Woodstock
In 1970 a two-hundred and thirty minute documentary was released entitled "Woodstock." This documentary has set the standard for other documentaries to come. This documentary covers a three day festival that was held in August of 1969. The festival symbolized the ideas of the late 1960’s in terms of music, politics, and society in general. The documentary depicted the event as a major love and drug fest.
Woodstock was a historic event that was the idea of four men by the names of Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Roseman, and Artie Kornfeld. Two of the men, Roberts and Roseman, placed an ad in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal stating "Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions" (Spitz, 1979, 13). This ad resulted in the four men getting together and discussing the possibility of a retreat-like recording studio in Woodstock, New York. As we all know now, the idea blew up into a festival that was portrayed in the Academy Award winning documentary "Woodstock."
The concept of a documentary arose when the men made an offer to Warner Brothers to make a movie about the upcoming event. Kornfeld asked Warner Brothers for $100,000 to allow them to do the movie. Warner Brothers took them up on the offer because they felt "it could have either sold millions or, if there were riots, be one of the best documentaries ever made" (How Woodstock happened, 1994).
The Woodstock rock concert was described as "a symptomatic event of our time that showed the tremendous hunger, need, yearning for community on the part of the youth" (Big Woodstock, 1969, 17). If you really want to understand why "Woodstock" happened, you must know more...
... middle of paper ...
...re so prevalent during this era.
Woodstock was a landmark documentary that is of genuine historical and social importance. It truly captured the spirit of America in a very transitional time. The documentary illustrated the counterculture of the 1960’s hippie era. This Academy Award winning documentary is still considered a stunning achievement to this day.
References
“Big Woodstock Rock Trip.” (1969, August). Time, 14b-22.
Hertsgard, M. (1995). A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles. New
York: Dell Publishing Groups Inc.
How Woodstock happened. (1994). Retrieved April 5, 2008, from http://www.geocities.com/~music-festival/how-w2.htm
Spitz, R. (1979). Barefoot in Babylon. New York: The Viking Press.
“Tired Rock Fans Begin Exodus from Music Fair.” (1969, August 20). New York Times.
Woodstock is a talked about legend. On August 16-18, 1969 Woodstock Music Festival took place on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel. John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang who all worked together to organize originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise funds to build a recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near the town of Woodstock, New York. The longtime artists’ colony was already a home base for Bob Dylan and other musicians. Despite their relative inexperience, the young promoters managed to sign a roster of top acts, including the Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Anyone with a big well known name to people no one had ever heard about was there to perform.
The 1960’s was a radical decade filled with political tensions, social strife, and overall cultural intrigue. The beginning of the decade allowed for the transition from President Eisenhower to President Kennedy, the youngest President to take office, and the first Roman Catholic. The move represented a shift from a Republican to Democratic administration in the Oval Office. Kennedy became a symbol for the young vibrancy of the American populous, as he was quickly accepted by the grand majority. After Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon B. Johnson took office, the nation was further engulfed in the war that would come to define America for years to come. The Republican Party regained office as Richard Nixon was elected in his second attempt to run as the decade came to a close. Activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X paved the way for the civil rights movement that swept the nation and captivated the spirit of not only black Americans, but white Americans as well. The race between the United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for domination of space escalated as Kennedy pushed for a man on the moon by the close of the decade, achieved in 1969. The possibility of nuclear war became all too real in 1962 as the launch of nuclear missiles became an abundantly clear possibility. The drug culture emerged in the 1960’s in large part due to the newfound accessibility of illegal drugs, such as marijuana and Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD. American society was entrenched in the chaotic desire for new, improved highs. The profound ascent of the drug culture was truly realized when the 3-day music festival, Woodstock, took place in 1969, as “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll” symbolized America’s...
The Woodstock Music & Art Festival took place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, August 15th, 16th, and 17th, 1969. As you can imagine, a concert like Woodstock would have had to be planned very carefully. It didn’t just happen.
In the summer of 1969, a music festival called, “Woodstock”, took place for three straight days in Upstate, New York, with thirty-two musical acts playing, and 500,000 people from around the world coming to join this musical, peaceful movement. Woodstock started out being a small concert, created to locally promote peace in the world, by the power of music and its lyrics. Now, Woodstock is still being celebrated over 40 years later. The chaotic political climate that the ‘baby boomers’ were growing up in is most likely the reason for this event becoming of such an importance to the world. The violence of the Vietnam War, protests at Kent State and the Democratic Convention, and the assassinations contributed to an ‘out of control’ world. The fact that so many people came to Woodstock and were able to latch onto the ideals of peace, love, and community became a wonderful, joyous symbol to this generation. This three day music festival represented the ideal for baby boomers during a chaotic political time.
Woodstock started out as the brainstorm of a pig farmer name Max Yasgur. He owned a 600 acre farm in Bethel (White Lake) New York, and offered it free of charge to promote a rock/folk concert dedicated to three days of peace and music. He did this after learning that the town of Woodstock, New York turned down the offer because they didn’t want 60,000 hippies and acid heads converging on their town. Why the festival kept the name “Woodstock” is still a mystery to this day. Woodstock does have a better ring to it than the “Bethel Music Festival”.
In conclusion, the 1967 Summer of Love was an event that had a significant impact on individuals participating and the way people looked at societal values and conformity. Each individual’s journey through the revolution was different and to participants was seen as a positive enlightenment. Through the creation of stereotyping a ‘hippie’, incorrectly establishing the motives behind the Haight-Ashbury event and followings behind certain sayings that were present, the portrayal of drug use, and even the portrayal of the event to this day, we can come to the conclusion that the media played a very large role in the portrayal of the Summer of Love, and can be seen as predominately negative portrayal and role that can still have an impact today.
Many large concerts have occurred in the United States, but none have been as symbolic as the three-day music and art fest that touted the slogans of peace and love. This event was identified as such as a result of the peace movement and the emergence of the flower children. Woodstock Music Festival took place near Woodstock New York on August 15, 16, and 17, 1969, and became a symbol of the 1960s American counterculture.
400,000 people, 32 bands, and 3 days of Peace, love and Rock and Roll (Gerdes, Louise). Woodstock was a free 3 day concert held in Max Yasgur's 600 acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York (Statement on the Historical and Cultural Significance of the 1969 Woodstock Festival Site). What was first made to be a recording studio for the community of Woodstock became an iconic American image (Gerdes, Louise 16). Woodstock was a defining moment in American history because it influenced counter culture and changed the lives of the younger generation that we see today.
Along with the peak of several movements music began to reach a point of climax. Rock specifically began to flourish in the 1960’s, while expressing the voice of the liberated generation. It is the power of such trends that overall lead to what is known as the greatest music festival of all time: Woodstock Music and Art Fair. The festival started on August 15, 1969 on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York. Appealing to the time period, Woodstock was designed to be Three Days of Peace and Music. However, many argue that it was more than just a musical art fair of peace, but a historically significant event that shifted American culture. While some regard Woodstock as the beginning of a cultural advancement and the end of a naïve era, others view it as ridiculous hippy festival infested with illegal drug usage. Woodstock cost over $2.4 million and attracted over 450,000 people (Tiber, 1). Despite the debate of whether Woodstock produced a positive or negative effect, it is clear that a note worthy impact was made. When discussing the overall impact of Woodstock it is important to look at the influences and creative plan and the positive and negative effects produced from the festival.
In 1969 at Bethel, New York, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was 3 day event that was all about peace, love, music, and partying. It was a historic event that changed what was known back then as the “hippie movement”. At Woodstock there were many influential artists that performed at this huge event. It was a popular festival that led the later generations to embrace the sentiment and mood of what Woodstock came to represent. People didn’t realize (until later) how historic Woodstock really was. Woodstock was actually supposed to be a simple small event that would have around a only expected to have 5,000 people attend. It surpassed all expectations by having nearly 500,000 people attend. In the end it actually become a
To some, December 6, 1969 may not hold any particular significance. To Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger, however, it’s remembered as the day the sixties suffered a tragic death. Irrational bikers and terrified fans were not a part of Jagger’s vision when him and his bandmates organized a free concert at California’s Altamont Speedway. Despite incessant warnings that a concert of such a large magnitude was not the best idea, the Stones went ahead with it in light of criticism they’d received regarding their ticket prices being too high. They’d performed for overflow audiences without incident in major cities before, but this crowd of 300,000 was different. A total of four births and four deaths were the result of that evening, one of which was a homicide. The stabbing of Meredith Hunter by Hell’s Angel Alan Passaro happened to be captured on film, and is now the climax of the legendary rock n’ roll documentary Gimme Shelter. Larger cultural discourses shape the way non-fiction narratives are told, and the only entity larger than the notion of disaster within the film is the notion of Jagger as a celebrity. In the words of Amanda Howell, “Jagger's ‘double self’ literally takes center stage in Gimme Shelter. On the one hand, Jagger embodies the freedom, expressivity and hedonism of the countercultural movement, while on the other he appears adept in his relation to "straight" society.” In addition to this “double self,” Jagger can also be described as a commodity in the eyes of his adoring fans. What happened at Altamont was, in a sense, an explosion of tensions that had built up over the sixties; an explosion which Gimme Shelter depicts Mick Jagger to have been shielded from as a result of his three façades.
War opposers gathered around at Woodstock in 1969 to experience “3 days of peace and music.” Woodstock captured the American antiwar spirit. Jimi Hendrix played his famous rendition of the star spangled banner on his electric guitar. His interpretation captured the agony of war with the harrowing sound of bombs bursting and jets clashing within the song. Although Woodstock was a music festival, the event consisted of expressions of anti-war. Musicians such as Country Joe, chanted their anti-vietnam protest songs to the audience. The impact of the anti-war movement shaped artists’ music and changed the face of Rock and Roll
"All Nature is but Art: Woodstock Music and Art Fair." Vogue. December 1969:194-201. "Big Woodstock Rock Trip." Time. August 1969:14b-22. Ewen, David. All the Years of Popular Music. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.,1977. Fass, Don. "The Sixties." http://www.sixties.net (19 March 1999). Frike, David. "Minor Epiphanies and Momentary Bummers." Rolling Stone. August 1989:62-91. Grunwald, Henry. "Youth Trip." This Fabulous Century: 1960-1970. 1986 ed. Hertsgard, Mark. A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles. New York: Dell Publishing Groups Inc.,1995. Huges, Rupert. Music Lover’s Encyclopedia. New York: Doubleday Inc.,1984. "Rock Audience Moves to Dusk-to-Dawn Rhythms." New York Times. 18 August 1969:25. "Tired Rock Fans Begin Exodus From Music Fair." New York Times. 20 August 1969:1-3. "What Happened in the Sixties?." http://www.bbhq.com/sixties2.htm (19 March 1999). "Woodstock: Dawn of the Bigtime." Economist. August 1989:75. "Woodstock Music and Art Fair." Newsweek. August 1969:88. "Woodstock: Peace Mecca." Billboard. August 1969:1,10.
Believe it or not The Coachella Music and Arts Festival started out as a protest in 1993. The band Pearl Jam protested against Ticketmaster and all the auditoriums they controlled in Southern California in November of 1993. They chose to host in their concert at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. It wouldn't be until six years later that the festival would be founded by Paul Tollett with help from Goldenvoice, a promoting company and brings thousands of fans out to the Colorado Desert of the very first Coachella Music Festival in 1999. The debut of Coachella was headlined by acts like Beck, The Chemical Brothers, and Rage Against the Machine and was amazing and went quite well for being first run. The first festival as it was could not compare to the ones that followed with even more attractions. In fact the first Coachella Music Festival was held in October and only at the two day event and there was no on site camping due to the madness at Woodstock'99. Many other things happen during and after the first festival including 1999 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival taking $800,000 hit on the inaugural event. That Paul Tollet mentioned in his interview with Billborads Mitchell Peters. They also It was not...