis made ANY political statement whatsoever in this era that was widely reported. While some artists certainly spoke out very loudly against the war in Vietnam, others said nothing one way or the other. Speaking out against the war wasn’t some kind of litmus test that a popular artist had to pass before their music would be accepted by the young audience. You’re putting forth a schism here that, in terms of popular perception, may not have existed at the time. (The famous photograph of Elvis with Nixon was another year and a half away.)
Again, only if:
Large numbers of (right-wing) Elvis fans chose to attend, and
If Elvis’s more right-wing views had received wide publicity.
Show me some evidence of #2, and I might be more sympathetic to this argument.
Sure. But “guesses” based on hard evidence generally carry more weight than those that are not.
Since this comes up a lot lately: you might be making too much of Elvis’ meeting with Nixon and the highly publicized handshake (and his subsequent tour of the FBI headquarters). From what I’ve read, the main purpose was getting a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge. He made some unflattering remarks about Beatles, drug culture and anti-american sentiments, but those seemed to have been in passing.
Let’s not forget the 1968 comeback TV special which was a pivotal moment in relaunching his career, and ‘If I can dream’ which was THE song of that show.
According to a number of sources including wikipedia, “Presley and Binder were looking for a way to end the show. The two had discussed Elvis’ dismay over the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. Binder was struck by the conversation and ordered W. Earl Brown, a songwriter working on the show, to come up with a song incorporating Presley’s concern to use as the finale to the show. So even though Presley did not write the song, his viewpoint was expressed in its composition.”
Whether that’s true or not, Elvis certainly sounded like he gave everything he had when he sang that song. So the question is: Was Elvis confused? Did he change his mind from day to day? Was he taking too many drugs? (ok, we know the answer to that one). Bottom line, it doesn’t look like Elvis was a hard line pro-administration, pro-war supporter.
Regarding Elvis’ fans attending Woodstock, again we have to remind ourselves that the crowd at International Hotel was mostly made of rich people and celebrities, the majority of which were above 30, well dressed, high maintenance, etc. Many of them weren’t necessarily the most serious Elvis fans, but were there out of curiosity or because of gambling. These were not the kind of people who would have blended with a muddy crowd.
And even if tickets were sold out in advance for months (or years), it’s one thing to fill a 2000 seats showroom, and it’s quite another thing to draw a distinctly large crowd in a half million sea of people. All I’m saying is, curiosity or no curiosity, publicity or no publicity, there wouldn’t have been that many die-hard Elvis fans at Woodstock.