Woodstock Music Festival Essay

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Recommended: The movement of the 1960s

“Look to these fields and you’ll see then thousand little fires burning through the alfalfa. Fires burning in the hearts and minds coming together. The children of the stars come here to drink from the wisdom that grows here, grows from the gathering of souls.” -Terry Maness
What could such a compelling statement be about? Woodstock Music Festival, or otherwise known as the greatest music festival of the counter-culture era; but only four short months later, the music died, all thanks to Altamont Music Festival. Woodstock was a three day music festival (with a short extended fourth day), that brought together the hottest rock stars of the sixties, including: Santana, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jimi Hendrix, and many more. Woodstock took place in Bethel, NY. on August 15th-18th 1969 at Max Yasgur’s Dairy Farm. On December 6th 1969 Altamont Music Festival took place at Altamont Speedway in northern California and is widely remembered as the day the music died. Altamont was the one day concert that ended the sixties and brought Rock n’ Roll to an end, due to some internal issues within the event. Woodstock was seen to be the high point in the counterculture era, Altamont being the lowest point, yet these two events were only four short months apart. Ultimately music festivals stopped happening due to the surprising unexpected bad experiences that occurred on december 6th 1969, at Altamont Music Festival.
Woodstock was a very well organized event that took time to plan and even had a board specifically for organizing. On the other hand, Altamont was very unorganized, and was considered to be a “thrown together” festival. Within the event, many had unpleasant e...

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...Lollapalooza in 1991.
Woodstock Music Festival is known to be the culmination of the counter-culture movement, and Altamont Music Festival is remembered as “the concert that ended the sixties”. When looking inside the two festivals, it becomes relevant as to why Woodstock was successful and why Altamont was a failure. With large music festivals it seems that superb organization, proper locationing, and formal security is fundamental in having a prosperous event; Woodstock being a great example of this, and Altamont being completely antagonistic to the fundamentals of success. Because of Altamont’s lacking, it brought a horrific closure to the sixties, ending Rock n’ Roll music festivals. No more rock n’ roll will play through the valleys, no more ‘family’ gatherings of peace and love will burn in the hearts of the hippies, for the musical festivals are over.

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