A photo of me at the Woodstock Festival (August, 1969)
Posted on 06/30/2009 10:53:20 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
It was billed as three days of peace and music, but the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was really the culmination of months of planning, begging, borrowing and countless hours of hard work. To mark the 40th anniversary of that historic concert, the man at the heart of it all, Michael Lang — the producer who co-created Woodstock — peels back the curtain and reveals the stories and the passion behind one of rock's most powerful moments.
Lang and Holly George-Warren deliver The Road to Woodstock on June 30, but here they give RollingStone.com a first look at some of its revelations. Lang recounts his first meeting with Max Yasgur, the dairy farmer who invited a nation of music-hungry kids to his upstate New York farm. He recalls how he courted Bob Dylan, and why the legend didn't make it to the Woodstock stage that weekend. He also explains how he avoided losing the Grateful Dead and the Who at the 11th hour, and describes the moment that Sly and the Family Stone elevated the festival to another plane.
Read on for these and more personal stories from the man who took Woodstock from vision to rock history.
...The Who Cement Their Place in Rock History
It was three thirty in the morning and the Who were about to go on, so I said, "Look, Abbie, whoever you saw is gone, so let's just go watch some music and chill out for a few minutes."
He agreed and we headed back up to the stage to sit with musicians from various groups who'd gathered to watch. Abbie kept fidgeting next to me. He couldn't stop talking. "I've really gotta say something about John Sinclair! He's rotting in prison for smoking a joint!" Sinclair, the manager of the radical Detroit rock band the MC5 and the founder of the White Panther Party, was set up by the cops and sentenced to ten years in prison for the possession of two joints.
"Okay, Abbie," I tried to reason with him, "there will be a chance later on, between sets or something."
But he persisted. "No, I really gotta say something! Now!"
"Abbie, the Who is on," I reminded him — they were about halfway through performing Tommy in its entirety, so I don't know how he failed to notice. "You can't make a speech in the middle of their set — let them finish! Chill out!"
Just after "Pinball Wizard," Abbie leaped up before I could grab him and rushed to Townshend's mic, while Pete had his back turned and was adjusting his amp. Abbie started earnestly beseeching the audience to think about John Sinclair, who needed our help. He was in his element, berating everyone for having a good time. "Hey, all you people out there having fun while John Sinclair is being held a political prisoner . . ." WHAM! Townshend, turning back to the audience and seeing Abbie at his mic, whacked him in the head with his guitar.
Abbie stumbled, then jumped to the photographer's pit, dashed over the fence, and vanished into the crowd below. A pretty dramatic exit. That was the last I saw of him that weekend.
HENRY DILTZ: I was right in front of the Who, on the lip of the stage. There was Roger Daltrey, with his fringes flying. Abbie Hoffman ran onto the stage and Pete Townshend took his guitar and held it straight out, perfectly, with the neck toward the guy, just like a bayonet, and went klunk. I thought he killed him. Early in the set, Townshend had already kicked Michael Wadleigh in the chest while the director crouched in front of him with his camera. Now Townshend was over the top with fury. "The next f***ing person who walks across this stage is going to get f***ing killed!" he yelled as he retuned his Gibson SG. The audience at first thought he was joking and started laughing and clapping. "You can laugh," he said coldly, "but I mean it!"
PETE TOWNSHEND: My response was reflexive rather than considered. What Abbie was saying was politically correct in many ways. The people at Woodstock really were a bunch of hypocrites claiming a cosmic revolution simply because they took over a field, broke down some fences, imbibed bad acid, and then tried to run out without paying the bands. All while John Sinclair rotted in jail after a trumped-up drug bust. The Who continued with their exhilarating performance of Tommy, and just as the sun rose, they played raucous rock and roll classics from their days as mods: "Summertime Blues," "Shakin' All Over," and "My Generation." They were astonishing. Later, I couldn't believe the band thought they were subpar and that the audience didn't get into Tommy.
PETE TOWNSHEND: Tommy wasn't getting to anyone. By [the end of the set], I was about awake, we were just listening to the music when all of a sudden, bang! The fucking sun comes up! It was just incredible. I really felt we didn't deserve it, in a way. We put out such bad vibes — and as we finished it was daytime. We walked off, got in the car, and went back to the hotel. It was f***ing fantastic.
BILL GRAHAM: The Who were brilliant. Townshend is like a locomotive when he gets going. He's like a naked black stallion. When he starts, look out.
ROGER DALTREY: We did a two-and-a-half-hour set . . . It made our career. We were a huge cult band, but Woodstock cemented us to the historical map of rock and roll.
--- Rolling Stone article of excerpts from the forthcoming The Road to Woodstock by Michael Lang with Holly George-Warren, Ecco/HarperCollins, © 2009 (used with permission)
Of all, I thought Sly and the Family Stone was by far the best. Damn shame Sly had to waste it all on drugs.
And I didn’t know CCR played Woodstock.
If it wasn’t for Hendrix, the whole thing could have been considered a bunch of opening acts for Sha-Na-Na
Neil ranks. The rest of the hippies can drop dead (great photo)
Used to be, they’d find some band that had regional or small label success and sign them and reissue the back catalog. Now the labels want to own it all, lock stock and barrell (and have the band in debt to the label for production and promotion costs).
The 1990s “indies to mainstream” experiment was a fluke (although in the end, grunge saved MTV by making it relevant). Ultimately the labels got scared, shut the door to new talent, and harvested boy bands and poster pop star divas. And 15 years of that has gotten old.
Now all radio rock is called “alternative”. Alternative to what? Oldies? Synth-disco? Rap?
I read that they got the gig because someone knew them from Glee Club at some school (Columbia?).
Ultimately they served as the band that cleared the fields at the “end” of the show. Woke up the crowd and got them “on the road”.
Jimi Hendrix followed but out of an estimated 400,000 people in attendence, Jimi played to something around 20,000-40,000.
The who are the most tantalizing story I think in Rock. At one point Townsend goes stark raving mad while trying to do In search of the lost chord. Later he’s caught with child porn doing “research” on this and that. He clocks Abbie Hoffman in the head with his guitar.
On the other hand he just exudes normality on another level. I read an article about how he can ride the Tube in London in virtual anonymity. When I was in college he played our town and someone caught them at a local hotel talking like English Country Gentlemen, how they couldn’t wait to get back to England and resume their roles of Country Squires.
Townsend has always been a mix of “really out there” and “super normal” in curious and surprising ways.
Jimi Hendrix followed but out of an estimated 400,000 people in attendence, Jimi played to something around 20,000-40,000.
Please NO MORE WOODSTOCK festivals!!
Not after the grotesque imagery of gen X’ers confusing hedonistic immoral debauchery with the original ‘peace-n-love’ festival
A photo of me at the Woodstock Festival (August, 1969)
The biggest joke of the 1999 festival was that the promoter (I’m going to suspect Michael Lang here) booked James Brown to play. As the OPENER. On the SECONDARY stage.
WTF?
Daylight? No warmup act? Minor audience staging?
I can almost see the Washington Monument in the background.
It looks like that picture was flipped. Carlos is actually right-handed.
Apparently not that day.
I am going blind reading psychdelica but it looks like Led Zeppelin was the only tolerable band. Blood Seat & Tear was fair.
Yeah Monterey was the show. Wasn’t that also the really big one for Hendrix?
The Kinks had been banned from the USA because they did not put up with the sh*t from the stage hand union thugs in the USA. The Who had been a smaller group and the Kinks getting banned really was a big opening for The Who.
The Kinks ended up doing more English albums which were actually among their best work. The ban actually helped their work in my opinion.
Chuck Berry
Booker T & The MGs
Led Zepplin (not sure, but I think there is an alternate poster with Yardbirds or The New Yardbirds)
Dave Brubeck
and these were listed who also played Woodstock
CCR
Janis Joplin
Canned Heat
Johnny Winter
Joe Cocker
Paul Butterfield
Sweetwater
—
But then that is a “pop festival”, which also had acts like Johnny Rivers. A more diverse lineup (not necessarily just “pop 40 acts”).
The Glastonbury Festival is the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world. It takes place on the last weekend of June. More than 170 thousand people attended the festival with more than 300 live performances.
2009 .. all you needed were Wellies!
The Beach Boys were also supposed to play Monterey Pop but Brian Wilson was too busy working on SMiLE to give it much attention, I think that the Who were their replacement.
I’ve been rediscovering TYA (was into them in high school then they faded from my personal rotation). Damn good band, don’t get the credit they deserve.
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