# Woodstock- Did Anyone Here Actually Attend?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 9, 2008, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899 "2008-11-09T14:07:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/1 "2008-11-09T14:07:22Z")
The title says it all- is there one of us who did? I sure wasn’t there.
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### Author:  [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/2 "2008-11-09T14:50:00Z")
It was the Sixties.
How do you expect people to remember things like this?
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### Author:  [@as\_u\_wish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/as_u_wish)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/3 "2008-11-09T15:18:28Z")
I was in upstate New York fall of 1969 to go to college, but missed the summer. Sometimes I lie about it, too.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/4 "2008-11-09T16:28:24Z")
I heard about it and wanted to attend but the New York State Thruway was closed, man.
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### Author:  [@Helena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/5 "2008-11-09T17:48:17Z")
We have a friend who was there. He just turned 60.
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/6 "2008-11-09T18:09:25Z")
I’ve been to Woodstock, Illinois. I understand people there play music on occasion.
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### Author:  [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/7 "2008-11-09T20:23:38Z")
I wanted to go but my mom said, “what are you, out of your mind?”
☹
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### Author:  [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/8 "2008-11-09T20:39:22Z")
Stuck in traffic about 30 miles away, I decided to head back home before I got into more trouble than I was already in.
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### Author:  [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/9 "2008-11-09T20:43:11Z")
A group of my friends went, but I did not have the cash to front for my share of the gas.
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### Author:  [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/10 "2008-11-09T23:18:42Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#):
>
> It was the Sixties.
>
> How do you expect people to remember things like this?
Hell if I know- I can barely remember being alive 😃
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/11 "2008-11-10T00:44:08Z")
I wanted to go but my mom was all “I’m only 13 and you’re not even going to be born for 12 more years” and I’m all “GUH! Always holding me back!!”
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### Author:  [@Risha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Risha)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/12 "2008-11-10T01:47:28Z")
I wasn’t, but my parents were. My mom reports back that it was cold and wet, and she couldn’t hear anything. My dad got there late.
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### Author:  [@Sycorax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sycorax)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/13 "2008-11-10T01:50:21Z")
Not me. I’m surprised at so few responses. I knew about Woodstock, but I was a young, single mother, working my arse off to make ends meet, and the hippie-flower-child-commune-marijuana-wild-sex life style was just not a part of my world.
I think too much has been made of it. Aside from the now-famous rock stars, it was primarily a circus side-show – hippies playing in a muddy field, in the nude, smoking pot, and having a great ol’ time; while most of us were going to school, or ralsing children, or getting our kicks on route 66. 😃
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### Author:  [@Klif](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Klif)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/14 "2008-11-10T02:27:31Z")
> [@Risha](#):
>
> My mom reports back that it was cold and wet, and she couldn’t hear anything. My dad got there late.
…that’s what she said?
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### Author:  [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/15 "2008-11-10T03:20:52Z")
I was tied up at the time and therefore unable to attend.
I am John McCain and I approve this message.
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### Author:  [@oliversarmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oliversarmy)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/16 "2008-11-10T04:10:52Z")
I was 11. Nope.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/17 "2008-11-10T05:05:37Z")
Am I really the first to respond who was there?
Yes, I was at Woodstock. I was 17. I went up with a couple of my friends from high school (I had just graduated that June). We had no idea it was going to be as big a deal as it was. We began to get an inkling when our bus had to stop a few miles from the site and we had to walk in through the enormous crowds.
I lost touch with my friends pretty soon. I sat for three days in the middle of that field, through the music and the rain. I slept there too, though it was mostly just dozing during the mornings, since the music lasted most of the nights. I also smoked dope for the first time (having gone to a very straight parochial high school).
I heard every group, except for Richie Havens, the first act, who I arrived too late for, and (I think) John Sebastian on the second afternoon when I went to forage for food.
Among the most memorable on the first day were Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez; on the second Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, and The Who; and on the third Country Joe and the Fish, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and of course Hendrix, who came on at dawn on Monday. By that time so many people had left that I was able to move down very close to the stage.
Fortunately I didn’t get into too much trouble for missing work that day. My parents of course were horrified after watching all the news reports about what went on. And they never did tell my grandmother where I’d been, since she had spent the whole weekend exclaiming “How could any parents let their children go to something like that!” 😃
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/18 "2008-11-10T05:11:19Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> Am I really the first to respond who was there?
>
> Yes, I was at Woodstock. I was 17. I went up with a couple of my friends from high school (I had just graduated that June). We had no idea it was going to be as big a deal as it was. We began to get an inkling when our bus had to stop a few miles from the site and we had to walk in through the enormous crowds.
>
> I lost touch with my friends pretty soon. I sat for three days in the middle of that field, through the music and the rain. I slept there too, though it was mostly just dozing during the mornings, since the music lasted most of the nights. I also smoked dope for the first time (having gone to a very straight parochial high school).
>
> I heard every group, except for Richie Havens, the first act, who I arrived too late for, and (I think) John Sebastian on the second afternoon when I went to forage for food.
>
> Among the most memorable on the first day were Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez; on the second Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, and The Who; and on the third Country Joe and the Fish, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and of course Hendrix, who came on at dawn on Monday. By that time so many people had left that I was able to move down very close to the stage.
>
> Fortunately I didn’t get into too much trouble for missing work that day. My parents of course were horrified after watching all the news reports about what went on. And they never did tell my grandmother where I’d been, since she had spent the whole weekend exclaiming “How could any parents let their children go to something like that!” 😃
I think I love you. Man.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/19 "2008-11-10T05:49:19Z")
I was there, but I don’t remember much. I was going to Ohio State at the time, and five of us drove there in a VW Beetle. I remember that the crowd was the largest number of people I had ever seen, up to that point. I remember the rain and mud. People were passing around joints and a few other things. Some people were naked, but not as many as you’d think. Some people had sex, but not as many as you’d think. The music, of course, was amazing, but from where we were it was impossible to hear the words.
On the way home, one of the women in the car puked on me.
That’s all I’ve got.
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2008, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woodstock-did-anyone-here-actually-attend/471899/20 "2008-11-10T06:10:09Z")
There were people at my college who went.
My boyfriend and I started–on a motorcycle–but we’re talking 1500 miles, and I don’t think I could stand to go that far on a motorcycle. We went to the Dallas pop festival instead and saw Led Zeppelin, and there was no brown acid (it was purple). A friend of mine was being a groupie with Canned Heat at the time and she got us some backstage passes, which was very cool. There was camping out and skinny dipping and a really big crowd, but it was not Something Big.
The people who went to Woodstock said the drive was miserable and boring, as there were a bunch of them crammed into a van, and they reported the site itself was miserable and boring and rainy and COLD, but the music was great. Of course, after the first day they realized they were part of Something Big which did a lot (along with the drugs) to mitigate the misery.
Well, the Dallas pop festival was not famous, but it was not cold, either. Nor muddy. The music was great. But the people who went to Woodstock just had this golden glow, for the rest of the time we were in school, because They Were There.
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