Rock On...Or Not: Woodstock 50 Is Officially Canceled

townhall.com ^ | 8/2/2019 | Cortney O'Brien

[rktman]

Music fans still talk about Woodstock to this day. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to a dairy farm in Bethel, New York in the summer of 1969 to see the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, and CCR grace the stage for the world's most iconic rock concert. They'll be talking about Woodstock 50 too - but for a much different reason. Just about everything went wrong for the organizers behind the Woodstock 50th Anniversary Festival, and it's now curtains closed.

First, there was some trouble with the production company (which changed hands a few times.) Then the festival’s financier, Dentsu Aegis, pulled its funding. Then major artists started pulling out of the concert. Then they lost the venue.

[steve8714]

What they have now is a replay of the Brewer and Shipley concert at UMSL in 1971. A big no-show.

[Stevenc131]

Neil Young:

I’m a million miles away
from that helicopter day
and I don’t think I’ll be going back that way

Looks like a good chance nobody will be going back that way.

[IronJack]

Just like that disaster in the Bahamas. I don’t recall the name but it was a complete farce.

[Karma_Sherab]

The impression I got was that although the music was good, it was too frickin’ hot, it was too frickin’ muddy, it was too frickin’ crowded there was garbage everywhere, lots of people were wasted badly enough to the point where you doubt there even remember they were there, it stunk because of the lack of porta potties, etc.

Sounds like your average demo-crap get together

[zigmeisterxiv]

There is still the amphitheatre and museum at the original site, having event that weekend ... https://www.bethelwoodscenter.org/anniversary-weekend-pre-concert-festivities Then, down the road is the grimy, hippie camping event with small time bands ... https://www.yasgurroadreunion.com/ I shall be at the latter ... Zig (Woodstock Veteran) 😎

[FreedomPoster]

The Fyre Festival, I believe.

[DoodleBob]

I slightly disagree.

There was a lot of drug use and leftist crapola in Bethel, NY those 3 days that lives on in colleges and other areas that we are still trying to quash. But compare the totality of those days with the carnage at Woodstock 99 and any contemporary gathering of 100,000+ leftists nowadays. Woodstock is not something that was pure deadweight loss.

In a weird sort of way, Woodstock probably says more about the positive morals of the hippies' parents than the mud pie crowd would prefer to acknowledge. Having a quarter of a million people without a lot of food and water etc and virtually no police presence, but yet there were no major crimes reported sounds more like kids remembered the Golden Rule vs sex and drugs and rock and roll. In turn, the fires and riots of Woodstock 99 probably says more about the morals of the GenXers parents (many of whom were Boomers...) than the kids themselves.

My other disagreement is a bit more invloved. Yea, the hippie music generally sucked and didn't stand the test of time. Who wants to hear "Joe Hill" on acoustic guitar anymore? But perhaps THE most memorable performance came from The Who. And what did they do?

-they ran the photographers off the stage,
-Pete Townshed knocked a petulant Abbie Hoffman into the pit in front of the stage with his guitar,
-they put on a pure rock show of power and volume; no peace and love during their set. In fact Townshend said "My 1460s (Doc Martens boots) released me from psychedelia and all the nonsense that went with it."
-God smiled on them with a sunrise at the end of their set.

The Who are playing to sellout stadiums this summer while other vets...not so much. It seems a working class bunch of mods from Sheppard's Bush and their non-nonsense blistering (dare we say...anti-Establishment?) music style resonated better with American culture than acoustic folk songs.

[katana]

I have only ever met one person who (claimed) to have attended the original. As he was at that time driving and living out of a van with an inverted terrarium on top as a sort of rooftop sky dome, I tended to believe him.

[SamAdams76]

I went to one festival like that and it was the US Festival in 1983 (near San Benardino, CA). A three day affair over Memorial Day weekend that basically had an incredible lineup of artists including David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, U2, Van Halen and a bunch of others.

Don't know how that compared to Woodstock but to quote David Foster Wallace, it was "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."

I'll never forget walking out of there at the end of the three days. Layers of soft "mud" under my feet with the stench of urine and feces everywhere. I took a really long hot shower when I got back.

I was only 19 and did have some fun. But now way, will I ever do that again.

[cuban leaf]

Well, yeah. The music is the GOOD part. I found out that the drummer for Santana at Woodstock played the White Rabbit in Freemont (Seattle) every week and went to see his band, “Spellbound” about a decade ago. They blew me away. Michael Shrieve. The guy spent his whole life getting better and better.

But Woodstock 99 and others were not the “national” event that Woodstock was. They are just wannabees. And yes, they were terrible.

I think your “slightly” is appropriate.

I did hear that Woodstock killed the hippie movement because it made it mainstream.

[sauropod]

But perhaps THE most memorable performance came from The Who.

Uh, No!

It was Hendrix, hands down.

[IronJack]

Marty Balin is dead too. I didn’t know that.

[IronJack]

That’s the one. Turned out to be “Trauma in Bahama.”

[lapsus calami]

 

 

I was waiting for someone to post that.

 

Benny's the man.

 

 

[dfwgator]

About 500,000 of us were quite busy at that time.

"I was up to my knees in rice paddies, with guns that didn't work! Going in there, looking for Charlie, slugging it out with him; While pussies like you were back here partying, putting headbands on, doing drugs, and listening to the .......... Beatle albums! Oh! Oh! Oh!"

[DoodleBob]

It's debatable.

Hendrix was great, no doubt. Even though the crowd was only about 70k strong at that time (who knew hippies had to be at work on Monday?), he lit up the place and gave a great closing performance. It is sad that most of his backing band wasn't mic'd and that that version of his band only played one or two more times.

But perhaps because he was so stoned (and there was also some heavy management stuff going on - watch a presentation by his percussionist Juma Sultan On YouTube), while his playing was electric and he moved and grooved, it wasn't like Monterey where he DID best The Who's live act (though, frankly, Otis Redding stole Monterey).

Don't get me wrong...Jimi is easily in the top 3 at Woodstock (Sly and Ten Years After are also contenders, and Mountain and Santana and Johnny Winter rocked). But I vote for The 'Ooo.

[DoodleBob]

You remember that little thing, called the Korean conflict?

[dfwgator]

Good teacher, he really seems to care, about what I have no idea.

[cartoonistx]

When Woodstock was going on, I was traveling through NE and crossed over the festival’s massive traffic jam on my way to Erie. I had no idea what it meant!
The following year, 1970, the Who headlined a show I attended at Angels stadium in Anaheim. Leon Russell, John Sebastian and Blues Image were among the opening acts.

[Parmy]

I was part of the 500,000 that were there in ‘68 and ‘69. 2/2 1st Inf. Div.