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Nadyia Duff
GEO2426
September 28, 2010
Reaction Paper #1

No More Woodstocks

One of the most memorable concerts of all time is the Woodstock 69 music festival.

Rolling Stones magazine has called it "the most famous event in rock history." The Woodstock

Festival was a music festival, and was promoted with the ideals of 3 days of peace. The

Woodstock Music and Art Fair occurred on a 600-acre farm in the township of Bethel, New

York. Bethel, is a town in Sullivan County, and is 43 miles southwest of the town of Woodstock,

New York. Woodstock 69 lasted from August 15 to august 18th and it represented more than a

peaceful gathering of 500,000 people with the same struggles and 32 musical performances. The

main promoter of the Woodstock concert is Michael Lang. Michael yang was a promoter for

many events back in the late sixties so he was always traveling in order to find more venues. So

eventually he ended up moving to Woodstock, NY. There he met Artie Kornfeld, the two men

developed the concept for a major festival event to celebrate the '60s social movements, and

planned to open a recording studio in the town of Woodstock. With Kornfeld and two other

partners Lang set into motion the Woodstock festival. The festival was supposed to be held in

New York but those plans fell through so they had to find another venue. One of Artie

Kornfeld’s cousins had a neighbor who was the nephew of Max Yasgur. Kornfeld asked Lenore

to give Yasgur their number and he spoke with Kornfeld. They negotiated and Woodstock 69

finally had a home. The one thing to remember about Woodstock was it was simply a money-
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motivated event that turned in another venture. During the production of the festival it gained

popularity from hearsay and people began flocking to the farm immediately because they were

fed up with what was going on around them and the 3 days of peace sold them. This was great in

the promoter’s point of view but they ran into one big issue. They could either have a stage or

fences. They chose the stage so that their performers didn’t back out on them so instead of

making money Woodstock became a free concert. There was no need for fences because it was

one of the most peaceful gatherings to this date with only one disaster, which was a vendor

station catching on fire.

The Sixties were an exciting revolutionary period. There was a social change as well as a

cultural change. That era in our history was also referred to as a decade of discontent .It was

called the decade of discontent because of the race riots in Detroit and La, demonstrations

against the Vietnam War, and assassinations. Many people began to speak up about civil rights,

gay and women s liberation with sexual freedom, Vietnam, peace marches, drug

experimentation, and most of all Woodstock. I believe that Woodstock 69 was so successful

because more people were together on the issues almost everyone wanted to be involved in

fighting the power and becoming a better America. The American media was not overly

obsessed with drama and which celebrities are going to jail as well as the news stations were not

hiding what was going on overseas. The musicians of the 60’s were also focused on making

music for the people. Not all the songs were about love and breaking up. The music was about

unity and peace and about the issues America was facing in that time. For example Jimmy

Hendrix wrote songs that focused on issues like Gun Policy, Foreign Policy, Campaign Reform,

Market Reform and even Global Warming. Although it was a cover of a Beatles song, “With a

little help from my friends” performed by Joe Crocker also promoted unity and friendship. The
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juxtaposition of people that are focused on one cause and musicians that are promoting the cause

lead to one of the most peaceful and influential concerts of all time.

However, in the promoters point of view they were looking at millions of dollars lost and

no money gained. They decided to do the Woodstock concert two more times with the same

financial result but different social and cultural results. Woodstock 69 is referred to as the

peaceful concert while Woodstock 99 is remembered for mass media reports of violence, rape,

fires and the abrupt ending of the show. After Woodstock 94 failed they decided to try again but

this time put the event on an air force base. Which I feel is ironic because that is not necessarily

an ideal location to promote peace. On top of that the glaring heat of the summer sun would just

ricochet off the tarmac and cause massive dehydration. This was ideal for the Pepsi Corporation

because they heavily promoted and sponsored Woodstock 99, everything sold was Pepsi or a

product of Pepsi and if you were dying of heat exhaustion you had no choice but to buy the

overpriced products. There were large amounts of violence at the concert and a couple of the

performers were blamed for encouraging violence. Candles were also distributed but instead of

using them properly they were used to set things on fire. All in all it was a dangerous place to be.

Women were being taken advantaged of and fondled, things were being set on fire, there were

large mosh pits, and plenty of bands with negative lyrics. An MTV reported Kurt Lower stated,

“there were just waves of hatred bouncing around the place…it was like a concentration camp”.

Police investigated four alleged instances of rape that occurred during the concert and about

seven arrests were made on the final night of the concert and it’s hard to tell who else got away

with a crime. Approximately 12 vendor trailers, a small bus and a number of booths and portable

toilets were as burnt down purposefully. Woodstock 99 was apparently unsuccessful for three

reasons. One of the reasons is many of the bands were not for promoting peace but for the money
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aspect that went along with the concert, the way media has changed, and the concert goers had

no real reason to be angry about anything. They were all just angry to be angry. Many of the

songs of the early 90’s promoted violence and detailed depression. In Woodstock 69 you would

never hear a singer encourage the concertgoers to “break stuff”. Although in Woodstock 69 there

were instances of women walking around naked freely, and they would be talked to and visually

enjoyed by men and women there were no instances of rape. That is because media of the 90’s

were intent that sex sells. If there was a war going on you weren’t exposed to what was really

going on overseas. News channels would not show videos of the blood, gore, and action

anymore, there would just be videos and pictures of soldiers walking down the streets in pseudo

peaceful areas like everything is all right. Many of the concertgoers were burning down the

vendor’s trailers and creating large bon fires and many of them that were interviewed claimed

that they were angry because of the man, which pretty much means they are angry but they don’t

know what they were really “angry” about. Many of them were angry because they saw other

concertgoers being angry. It was all a monkey see monkey do type of display that led to mass

destruction. How can one truly be angry when they can get everything they want and are exposed

to so much ways to distract them from what’s going on in the world? The concertgoers of the 99

Woodstock were exposed to the early Internet, cell phones, beepers, advanced video games,

music television, censored news and credit cards.

It has been eleven years since the last Woodstock concert and there have been talks and

speculations that a Woodstock 10 is going to be put into effect. The unofficial promoters of the

concert claim that the Woodstock nation hopes to resurrect the spirit of the original festival and

bring people together to celebrate peace, music, and positive change but they want to actually put

the concert in multiple areas like Italy, Toronto, Japan, and even South Africa. The main
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promoter of the Toronto Woodstock claims that the Toronto area is an incredibly important site

for the concert because of its cultural relevance so that would make it a good place for

individuals from around the world to meet and address important issues. While I agree that

people from all around the world should come and enjoy a Woodstock 10, I also strongly believe

in tradition. Woodstock was originally in New York area and in the United States so it should

continue to be in that area. I feel that it is disrespectful to the concert and its legacy to move it

overseas regardless of its financial benefit. I also strongly feel that a Woodstock 10 or

Woodstock 11 should not even happen at all. Things have certainly changed since 1969 and even

worst since 1999 musically, politically, and socially. From 1999 to now music has gone from

having meaning in their lyrics and actual singing to being overly remixed cover songs and

robotic, auto-tuned and synthesized songs about love, sex, and money. There are very few songs

that tackle political issues or issues with war anymore and if they do it’s among the lines of “my

president is black” or something that rhymes with Obama. Performers are no longer singing from

their soul but talking and having their voices generated on a computer. Many rock songs have

become pop songs and many rap songs have become repeated words over and over with a chorus

just like how it started with the early blues songs. In the political changes we have an ongoing

war with republicans and democrats that has just gotten worst overtime. Race and religious

issues are still very prevalent in today’s society and instead of getting better it kind of got a bit

worst with our previous President and the election of our new President. The whole world has

also changed due to the Internet and the media. Social Networks are taking over and taking away

from the physical togetherness people used to enjoy with each other. You can now Facebook or

Twitter someone or video chat with someone so there is no need to actually be in the same place

at the same time. If a Woodstock 10 or 11 were to occur I feel people would just be tweeting and
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“facebooking” about their experience rather than actually enjoying it. When all those factors are

put together I feel it is means for an unsuccessful concert.

The promoters might be able to make money this time but there is going to be an

apparent tension among the groups and a certain discontent with the musical acts. There wont be

any social or political meaning to the concert like how Woodstock 69 had hidden meaning, just

another way to make a couple million dollars with another concert. All in all social networking,

mp3 players, cell phones, video games and biased news channels already keep many people

today happy and unaware of what is really going on around them. The ones that would probably

go to the concert would go just to say they went to Woodstock and rolled around in mud and

almost certainly would not get anything about peace and love out of the whole event.
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References:

1. My Generation
Kopple, Barbara, Haneke, Thomas. My Generation. Joe Crocker, Michael Lang, Limp
Bizkit

2.The Woodstock Project

<http://www.woodstockproject.com/woodstock/>

3.Woodstock Story: Woodstock 2010 Info

<http://www.woodstockstory.com/woodstock2010.html>

4.Woodstock Story
<http://www.woodstockstory.com/>