Frankly I’ve found Michael Lang to heavily overstate his role in this fiasco. He parlayed his “fame” into operations on the subsequent Altamont Speedway Rolling Stones fiasco and the riotous 1999 Woodstock.
There was arson and looting at the 1969 “peace and love” fest too.
I may get around to reading this account some day but may have gotten my fill from reading:
“Young Men With Unlimited Capital: The Story of Woodstock” by Joel Rosenman, John Roberts, Robert Pilpel (the men who originated and invested in the Woodstock project)
and
Woodstock: An Inside Look at the Movie That Shook Up the World and Defined a Generation by Dale Bell (about the filmcrew that shot the footage)
Famous radicals (Abbie Hoffman and the Black Panthers) engaged in savage thugary to exort many dollars out of the promoters (they threatened to riot and cause problems if they weren’t given $10,000 and booth space, well look what happened, they were paid off and the fences were trashed anyway, the burger guy had his booth burned down by hippies, and someone who’s name elludes me tried to forcibly steal the film crews’ borrowed equipment)
All in all, the history of this event is overstated (while other music festivals have been cast to the dustbin of history). It changed the way the MUSIC INDUSTRY looked at bands and led us to the current path of $85 tickets and stadium shows. Yeah, wooooo!
Ever wonder why you don’t hear anything good on the radio anymore? It isn’t the talent pool, it’s the suits.
Frank Zappa made the same observation, he basically said before Woodstock, it was the old guys with the cigars who basically said, "let's take a chance on these guys, who knows, maybe it will sell."
But after Woodstock, the record companies decided to try to use younger people to determine who to sign, because they were "hip" and "knew" what the kids wanted, and they were much more conservative than the old guys.