Woodstock (2019) - full transcript

[crowd murmuring]

It looks like we're going to get
a little bit of rain,

so you better cover up.

Everybody who's in the back,
please move back!

Please move back.

We have to get away
from these towers.

[wind blowing]

Put the mic stands down
on the floor.

Cover all the equipment.

JOEL ROSENMAN:
We were all in our mid-20s.

We had created something
that was much bigger



than we had anticipated.

I see it.

[over speakers]:
All of you up on the towers,

please come down.

You are making it
very, very dangerous.

[wind blowing]

All right, everybody,
just sit down, wrap yourself up.

We're going to have
to ride it out.

JOHN MORRIS: Everything that could
possibly go wrong was happening.

I mean,
it was all hell breaking loose.

MORRIS [over speaker]:
Hold on to your neighbor, man.

And let's think hard
to get rid of it, please.

[shouting]:
No rain!

No rain!



No rain!

[crowd chanting, "No rain!"]

SUSAN REYNOLDS:
When you think about it,

it could have been
an absolute disaster.

[thunder rumbling,
rain pouring]

BARON WOLMAN:
And I just kept thinking,

"Which direction is this thing
going to go?"

MAN [over speaker]:
Try to keep yourself comfortable.

It's gonna blow through.

♪

["Something in the Air"
by Thunderclap Newman playing]

♪ Call out the instigator

♪ Because there's something
in the air ♪

♪ We got to get together
sooner or later ♪

♪ Because the revolution's
here ♪

♪ And you know it's right

REYNOLDS:
We did not plan ahead,

we did not plan
where we were going to stay,

we didn't think about food.

It was just, like,
"Hey, this sounds like fun.

Let's get in the car and go."

♪ We have got
to get it together ♪

♪ We have got
to get it together... ♪

PETER BEREN:
We would pack

as many hitchhikers as we could
in the car,

sitting on top of each other.

And as we got closer,

there would be people
walking on foot like pilgrims.

It looked like a pilgrimage.

LAUREEN STAROBIN:
We were looking for answers.

We were looking for other people

that felt the same way
as we did.

♪...and houses

♪ Because there's something
in the air ♪

JON JABOOLIAN: No matter where you looked,
you saw people.

It was like a field
with people growing in it.

I had never, never seen
that many people in my life

in one place at one time.

♪ And you know it's right

♪

PAUL GEORGE: My feeling was,
this is what we've been talking about,

this is what
we've been aiming for,

this kind of freedom.

STAROBIN:
If 400,000 people could get together

and have absolutely no violence,
absolutely no conflict,

I felt like,
if we could bring all that love

back into society,

we could change the world.

♪ We have got
to get it together ♪

[cheering]

♪ We have got to
get it together now ♪

["I'll Take Manhattan"
by Bobby Hackett playing]

[horns honking]

JOHN ROBERTS:
I grew up in New York City,

and I came
from a wealthy family.

My mother died when I was young,

so when I was 21,

I inherited about a quarter
of a million dollars.

That was quite a bit of money
in those days.

I had a job down on Wall Street
doing research.

ROSENMAN:
When I met John,

I had just gotten out
of law school

and was playing with a band
down in the Village

and at the clubs
on Second and Third Avenue,

but I was starting to get
a little frayed at the edges.

Neither one of us, I think,
was really on a career path

that we knew was the right one.

ROBERTS:
Joel and I met playing golf.

We hit it off.

And, uh, we thought
we'd go into business together,

investing this money that I had.

ANNOUNCER:
The denture cleanser you've hoped for

is here at last.

Start using new effervescent
Polident tablets today.

JOEL MAKOWER: John's grandfather
founded the Block Drug Company,

the maker of Poligrip
and Polident.

That fortune was the source
of the seed money

for a recording studio
in Midtown Manhattan,

Media Sound,
which for John and Joel,

actually turned into
their first successful venture.

It was because of Media Sound
that John and Joel

met Michael Lang
and Artie Kornfeld.

MAN:
How much do those matches sell for?

65 cents for the roll.

MAKOWER: Michael had had a head
shop in Miami, in Coconut Grove,

the center of the hippie culture
down there.

Right there,
is that a pipe?

Yeah, it's a Turkish water pipe.

With two hoses.

MAKOWER: In 1968,
he moved to Woodstock, New York,

about 100 miles north
of New York City,

and was introduced
to Artie Kornfeld,

who was a vice president
at Capitol Records.

ROBERTS:
They called us in early 1969,

and said, "We're very interested
in building a recording studio

"in Woodstock, New York.

"We know that you and Joel
were involved in building one

"in New York City.

Would you meet with us?"

We said, "Sure!"

ROSENMAN:
When we met them,

they were quite different
from us,

meaning a lot of fringe,
a lot of buckskin,

and a great deal of hair.

John and I were making an effort

to look like businessmen
at the time.

[laughing]: So we,
we couldn't have represented

more distant ends
of the spectrum.

ROBERTS:
What Artie said was, basically,

Woodstock was a center
for artists,

and that a recording studio
there

would have
a natural constituency,

and it would be a success.

ROSENMAN:
As we were looking through the proposal

that they'd given us,

we noticed an idea
for an opening day party,

where musicians who lived
in the area...

Tim Hardin, John Sebastian,
Bob Dylan...

would perform.

I said, "The idea of having
a concert with those stars,

"I mean, why don't we skip
the studio idea

"and just do a big concert?

We could make a fortune."

So, in late January 1969,
the four of us shook hands,

and started brainstorming
what Woodstock could be.

REPORTER:
To the hippie youth of today,

this is part
of their real world.

This is the atmosphere
at the Monterey Pop Festival.

The music is frantic,
the sounds are wild,

and the mind is free.

BOB HITE:
♪ I rolled and I tumbled

♪ I cried the whole night long

BOB SPITZ: Outdoor rock festivals were
a pretty new concept at the time.

They had begun in 1967
with Monterey Pop.

And by 1968, '69,

there had been a few festivals
scattered around the country.

Michael Lang was the only one
of the four

that had any experience
in the concert business.

In 1968, he had helped produce
a festival in Miami

that was a huge disaster.

It was held at a racetrack,
had very little atmosphere,

it rained, there were a lot
of lawsuits afterwards;

the festival never really
came off.

But Michael knew that
this is what he wanted to do.

And he had this idea
of taking the festival

out of the racetrack,

and putting it
in a bucolic place.

LANG:
I had been thinking about doing

a series of concerts
in Woodstock.

And I always thought
if you could dream it up,

you could put it together.

And this was a chance to make,
you know, a dream come true.

ROSENMAN: Michael and Artie had
optioned a property in Woodstock,

but it was far too small...
it was just ten acres.

So that didn't work out.

A property in Saugerties
didn't work out.

And then John and I
found a piece of property

that was in Wallkill
that was being turned

into an industrial park.

It didn't knock you out
visually,

but it was available.

MAKOWER:
Michael hated it.

It was everything
he didn't want...

just a flat, barren
piece of land

that had no trees, no soul.

LANG:
You know how some pastoral scenes

are beautiful and calming

and make you feel comfortable,
at peace?

This was completely
the opposite.

But we needed to get going,
we needed a site,

and I felt that we could
transform it into something

more spiritual and special.

["Embryonic Journey"
by Jefferson Airplane playing]

SPITZ:
The town signed off on the festival

as a, kind of
a music and arts fair

where kids would walk around
and look at art

and hear some music
in the background.

And "An Aquarian Exposition,"

which is what they called
Woodstock,

had some kind of
mystical feel to it.

ROSENMAN: Michael suggested that,
like Monterey,

we should have a crafts village
and an art exhibition

alongside the music.

We all loved it!

It was such a natural add-on
to what we were thinking about.

We wanted to make it
like visiting another world,

like visiting the world
you were dreaming about

if you were a young person.

This shining place
that you could go to

and feel
that you weren't a misfit,

or that you weren't
on the wrong side of a debate,

or that you weren't

under the suspicious eye
of the authorities.

MAKOWER:
For the generation that was coming of age

in the late '60s,

everything was up for grabs.

Young people were rejecting
the status quo,

whether it was your parents
or whether it was your community

or... or the business
establishment.

This counterculture,
as it was called,

influenced music,
it influenced art,

and it certainly influenced
the way people dressed.

But clearly, politics was at the
center of the counterculture,

because the one thing
that affected everybody

was the war in Vietnam.

Last week's casualty figures
in the Vietnam War,

released today, showed
299 Americans killed, 355...

GEORGE: I remember watching the news in,
you know, 1968

and asking my father, "Why are
we fighting in Vietnam?"

And his answer was always,
"Because they're communists."

I didn't find that satisfactory.

[artillery fires]

My father had been
in World War II in Europe,

in the Signal Corps.

He always made clear
that he thought the Army

was a great experience,

and everybody should do it.

He just had a very positive view

of serving one's country
that way.

And he did support the war
in Vietnam.

["The Pusher" by Steppenwolf
playing]

[gun firing,
people talking on radio]

REYNOLDS: The men of World War
II just assumed that their sons

would also be soldiers.

That's how you became a man.

You grew up,
you served your country.

So my older brother Jim

signed up
for the Naval Reserves.

I remember the day
that he went to Vietnam,

and being terrified.

MICHAEL LINDSEY: When I was 18,
I had to register for the draft.

I was in college,
so I got a deferment.

But there was always that thing
in the back of your mind.

You knew that they were
just one step behind you.

If you were in college,

you'd better hope that you had
all your money straightened out

and grades were good
and everything else,

because if you dropped out,
you were going to Vietnam.

["The Pusher" continues]

BEREN: When I was 20 years old,
I was faced with a draft physical.

I'm putting down
that I'm a bedwetter,

that I'm a homosexual,
that I'm a communist.

I think there were 14 things
in all that I had written down.

So they escorted me over
to the psychiatrist.

He just said, "Kid,
I'm gonna give you one year

to straighten yourself out,"

and he gave me a deferment
for 12 months.

["The Pusher" continues]

RICK DILLS: There's no way to
describe how terrifying it was

to be a 17-year-old,

knowing that the Vietnam War
was your fate.

I wasn't alone in any way

in transitioning from being
personally afraid of the war

to being politically opposed
to it.

CROWD [chanting]:
You kill people!

You kill people!
You kill people!

[chanting continues]

[shouting, clapping]

BEREN: I participated in a
couple of marches on Washington,

anti-war rallies.

The war was insane.

You know, an insane conflict
that, um...

made everybody crazy,

whether you were fighting
the war

or fighting against it.

CROWD [chanting]:
Hell, no, we won't go!

["Volunteers" by
Jefferson Airplane playing]

♪ Look what's happening
out in the streets ♪

♪ Got a revolution ♪ Got to revolution

♪ Hey, I'm dancing
down the street ♪

♪ Got a revolution ♪ Got to revolution

♪ Oh, ain't it amazing,
all the people that I meet? ♪

♪ Got a revolution

[shouting]

REPORTER:
This is a CBS News Special Report...

BEREN: And then,
on top of everything else,

Martin Luther King
was assassinated.

The Reverend
Martin Luther King, Jr.,

was shot to death
by an assassin late today

as he stood on a balcony
in Memphis, Tennessee.

LINDSEY:
When Martin Luther King was killed,

I knew a lot of people
who just felt,

we have to do things
differently,

because the way the
establishment have done things

has led to this.

♪

GEORGE:
By the time I got to be 16,

I was really questioning
the way society is structured.

I objected to racism.

I objected to inequality,
consumerism, and poverty.

I objected to the war
in Vietnam.

ROBERT KENNEDY:
One thing is clear in this year of 1968,

and that is
that the American people

want no more Vietnams.

[audience applauds]

LINDSEY: Of course,
we had hope for Bobby Kennedy.

He seemed to be one of us
in a lot of ways.

We really felt that
he was finally going to be able

to change things.

REYNOLDS: I mean,
he was out there espousing peace,

and, you know, fighting
against poverty and racism,

and all the things
that we believed in

and wanted so deeply.

He was our voice.

BEREN: In June of 1968,
I was leaving a bar in my hometown.

I turned on the radio.

REPORTER:
The senator is lying with his eyes closed,

absolutely unmoving,

blood underneath his head.

BEREN: I heard the assassination
of Robert F. Kennedy

as it unfolded in real time.

And it just completely undid me.

FRANK MANKIEWICZ:
Senator Robert Francis Kennedy

died at 1:44 a.m. today,

June 6, 1968.

STAROBIN:
The shock of it was...

It was just devastating,
absolutely devastating.

Martin Luther King
and then Bobby Kennedy.

You know, all these peacemakers.

JABOOLIAN: It was, like,
oh, this is what we do.

This is what we do.

You know, as soon as somebody
tries to speak out,

and they're too forceful,

this big machine,
whatever the hell it is,

is gonna shut them up.

The only thing
that we took solace in

was music,

and there was a lot
of politically conscious music

that we were listening to.

You know,
like Buffalo Springfield.

♪ There's something
happening here ♪

♪ What it is
ain't exactly clear ♪

♪ There's a man with a gun
over there ♪

♪ Telling me I got to beware

♪ I think it's time we stop

♪ Children, what's that sound

♪ Everybody look
what's going down ♪

STAROBIN: When I was so disillusioned
with everybody's else's thinking,

I could escape into my music.

It was such a comfort to me.

You know, I hadn't met
a lot of people at that time

that felt like I did.

But when I listened to music,
those people were there.

♪ Young people
speaking their minds ♪

♪ Getting so much resistance
from behind ♪

REYNOLDS:
We couldn't wait for Saturdays,

when we could go buy
the latest record

and then come home
and literally lay on the floor

and play it over and over
and over.

My father hated the music.

[laughing]: He was always clapping
his hands over his ears and just...

Would say, "Damn hippies!"

♪ Come gather 'round, people,
wherever you roam ♪

♪ And admit that the waters
around you have grown ♪

♪ And accept it that soon...

LINDSEY:
Dylan's song "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

basically said
to our parents' generation,

"Get out of the new way
if you can't lend a hand."

♪ You better start swimming
or you'll sink like a stone

♪ For the times
they are a-changin' ♪

LINDSEY:
Music had our ideas.

For my generation,
that was the thing.

Especially our political views.

♪ It ain't me, it ain't me

♪ I ain't no military son

♪ It ain't me, it ain't me

♪ I ain't no fortunate one

[song ending]

DONALD GOLDMACHER:
Music was terribly important to us.

I came to the San Francisco
Bay Area in June '67,

and there was music everywhere.

There were free concerts
going on in Golden Gate Park,

with all of these bands.

I got to see Janis Joplin,
the Jefferson Airplane,

and the Dead, free.

It really was amazing.

[playing in background]

BEREN:
Music and lyrics became our tribal drum.

So we had a, kind of
a secret communication going

in the river of music
that flowed through us.

["Dear Mr. Fantasy" playing]

You know, it was a...
wild liberation.

It was Dionysian.

And drugs played a big part
in that.

STEVE WINWOOD:
♪ Something to make us all happy ♪

GEORGE: We smoked a lot of pot
and did a fair amount of acid.

You know, the society
that we're rebelling against,

they don't want us smoking pot.

[laughing]:
Must be a good reason to smoke pot.

KATHERINE DAYE:
The more that we as a generation

saw that what had been
rammed down our throats

was false...
it was false, it was a lie...

the more it freed us up
to experiment.

["Dear Mr. Fantasy" continues]

I mean, we had free love.

[song continues]

The pill allowed us
to just go to a party

and be with somebody.

We just reveled in having
that much freedom

and that much ability
to piss off your old man.

RONALD REAGAN:
Movies were shown on two screens

at the opposite ends
of the gymnasium.

They consisted
of color sequences

that gave the appearance
of different-colored liquids

spreading across the screen.

Sexual misconduct was blatant.

The smell of marijuana
was prevalent

all over the entire building.

["Dear Mr. Fantasy" continues]

LINDSEY: By 1969, it really did
feel like we were finally winning

some kind of cultural war
against the establishment.

You know, this is how we lived,

and if you didn't like it,
too bad.

We were seeing that America

wasn't what we were taught
it was,

and when you stop looking at it
that way

and you start trying
to figure it out for yourself,

then, uh...
it changes your life forever.

["Grazing in the Grass"
by Willie Mitchell playing]

MAKOWER:
Once they got the permits they needed

from the town of Wallkill,

the first thing that John and
Joel and Michael and Artie did

was to assemble a core team
to help produce the festival.

There was Stan Goldstein

who had worked with Michael
on Miami Pop.

There was John Morris, who
had experience booking acts;

Chip Monck, whose role
was stage design and lighting;

Bill Hanley, one of the pioneers
of event production sound.

These were guys who knew
how to put together an event.

Stan called his friend
Mel Lawrence

to be the director
of operations.

LAWRENCE:
My mission was to, um, plan

for all of the functions
of the festival

aside from the actual show.

Everything from fences to food
to transportation

to fire access,
lines of communication,

security, water, sewerage...
you know this, that.

I made a checklist
that blew everybody's minds.

GOLDSTEIN:
One specific thing was toilets.

We knew we'd have to have
a lot of them.

No one knew how many.

So, I began going to events
with a stopwatch and clipboard.

Madison Square Garden,

baseball stadiums...

any place that there were
a lot of people.

And I timed them,
going in and coming out,

and going in and coming out.

And I took all the information
I gathered,

multiplied by the size of the
crowd we thought we might have,

and came up with outrageous
numbers of johns.

Tens of thousands, just...

Impossible numbers.

So we lined up
as many as we could get.

["Grazing in the Grass"
continues]

MORRIS:
I was in charge of the booking,

and Creedence was the first band
that we booked.

And then we got
Jefferson Airplane,

Joe Cocker, and Ten Years After.

We didn't get the Stones
or Dylan or the Doors,

but we booked a lot of the acts
we wanted to,

including the Who
and Jimi Hendrix.

♪

DAVID CROSBY:
We had just started planning our first tour

as Crosby, Stills, Nash,
and Young,

when we heard that Hendrix
was going to play it,

and the Who, and Sly,
and Airplane, the Band,

the Grateful Dead...

you know, everybody
that we thought was cool.

♪

SPITZ: They needed to get the
word out about the festival.

They had a channel to do that,

through the alternative press.

There was the Berkeley Barb
and the Rat

and the Village Voice,

and word about the festival
poured out,

not just to New York,
where they thought

they would draw
the most people from,

but all across
the United States.

Woodstock
was on everybody's lips.

♪

DAYE: Tom and I subscribed
to Rolling Stonemagazine,

and long about, oh, early May,

I started seeing these ads
for a three-day festival

with all these bands
that we loved.

And I said, "Tom!
You wanna go to this?"

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
For tickets and information,

write to
Woodstock Music and Art Fair...

GOLDMACHER:
We heard it on the radio.

They were describing
this happening-to-be

and that people were coming

from all corners
of the United States,

and apparently abroad, as well.

SUSIE KAUFMAN:
I was hanging out at the fountain

in, in Washington Square,
with my guys,

who were all musicians,

and then all of the sudden,

tickets were being made
available.

You could buy one day, two days,
or three.

And jeez, three days!

Wow! That means staying there
over...

Wow, what an adventure
that would be!

We gotta do this!

♪

SPITZ:
It was early June,

so they started to build
at the Wallkill site.

They brought in electricity,

they started to lay
the groundwork for a stage,

and they hired a couple
of hundred kids to help out.

And these kids, they didn't look
like anybody else in this town.

ROSENMAN:
They were a little suspicious about us,

but we just forged ahead.

All that did was, I guess,
sound the rallying cry

for what called itself

the Concerned Citizens Committee
of Wallkill.

ROBERTS:
They didn't like the looks of the people

who were working on the site.

They didn't like long hair,
rock music,

and all
that that implied to them.

We really tried to practice
good community relations,

but the Concerned Citizens
had the wind up.

SPITZ:
Wallkill was a pretty conservative place.

The way they saw it,
these were kids who smoked dope,

who had casual sex...

They didn't want these hippies
in their town.

ROSENMAN: John and I were
having dinner in New York City

when the town of Wallkill
passed an ordinance

saying you can't have
a gathering

of more than 5,000 people.

Essentially, it just legislated

the possibility of a festival
on this property

out of existence.

But we had already sold
so many tickets,

and hired so many bands,

we couldn't turn back
at that point.

ROBERTS:
It was like being on a rollercoaster

that had just crested the rise,

you know, before that first
enormous plunge.

I contemplated the abyss of
a total wipeout and thought,

"Let's not declare bankruptcy...
let's throw this festival."

♪ I'm going up the country,
baby, don't you wanna go? ♪

♪ I'm going up the country,
baby, don't you wanna go? ♪

♪ I'm going to some place...

MAKOWER: It was the first week of July,
about five weeks out,

so there was a mad scramble
to find a new site.

They drove around
Upstate New York

talking to local people,
real estate brokers...

anyone who would listen.

LAWRENCE:
Michael and I,

we must have looked for a week
or maybe ten days,

renting helicopters
and going here and going there.

And then we meet Max Yasgur.

SPITZ:
Max was a farmer.

And he was very successful.

His dairy supplied
almost everybody in that area

with milk.

Everybody knew Max Yasgur.

JOHN CONWAY: Yasgur was a, you know,
he was a law-and-order Republican,

but, you know, he also believed

in personal freedom
and freedom of expression,

and that's what
he hung his hat on.

LANG: We went to see Max,
and we just hit it off.

I think he liked the fact
that we were doing something

in the face
of a lot of adversity

and that we believed in.

LAWRENCE: Max takes us to the top
of this hill, and there it is!

A natural amphitheater.

Michael and I looked
at each other: "This is it!"

SPITZ:
This was exactly what they were looking for,

and they made a deal with Max
right there on the spot.

♪

ROBERTS: Joel and I went up
to get some kind of a handle

on the town politics.

[chuckles]: We sure didn't want to
get into the same problem there

as we had in Wallkill.

ROSENMAN: We were asked to fill
out our attendance expectations

on the permit application.

We used Monterey Pop's record,

28,000 people a day,
or something like that,

as the baseline.

We multiplied it times two,

and said, you know,
"In our wildest dreams,

this is what we're hoping for."

And within a couple of days,
we got our permits.

MIRIAM YASGUR:
A sign was erected near our house,

and it said something like,

"Don't buy Yasgur's milk,
he loves the hippies."

And I thought to myself,
"You don't know Max,

because we're going to have
a festival."

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair,

the three-day
Aquarian Exposition,

will be held at White Lake,

in the town of Bethel,
Sullivan County, New York.

And on Friday, August 15,
you'll hear and see:

Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie,

Tim Hardin, Richie Havens,
the Incredible String Band...

["Wasn't Born to Follow"
by the Byrds playing]

ROBERTS:
Everyone felt excited

about the possibilities
of the new site,

but there was a lot to be done.

ROSENMAN:
We had to start all over again

to construct what we had built
in several months in Wallkill

in less than four weeks.

ROBERTS:
The half a million at the old site

was all down the drain, right?

And we have to put
another $800,000 into this one.

Building a stage, getting the
lights and the sound system up,

fences.

Food concessions.

Portable toilets...
I mean, it was extraordinary.

And Joel and I had never done
any of this before.

ROSENMAN:
But because of ticket sales,

we actually felt that we were
gonna turn a profit.

SPITZ: They knew by this time
that there were going to be

more than just 50,000 people.

Ticket sales looked like it was
going to be closer to 100,000.

And with 100,000
stoned-out kids,

they knew that there could be
some difficulties.

REPORTER: There's been some trouble
at a few of the pop festivals.

What do you think
brings that about?

Why will it happen at one place
and not another?

PAUL BUTTERFIELD: You know,
I, I really don't know.

Like, in Miami,
they broke down the fence,

and they had a lot of fights.

REPORTER:
Do you think it has anything

to do with the size
of the audience?

I think it has to do a little
bit to do with the size.

It has more to do with the way
the festival is organized.

WES POMEROY:
To see what was really happening,

we sent people to almost
all the major rock festivals

that summer.

They went to Atlanta,

they went to Denver,

and they went to Newport.

And every one,
there were problems.

They had teargas used in Denver,

they had violence
in Los Angeles County.

So, back in New York,
they kept insisting

that they needed to have
security people for safety.

I told John
that all the cops in the world

weren't going
to prevent violence.

It had to depend upon building
the kind of expectation

and the feeling of this event
we're gonna have

so that people didn't want
to hurt each other.

GOLDSTEIN: We also knew that there
would be a lot of drugs around

and there would be
a lot of people

who couldn't handle
whatever it was

that they were going to take,

and that that had
to be dealt with, as well.

[gong rings]

Hi, there.

Uh, my name is Hugh Romney

and I'm going through
a series of changes

in this fur room
at the Electric Circus store.

What is essentially
on the front of my brain

is this Hog Farm poster,

which we're gonna be moving
all around the country...

"we" being a commune.

ROSENMAN: Stanley Goldstein
suggested that we look to this...

[laughing]:
This commune called the Hog Farm,

and that we should bring

as many of these folks
to the festival as we can,

and have them handle
our security.

So he went and met
with a fellow named Hugh Romney,

also known as Wavy Gravy.

WAVY GRAVY:
We'd been driving around the country,

putting on these shows.

We had a certain skill

with working with large crowds.

We were a happening.

[guitar playing, bell clanging]

So Stan Goldstein showed up
and says, "How would you guys

like to do this music festival
in New York State?"

And we said, "Well,

"it sounds like a good time,

but we're gonna be
in New Mexico."

And he says,
"That's all right,

we'll fly you in
in an Astrojet."

And indeed, 85 of us boarded
this American Airlines Astrojet

going to Woodstock.

TOM LAW:
We all arrived at the Albuquerque airport

and loaded up a couple of sets
of teepee poles

and flew off to New York.

WAVY GRAVY [laughing]: The stewardesses
locked themself in a little room,

and we just took over the plane.

["Apricot Brandy"
by Rhinoceros playing]

We got to New York City,
piled off the aircraft,

and there was the press.

What is the Hog Farm going to be
doing in Woodstock?

Well, the Hog Farm
is a many-sided, multi...

We're a kind of a family,

a huge expanded family.

And we could do any number
of things,

because each one of us
is gonna do a different thing.

But mostly we're just gonna
try and be groovy,

and spread that grooviness
through everybody.

Well, the Hog Farm has been
hassled by security people,

and they're calling you
security people,

so how do you feel
about the, you know, the name?

Well, I feel secure.

I don't know what
"security people" means.

I never was called
a security person before.

It's, like, you're
the first person

that's ever called me that...
how do you feel?

[laughs]

Well, I feel..

Do you feel secure?

[all laughing]

ROBERTS:
There was a picture

in the Postthe next day.

My father called and said,
"Nice cops you've hired."

He thought that I was
really out of my mind,

to be involved in this thing.

♪

[kids shouting]

MARION VASSMER: We're a small town,
we'll never have all those people here.

They'll never...
they'll never be here, you know.

I didn't believe it.

♪

ARTHUR VASSMER:
That's all you heard on the radio.

"Woodstock, town of Bethel,
Woodstock," you know?

And ha-ha,
we're all laughing, you know?

And a guy come to me,
he says, "Look out,

this might be something bigger
than you thought."

I've been here all my life,
you know?

They're talking about
hundreds of thousands of people,

and so on and so forth.

We never saw that in this town.

♪

DEBRA CONWAY:
There was a certain backlash,

but mostly, you know, it was
kind of a daily little buzz

from the locals.

LOUIS RATNER:
We started to hear rumors

that this thing was more or less
out of hand

because no one knew

the amount of tickets
that were sold.

One time they said 25,000,
and then it was, it was 150,000,

and then they don't know,

and it got to a point where, uh,

you started to get
a little worried about it.

♪

MORRIS:
It was early August

and we were about a week out

from the beginning
of the festival,

when, all of a sudden,
people started showing up.

[people talking in background]

♪

MIRIAM YASGUR:
About a week before,

they started showing up
in small groups

and camping and so on,

and the thing that Max and I
were trying to figure out is,

they hadn't gotten the fence
around the field.

And we thought, "Boy,
they'd better rush and do that

if they want to sell tickets
to this thing."

♪

ROSENMAN:
In the last week,

if you saw what was going on,
you were immediately aware

that it couldn't possibly
be finished in time.

On Monday,

everything was
in a state of preparation

roughly on target for a festival

to be thrown
some time in November,

and not for one that was
supposed to begin in four days.

Let's clear the road, please!

BEREN: We showed up three days
before the festival opened,

because that's what we were
supposed to do as food handlers.

It was thrown together
at the last minute,

so we had to build our own food
stands before we manned them.

ROBERTS:
We have spoken

to a lot of different
food concession people,

and all of them,
the legitimate guys,

went by the wayside
when we lost Wallkill.

What was left was an outfit
called Food for Love.

There were three of them...
three guys.

I think one of them

had some kind of food catering
experience.

I don't think the other two did.

But we didn't have
any alternative.

ROSENMAN:
I think it was Tuesday,

the construction foreman
tells us,

"We just don't have enough time
to finish everything.

"So which would you like
to have us finish,

"the gates and the fences,
or the stage?

We don't have enough men
and material to do both."

I remember thinking, "If we
don't have gates and fences,

"then we're not gonna
collect tickets.

"We'll be bankrupt.

"And if we don't have a stage,
we'll be in jail.

[laughing]: "Because there will
be 100,000 kids running around

"with nothing to do.

For three days."

So that was the answer.

The answer was,
"Build the stage."

[welding torch buzzing]

TICIA AGRI:
I'd go there in the middle of the night

and people were building
the stage.

It was going 24 hours.

MONCK:
There was obviously so much to do,

and so little time
in which to do it,

we had all come to realize
that all of our individual jobs

were going to be left
somewhat undone.

So we all kind of banded
together

into one sort of SWAT team
trying to run around and finish.

["You Ain't Goin' Nowhere"
by the Byrds playing]

GEORGE: I quit my job at the restaurant
in Ocean City with no notice.

[laughs]

I just told them
that I wouldn't be in anymore.

And they said, "Why?"

And I said,
"Well, I'm going to Woodstock."

[song continues]

DAYE:
We didn't get on the road till around noon,

and by the time
we got to within,

I don't know, miles of Bethel,

the traffic was just,
you know, crawling.

The folks on the road,
the people who lived there,

one would think that they
would throw things at us.

No!

They just welcomed us.

♪ The morning came,
the morning went ♪

KAUFMAN:
Never before in my life

did I feel so much anticipation.

[laughing]:
This is going to be so cool!

♪ My bride's gonna come

♪ Oh, ho, are we gonna fly

♪ Down in the easy chair?

STAROBIN:
We were at a dead standstill for hours.

People just got out
and sat on their cars

and started talking
to each other,

getting to know each other.

You know,
starting long conversations

about politics and about music.

Before long, we felt like we had
hundreds of best friends.

♪ Strap yourself to a tree...

ARTHUR VASSMER:
We were sitting on the back porch

and my God, the traffic,
all of a sudden, it started.

And I'm telling you,
it never let up.

We just opened the one door.

But you couldn't let them in.

It was impossible.

And we let 40 or 50 people
at a time,

they'd get their groceries
or whatever they needed,

let them out the back,

and then open up the door,
let another 50 in.

And these people, some of them
walked four and five, six miles.

"Where's the Woodstock?
Where's the Woodstock?"

♪ We'll climb that hill

REPORTER:
This sight is hard to believe.

We're over White Lake,

in the midst of this
music festival encampment.

We're up over the trees now,
we're coming in over...

JOE TINKELMAN: We were on the state highway,
and cars were stopping.

And we realized that this was
parking for the concert,

so we got out of the car
and started walking,

and we saw people
setting up lawn chairs

to watch this spectacle.

[laughing]: It looked like this
whole part of New York state

was just being turned
upside down

by this event.

REPORTER:
The traffic is terrible.

It is backed up from White Lake

right back through
on the Quickway past Monticello,

and there's no place to park...
everything is full.

REYNOLDS:
They were announcing on the radio

that you couldn't get there,
and, you know, "Don't go."

[laughing]: They were saying,
"Don't go, don't go!

"You can't get in,
it's already overcrowded,

and they're shutting it down,
and turn around and go home."

[laughing]:
Nobody was turning around.

It sort of increased
our desire, more than anything.

Like, one way or another,
we'll get there.

["Get Together"
by the Youngbloods playing]

[people talking in background]

♪ Love is but a song to sing

♪ Fear's the way we die

LINDSEY:
As you walked in, it hit you.

Suddenly, it just all
came into view at once.

♪ You can make
the mountains ring ♪

LINDSEY:
This whole enormous bowl full of people.

It was mind-boggling.

ROSENMAN: Coming over the hill and
feeling the energy of that crowd

is something
that I'll never forget.

There was so much power in it.

♪ Come on, people now

♪ Smile on your brother

♪ Everybody get together

♪ Try to love one another
right now ♪

STAROBIN:
It was indescribable,

the feeling that came over me
of warmth,

and, "Oh, my God, there are
this many people in the world

that think like I think."

[laughing]:
"There are all these people here!"

I never knew there were
that many people in the world.

["Get Together" continues]

REYNOLDS: Once we got there,
the fences were just trampled.

We walked up that hill,
and we saw, you know,

all these people.

Our age, looked like us.

Dressed like us.

People... us.

I mean, it was just...
it was...

It was like, you know, meeting
your brothers and sisters.

It was really beautiful.

♪ Come on people now

♪ Smile on your brother

♪ Everybody get together

♪ Try to love one another
right now ♪

♪ Right now

♪ Right now

[song ends]

MORRIS [on speaker]: We'll be getting
our show on in about five minutes.

Just keep cool and relax.

We'll be with you
as soon as we can.

Thank you.

Do you realize
that half of these people

don't have tickets,

and there are people
five miles away

sitting on a highway
with tickets

who have driven 2,000
or 3,000 miles?

Whatever has to be done
to make it right,

this is wrong. MAN:
Yeah.

ROBERTS:
It was obvious we were in deep shit.

After having worked
that afternoon,

trying to organize people
to put the fences up,

and actually pounding in posts
myself,

I realized it wasn't going
to happen.

We weren't going to be able
to ring

about a mile of perimeter.

MORRIS: What are you going to tell
a few hundred thousand people

who are sitting in your field

when you're supposed to be
collecting money from them?

"Go back out and come back in
when we get the tickets

and we finish the fences
and the rest of it"?

You are now giving the world's
greatest three-day freebie.

That's what it is.

No, there's a way to do it. There is no way.

MORRIS:
Artie came up with,

"Can't we get a whole bunch
of girls,

"and put them
in diaphanous gowns

"and give them
collection baskets,

and send them out
into the audience?"

It was the most ludicrous thing
I had ever heard in my life.

ROBERTS: As a business venture,
it was dead.

And I don't know why, but sort
of a curious calm overcame us,

and it seemed like the gates

just weren't really
what was important here anymore.

MORRIS [on speaker]:
It's a free concert from now on.

[crowd cheering]

That doesn't mean
that anything goes.

What that means is, we're gonna
put the music up here for free.

What it means is that the people
who are backing this thing,

who put up the money for it,

are gonna take a bit of a bath.

A big bath.

That's no hype.

That's truth...
they're gonna get hurt.

But what it means
is that these people

have it in their heads

that your welfare is
a hell of a lot more important...

and the music is...
than a dollar.

[crowd cheering and applauding]

BEREN:
The roar that went up from that crowd

was incredible.

Despite its roots

in trying to be
a capitalist enterprise,

the concert was liberated.

[coins clinking,
people talking in background]

You don't even have to bother

bringing your tickets
or anything,

because they aren't going
to collect them.

There's no way they can.

They got a fence
that's, like, half up,

and there are people
just sitting in that field.

It's really beautiful.

MAN [on speaker]:
We're still waiting

for the arrival of group one.

Now, please bear with us.

Due to the traffic problems,

we're going to have to start
a little later.

MORRIS:
The bands were all in different hotels,

and if you tried to drive
down to the site,

it would take you six hours
to do it.

It became obvious
that we needed helicopters.

But then
Richie Havens showed up,

and it was, like,
"Richie, please go on now."

And he said, "I'm not scheduled
to go on till later."

I said, "Richie,
we don't have anybody else."

HAVENS:
I actually was afraid to go on first,

basically because I knew
the concert was late

and I didn't want to get
beer cans thrown at me.

You know, "Don't do this to me.

"Don't put me in front of your
problem like this," you know?

"My bass player
isn't even here."

But I went on, you know,
and it was beautiful.

♪ Hey, look yonder,
tell me what's that you see ♪

♪ Marching to the fields
of Concord? ♪

♪ Looks like Handsome Johnny
with his flintlock in his hand ♪

♪ Marching to the Concord war

♪ Hey, marching
to the Concord war ♪

BEREN: Once the festival started,
we opened the food stands.

And a throng of people
came running up the hill.

There were too many people,
too many arms reaching out,

so we just started
handing out hamburgers.

And people began to shower us
with joints.

I had one in each pocket,
one in my ear,

and I was smoking two at a time.

I got really high.

[audience cheering]

HAVENS:
I was onstage for something like two hours

because nobody else was there
to go on.

[chuckles]:
I did about four or five encores, you know,

until I had nothing else
to sing.

And then "Freedom" was created
right there on the stage.

That's how "Freedom"
was created, onstage.

It was the last thing I could
think of to sing.

I made it up.

[playing opening to "Freedom"]

CAROL GREEN:
I remember hearing Richie Havens

playing "Freedom."

And I was way up on the hill,

and I heard it,
and I was transported.

HAVENS:
♪ Freedom, freedom

♪ Freedom, freedom

GEORGE:
It's a good word to use.

It wasn't just the freedom
of being able to smoke a joint,

it was the freedom of being able
to be who you were.

Not feeling that somebody
was going to judge you

or threaten you.

So, yeah, freedom
on a lot of levels.

["Freedom" continues,
audience clapping to rhythm]

AGRI: I left the backstage area
and I went into the crowd,

and I went up, and I got
in the middle of the crowd,

and that was, like,
"Wow, look what we've done.

We actually pulled it off,
and it's happening."

MORRIS [on speaker]:
What better way to start

than with the beautiful
Richie Havens?

MORRIS:
The audience reaction was just wonderful.

It just brought the spirit
right up and you felt,

"Okay, this is going to work.

We're going to be okay."

And then, thank God,

we got the helicopter rotation
working,

and started to get people in.

MAN [on speaker]: We apologize for
the noise of the choppity-choppity,

but it seems there are
a few cars blocking the road,

so we're flying everybody in.

SPITZ:
Once the artists started arriving,

the first band to go on
was Sweetwater,

followed by the acoustic acts.

[Sweetwater playing
"What's Wrong"]

[strumming opening to
"Joe Hill," crowd cheering]

♪ I dreamed I saw Joe Hill
last night ♪

♪ Alive as you and me

BARNARD COLLIER:
It was after midnight,

and in fact,
it was starting to rain.

All through the crowd,
there were matches

and cigarette lighters
and candles,

and it looked like fireflies.

BAEZ:
♪ "I never died," says he

CHRIS MOORE:
The field was illuminated.

Not as bright as the blue light
on Joan Baez on the stage,

but the immediate impact
was the size of that crowd.

["Joe Hill" continues]

MOORE: There was nothing in
that field but human beings.

[song ends, crowd cheers]

MORRIS:
Joan Baez was just wonderful.

She ended that night
in a drizzle.

I looked out in the field
and saw all these people,

and it was, like,
"Let's go to sleep."

MORRIS [on speaker]:
Maybe the best thing for everybody to do,

unless you have a tent or
some place specific to go to,

is carve yourself out
a piece of territory,

say goodnight to your neighbor,
and say thank you to yourself

for making this the most
peaceful, most pleasant day

anybody's ever had
in this kind of music.

[motorcycle engines revving]

ROBERTS:
Joel and I got on the Hondas.

And we rode up to a hill

that was, you know, maybe
a mile away from the stage.

And in the distance,
you could see hundreds,

thousands of little campfires.

It was like an army at rest
before an enormous battle

the next day.

It was really beautiful.

That moment will stay with me
forever.

♪

[crowd cheering]

MAN [on microphone]:
I guess the reason we're here is music.

So let's have some music.

Ladies and gentlemen, Quill!

[playing "Waiting for You"]

[band vocalizing]

LINDSEY:
The first day of the festival,

there were a lot
of people there.

Maybe 250,000, 300,000 people.

That was the folk day.

The second day of the concert
was the rock'n'roll day.

That's when everyone showed up.

They wanted to see the Who,
Airplane,

the Dead, later that night.

So the crowd grew
by about a hundred thousand.

DILLS:
Holy shit, this thing

is way beyond
what we ever could've imagined.

We just felt like we were going
to get crushed up

against the stage,

and we didn't really want that.

So like a lot of people, we just
decided to go out exploring,

walking around to see
what was going on.

BEREN:
On the periphery of the crowd

was a two-lane highway
of people,

and it never stopped moving
for the entire festival.

People were going
to the food stands,

they were coming
from the bathroom.

They were going God knows where.

GEORGE:
If you just started wandering,

you'd come across all kinds
of stuff.

["Buzzin' Fly" by Tim Buckley
playing]

A lot of it was like
just walking the boardwalk

and seeing the sights

and taking in the scene.

["Buzzin' Fly" continues]

DILLS: Walking around,
I remember thinking,

"Holy shit, there are a lot
of breasts here."

Most of the nudity I'd seen
previously

was in Playboy,

and small bits on a hot date,

but, you know, really not much.

And there were a lot of people,
girls and guys,

who were very, very open
with their lack of clothing.

Especially down by the water.

STAROBIN: The good thing about
skinny dipping is, we all went in.

Fat, skinny, it didn't matter.

Nobody looked, nobody cared.

It was just plain fun.

["Buzzin' Fly" continues]

GEORGE:
I was 17.

Normally, my jaw would be
on the floor, staring,

but when everything,
to a certain extent,

is beyond belief to begin with,

nothing surprises you.

BUCKLEY:
♪ I remember how the sun shone down ♪

GEORGE: There was kind of a,
a path in the, in the woods

where people had all kinds
of different shops set up.

They were selling, you know,
musical stuff,

and things like beads and crafts
that they had made.

Hand-tie-dyed clothing,
blown-glass pipes,

and stuff like that.

Kind of head shops in the woods,
that sort of thing.

There was one table set up where
they were just selling pot.

[chuckles]

We were well supplied.

["Buzzin' Fly" continues]

STAROBIN:
Saturday was kind of a day

where, you know, we walked,
like, a couple of miles,

checking things out.

There was so much happening that
that was almost as interesting

as seeing the music.

♪

JABOOLIAN: Just to the other side,
it was a wooded area.

Well, that's where the Hog Farm
was set up.

This was commune life.

You know, I had heard about it,

but I had never seen it
in action.

JAHANARA ROMNEY: We had been living
in a group for years by then,

and it was quite
an amazing experiment.

You know, the understanding
that the people around me

are all part of the same spirit.

HENRY DILTZ: There was, like,
a couple hundred of them

with all these kids
running around.

They had teepees and yurts,
you know,

and all these various
little, you know, dwellings.

DAYE: A whole bunch of them
came on all these exotic buses

that they had painted up.

It was magical.

[music playing in distance]

JABOOLIAN:
And the Hog Farm had built a small stage.

And there was music there,
as well.

I didn't realize that at first.

GEORGE: There was always some kind
of musical jam going on over there.

[playing blues tune]

Away from the,
the actual concert,

the Hog Farm was kind
of a center of gravity

for the festival.

ROSENMAN:
The Hog Farm turned out to be

an interesting choice
for security.

They didn't call themselves
a police force;

they called themselves
a please force.

They substituted,
"Hey, you, do this,"

with, "Would you please do
this?",

or, "Would it be all right
with you if...?", and so forth.

Keep back, keep back now,
let them through.

Everything's got room
to flow here.

[plays "Que Sera Sera" on kazoo]

WAVY GRAVY:
The please chiefs were myself and Tom Law.

We turned it into fun.

Oh, yes.
[hums through kazoo]

ROBERTS:
They gave a nice flavor to the festival.

We paid them $18,000.

I remember that.

ROSENMAN:
I don't remember paying them anything.

I thought we just
chartered the jet.

ROBERTS:
Maybe that's what that cost.

Maybe that's where
the 18 grand went.

ROSENMAN: They did it just
because they wanted to be there,

and because they felt
that they could be useful.

They were really nice people.

COUNTRY JOE MCDONALD: ♪ One, two,
three, what are we fighting for? ♪

♪ Don't ask me,
I don't give a damn ♪

♪ The next stop is Viet Nam

STAROBIN: In the afternoon,
I kind of wandered back to the concert.

I was determined
I was not going to miss

all these incredible people.

MCDONALD: ♪ Now come on,
mothers, throughout the land ♪

♪ Pack your boys off
to Viet Nam ♪

DEBRA CONWAY:
My boyfriend was draft age.

And, you know, we had
this future planned out

and it certainly didn't include
him coming home in a body bag.

And so, you know, when
Country Joe McDonald got up

on Saturday afternoon,

we were right there with him.

♪ And it's five, six, seven,
open up the pearly gates ♪

♪ Well, I ain't no time
to wonder why ♪

♪ Whoopee, we're all goin'
to die! ♪

All right![crowd cheering]

REYNOLDS:
We were 400,000 kids on a hillside

who all were vehemently
against the war.

And, you know, for me, it was,
like, "These are our people!"

[chuckles]

"We found our people!"

[cheering continues]

REPORTER:
Are you enjoying the festival?

Yeah, it's out of sight...
it's beautiful.

Why did you come
to the festival?

To see the best music
in the world, man.

["Soul Sacrifice" by Santana
playing]

MOORE:
The only bored moment I had that weekend

was when Santana was about
to appear,

and I didn't know
who Santana was.

And Santana woke me up.

["Soul Sacrifice" continues]

JABOOLIAN: You got...
you got drawn into this music.

The song was "Soul Sacrifice,"

which most of us
had never heard before.

["Soul Sacrifice" continues,
Santana plays guitar solo]

BEREN: Listening to it,
I felt like we had gone from civilization

to some place
where there was no rules.

And some people took the freedom
to extreme places.

["Soul Sacrifice" continues]

GOLDMACHER:
People were there to have a good time

and they were doing it.

Now, it meant a lot of drugs.

It was mostly marijuana,
hashish, and LSD.

["Soul Sacrifice" continues]

COLLIER:
One girl told me that just standing still,

she was getting stoned.

And my guess was that within
a thousand feet of the stage,

everybody was stoned.

["Soul Sacrifice" fades]

GOLDSTEIN: There were a lot of
people who took a lot of drugs

in very strenuous circumstances

and were incapable
of dealing with that.

The freak-out tents were oases.

GOLDMACHER: Wavy Gravy and the Hog
Farm were taking care of bad trips.

Freak-out tents had been set up
where people could lie down,

and folks from the Hog Farm
were in there, you know,

just holding people's hands

and just really being able
to guide them through it.

WAVY GRAVY: We're telling them,
"You know, it's,

"it's going to be cool, man,
it's going to wear off.

You took a little acid,
and it's gonna wear off."

And then when somebody was
near normal to rock 'n' roll,

we said, "Hold it.

"Now, you see that brother
coming through the door?

"That was you three hours ago.

Now you go and help them out."

And that's the way the scene
regenerated itself.

♪

SPITZ: They always knew that there
were going to be medical problems,

and they had prepared themselves
as best they could.

But like everything else
at the festival,

they were woefully understaffed,

and an emergency situation
was developing.

MAN [on speaker]:
We need a doctor or a medic, please,

over on this side of the stage,
please,

at your earliest convenience.

GOLDMACHER: One of our people
came rushing up to me and said,

"We're out of medical supplies."

And I said,
"You've got to be kidding."

All the panoply of medical
situations you could encounter

will happen during the course
of 72 hours.

It's just what happens
in a city of 400,000 people.

This is a medical disaster
in the making.

[siren blaring]

GOLDSTEIN:
Leaving aside for the moment

those people who were diabetics
who needed insulin and so forth,

the casualties were mounting.

♪

MORRIS: We got a call from
the governor's chief of staff

telling us that
Rockefeller was considering

sending in the National Guard.

SPITZ:
Nelson Rockefeller's office...

he was the governor
at the time...

was in pretty constant
communication

with the festival people,

and Rockefeller
was always threatening

to send in the troops.

MORRIS:
They said it was a danger to the community,

it was a danger
to public health,

it was a danger to any
damn thing they could think of.

They wanted to get rid of it.

And they were stupid enough
to believe

they could mobilize
the National Guard

and move these kids out.

And I kept saying,

"There's only one way
to do this,

and that's play it through."

In the end, there was
an assistant to the governor

who got it,

and he said, "What can we do?"

BARBARA ERSKINE MILLER: Why are there
Army helicopters flying overhead?

You know, it looked like what
I saw on the news every night

in, you know,
the pictures from Vietnam.

DILLS:
Seeing that they were military helicopters

was very disconcerting.

We didn't know really
why they were flying in.

You know, is this the start
of a militarization

to close this thing down?

MORRIS:
I was standing onstage,

and I could see these Hueys
coming in.

There were three or four of them
in a row.

And all I said was,
"Ladies and gentlemen,

the United States Army."

MORRIS [on speaker]: The United States
Army has lent us some medical teams.

There are 45 doctors
who are here without pay

because they dig
what this is into.

They are with us, man.

They are not against us,
they are with us.

They're here to give us all
a hand and help us.

♪

MORRIS: That sound system was
the only source of communication

we had with the audience.

MAN [on speaker]:
Elliot from Harvard,

the hitchhikers you picked up

need the pills from your car.

Please go to the
information station right away.

MORRIS:
What started happening was,

people would bring messages
to backstage.

And we did as many of them
as we could

in between performances.

MAN [on speaker]:
Sidney McGee,

please come immediately
to backstage right.

I understand
your wife is having a baby.

Congratulations.

Wheat Germ,

Holly has your bag
with your medicine.

Please meet
at the information booth

as soon as you can, please.

MORRIS:
The information booth became a center.

And we just said to people,

"If you're looking for somebody,
you got to go up there."

JABOOLIAN:
Everybody would put messages on it.

So if you're looking
for somebody,

or you're trying to get
a ride home,

or, or whatever,

you could stick stuff up
on there.

MAN [on speaker]: Larry Alexander,
Cousin Al is sick.

Meet near
the information center.

ROBERTS:
We took a lot of phone calls

from worried parents,

wondering what was happening
up there.

And, you know,
if it was, like, "Call home,"

we'd relay it to the stage.

MAN [on speaker]:
Helen Savage,

please call your father

at the Motel Glory in Woodridge.

DILLS: I definitely wondered
if my parents were watching

and what they thought.

Because after Friday,
I'd had no contact

with anybody
from the outside world.

MAN [on speaker]:
The Daily News,

in rather large headlines,

"Traffic Uptight at Hippiefest."

GEORGE:
The stage announcements

really became our news radio.

How we found out

what the outside world
was paying attention to.

And they would've thought
it was an utter disaster,

from what they were seeing
in the news and stuff.

♪

ROSENMAN:
The world expects this to explode.

And I remember thinking
to myself, "This is perfect."

Because there's nothing kids
like better than to disappoint

what the world thinks
they're going to do.

MAN [on speaker]:
Ladies and gentlemen, Keef Hartley.

["Spanish Fly"
by Keef Hartley Band playing]

["Spanish Fly" continues]

REYNOLDS: Late afternoon,
the sun came out, and it was hot.

And we walked around a bit,
because we got hungry.

And we quickly discovered
there was no food.

All the booths were out of food.

There was nothing.

BEREN:
We ran out of food.

Delivery trucks could not get
through the traffic jams,

so there was no more food.

No soda, no burgers,
no hot dogs, no nothing.

And then word spread very fast.

SPITZ: Sure,
there was a sanitation crisis,

and there was a medical crisis,

but when the food started to go,

the producers knew
that this could turn

into an even more immense
problem.

But something really incredible
happened.

The people of White Lake
and Bethel

literally went
in their pantries.

Anything that was
in the refrigerator,

anything that was
in the freezer,

anything that was in the house,

they contributed.

MAN:
We got word over WVOS

that a lot of kids didn't have
anything to eat.

Stuff was taken over
to the school,

and they flew it to the,
to the site.

I have a 19-year-old myself,

I felt that we got to
give them a, a fair shake here.

Kids are hungry,
you got to feed them.

JOHN CONWAY:
Those helicopters were going over constantly.

And also a lot of the neighbors
were involved

in efforts to make sandwiches

and get them to the,
to the helicopters.

GORDON WINARICK: It was on the radio,
"Bring whatever you can."

And I decided,
we'll just send eggs,

because it's an egg area.

I tapped people for donations.

I said, "Look,
give me cases of eggs."

So we hard-boiled hundreds
of thousands of eggs.

LENI BINDER:
We would never have said,

"We don't want any part of you,
leave.

I don't care
if you're hungry or starving."

That was not our communities.

Maybe we were hicks,
but we did go,

as the Bible says,
welcome the stranger.

They were hungry.

We fed them.

ROMNEY:
Helicopters came in

with anything
people wanted to donate.

Like little bags
of picnic supplies

or green beans...
even a tiny can of olives.

[chuckling]:
You know, I just, "Yes!

"Bring it on!

We can take it and make it
into food for the masses."

DAYE:
The Hog Farm had set up this huge kitchen,

and they were boiling brown rice

and frying up vegetables,

and it was fabulous.

♪

JABOOLIAN:
I found out about the Hog Farm serving food

from the guy that sat next
to me.

He says, "Yeah, man,
they got free food up there.

You just, just go up there
and get in line."

♪

DILLS:
I and one of my friends offer to help,

and they just put us on a pot,

and we, we scooped it
for people.

It was kind of cool to feel
like, "Wow,

"I'm helpless here,
as are most of these people,

"but there are people
who are taking care of us,

and in a sense, we're
taking care of each other."

BILL WARD:
People were good to one another.

I would see,
I would see people

passing around a Coke
or something;

other people were sharing
their food.

♪

STAROBIN:
Everybody around us had something,

and we just passed everything
around.

It was like the loaves
and the fishes,

it really was.

GEORGE:
This was actually kind of a functioning city

out in the middle of nowhere,

and we realized
that it was functioning

because of people
pulling together.

It just had this feeling
that, "This was ours.

"This was the new city.

This was the alternative city,
and it worked."

♪

["Woodstock Boogie"
by Canned Heat playing]

MORRIS: Saturday afternoon,
the show was good.

But Saturday night,
we really came up to speed

when the sun went down.

♪ Well, the little red rooster
told the little brown hen ♪

♪ "Meet you at the barn
about a half past ten" ♪

♪ Sing a last
little boogie... ♪

MORRIS: I guess we got to a point
where we felt more comfortable,

and maybe we were proving

to the press
and the outside world

that we knew what we were doing,

and that this was special,

that there was
some kind of magic here.

And I would say that probably
gave us the second wind.

["Woodstock Boogie" continues]

GEORGE:
I was sort of in a daze.

You'd been listening,
watching music

starting in the afternoon

and going pretty much
all through the night.

There's no way
you couldn't get oversaturated

with the stimulus.

♪ I want to take you higher

CROWD:
♪ Higher

♪ I want to take you higher

GEORGE:
For me,

the most memorable performance
that night

was Sly and the Family Stone.

SLY:
♪ I want to take you higher

GEORGE: The music, yes,
but the, the crowd

and just feeling
this incredible electricity.

I mean,
it was the middle of the night,

and everybody was up dancing.

It was just a pulsing hillside

of hundreds of thousands
of people.

["I Want to Take You Higher"
continues]

♪ I want to take you higher

♪ Higher

♪ I want to take you higher

♪ Higher

["My Generation"
by the Who playing]

DILTZ:
I was in front of the stage,

shooting it,
you know, taking pictures.

Roger Daltrey, up there,

with fringe on his cape
flying around.

And he'd twirl that microphone
around,

and, you know,
he would just miss the floor,

and then it would come arcing
through the air,

and he'd grab it just in time,

you know, to get into,

"Talkin' 'bout my generation."

And then there was Townshend
leaping in the air,

and doing his splits,
and landing on stage.

DALTREY: ♪ And don't try to dig what,
what, what we all say ♪

♪ Talking 'bout my generation

GREEN:
"Talkin' 'bout my generation,"

and that was my generation.

When they sang that song,

they, you know,
elicited this clarion call,

and we went,
"Rock and roll!"

♪ This is my generation, baby

["My Generation" concludes]

[crowd cheers and applauds]

DILTZ:
The Who was absolutely fantastic,

and they were still playing
as the dawn came up.

["Naked Eye" playing]

["Naked Eye" fades]

All right, friends,
you have seen the heavy groups.

Now you will see
morning maniac music.

Believe me, yeah.

It's the new dawn.

["The Other Side of Life"
by Jefferson Airplane playing]

The regular guys
and Nicky Hopkins.

["The Other Side of Life"
continues]

PAUL KANTNER:
I could barely remember our performance,

because it was 6:30
in the morning.

We just went out
and played as best we could.

We were pretty burned, though,
by the time we got onstage.

Good morning, people!

KANTNER: And we could see there
was a lot of people just asleep.

And the fires were starting
to go out,

and people were crashing.

LAWRENCE: I was walking around,
and everybody was sleeping.

I mean, people were horizontal
all over the place, you know?

It looked like after
a big party.

["Sunday Morning" by
the Velvet Underground playing]

♪ Sunday morning

♪ Brings the dawn in

♪ It's just a restless feeling

♪ By my side

♪ Watch out,
the world's behind you ♪

WAVY GRAVY [on speaker]:
Good morning.

What we have in mind
is breakfast in bed

for 400,000.

Now, it's not going to be
steak and eggs or anything,

but it's gonna be good food,
and we're gonna get it to you.

We're all feeding each other.

[crowd cheering]

We must be in heaven, man!

ROMNEY:
What we served was plain raw oats

with honey
and powdered milk mixed up,

'cause it wasn't any time
to toast oats.

[chuckling]:
And, you know, it was just,

we threw nuts and seeds
and raisins in it.

And I think we had
ten serving stations,

and the lines of people in front
of each of the serving stations

were as long as you could see.

["Sunday Morning"
continues]

The Yasgurs supplied us
with milk and yogurt.

And it was just like a gift
from an angel.

♪ Sunday morning

♪ Sunday morning

["Sunday Morning" fades]

MORRIS [on speaker]:
We have a gentleman with us.

It's the gentleman
upon whose farm we are,

Mr. Max Yasgur.

[crowd cheers and applauds]

MORRIS: In the early afternoon,
Max came down to the stage,

and he said, "I'd like to speak
to the crowd."

And I said,

"I think the crowd would
very much like to meet you."

MAX YASGUR:
Is this on?

I'm a farmer, I don't know...

[crowd cheering and applauding]

I don't know how to speak
to 20 people at one time,

let alone a crowd like this.

But I think you people have
proven something to the world.

Not only to town of Bethel,

or Sullivan County,
or New York state,

you've proven something
to the world.

The important thing
that you've proven to the world

is that a half a million kids...
and I call you kids,

because I have children
that are older than you are...

a half a million young people
can get together

and have three days
of fun and music,

and have nothing
but fun and music.

And I God bless you for it.

[crowd cheering and applauding]

DILLS:
It was an affirmation, you know,

that instead of being angry,

that he was that positive
about us.

And I'm sure that his fields
were just destroyed.

But if a conservative
Upstate New York farmer

could feel that way,

well, that was pretty cool.

In that moment, I realized,
being in the middle of it,

that not only was Woodstock
bigger

than we ever could have
imagined,

but it was symbolically
even bigger.

[crowd cheering,
clapping rhythmically]

MAN [on speaker]:
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Joe Cocker.

Let's go for Sunday!

Yes, yes, well,
good afternoon.

And this title just about
puts this all into focus.

It's called "With a Little Help
From My Friends."

["With a Little Help
From My Friends" playing]

♪ What would you do
if I sang out of tune ♪

♪ Would you stand up
and walk out on me ♪

♪ Lend me your ears
and I'll sing you a song ♪

♪ I will try not to sing
out of key ♪

♪ Oh, baby, I get by

BACKING SINGERS:
♪ By with a little help from my friends ♪

COCKER:
♪ All I need is my brother

SINGERS:
♪ By with a little help from my friends ♪

COCKER: ♪ Yeah, tell you,
I'm gonna try a way ♪

SINGERS:
♪ By with a little help from my friends ♪

DILLS: I really liked what
Joe Cocker was singing about,

because in one sense,
I had 450,000 friends.

["With a Little Help
From My Friends" continues]

COCKER:
When we got into "Little Help,"

I just felt that we'd really
caught a massive consciousness

in the crowd.

It was a powerful feeling.

[crowd cheering and applauding]

MAN [on speaker]:
That's Joe Cocker!

COCKER: And then somebody yelled at me,
"Joe, look over your shoulder."

MORRIS:
It was hot as could be.

And you look up in the sky
behind the audience,

and you can see
these black clouds

like Armageddon coming at you.

It looks like we're going
to get a bit of rain,

so you better cover up.

All of you up in the towers,
please come down.

You're making it
very, very dangerous.

COLLIER:
Hanging on these big light stands

were a bunch of kids
who had used them

to get a better perch
to watch the show from.

People screamed, "Come down,
get down from there!"

MORRIS [on speaker]: All right, everybody,
just sit down, wrap yourself up.

We're gonna have to have
to ride it out.

Jody, get off the stage.

Get off the stage.

[wind gusting]

MORRIS: I mean,
all hell started breaking loose.

And then, Barry Melton
of Country Joe and the Fish

grabbed a mic.

No rain, no rain, no rain!

MELTON AND CROWD: No rain,
no rain, no rain, no rain!

No rain, no rain, no rain,
no rain, no rain!

[thunder claps]

LAW:
And then it hit.

It hit like a major,
you know, country storm.

It was not a tornado, but
it had that kind of feel to it.

[thunder rumbling]

Everyone scrambled
to cover equipment.

I mean, there was a billion
volts of equipment.

You wouldn't believe the amount
of electrical energy

on the stage
and in those towers.

ROSENMAN:
During the storm, I learned

that 50,000-volt cables
had become unearthed.

Then we could have
a mass electrocution.

Fortunately, that didn't happen.

[rain pattering,
thunder rumbling]

VIC WELLS: There were a lot of
people who had plastic and blankets.

Of course,
the blankets got soaked.

You know,
you either just covered up,

or you just held your head up
and enjoyed it.

♪

STAROBIN: The outside world
thought it was a disaster area.

Well, that's not
what we thought.

And so people started playing
in the mud like children.

It was like
they were six years old,

going down a waterslide
in their front yard.

♪

JAMES SALZER: After the rain,
the crowd really thinned out.

I guess a lot of people
just wanted to get back home.

♪

DEBRA CONWAY:
I had to go to work the next day.

So, you know,
like a lot of people,

we hiked back to where
the car was

and went home.

SPITZ:
For everybody at the festival,

battling the elements
was a constant struggle.

They were plagued by weather
from the get-go.

Then after the Sunday storm,
the site was a mess.

But the festival went on.

[Country Joe and the Fish
playing "Rock and Soul Music"]

Marijuana!

SPITZ:
Country Joe and the Fish was first up.

["Rock and Soul Music" continues
and fades]

There were a lot of great
performances that night.

But I think the one that really
stood out for most people

was Crosby, Stills, and Nash,

because it was their first time

they had ever performed
together.

MAN [on speaker]:
...Stills, and Nash.

[playing
"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"]

CROSBY:
I remember being terrified.

Nobody had seen us get up
and sing harmony together.

Nobody had seen it,
this was it.

This was the first time.

♪ It's getting to the point

♪ Where I'm no fun anymore

DAYE: There were moments where
the music was so mesmerizing,

so internalized,

that I became
the music I was listening to.

I remember sitting in the mud

listening to Crosby, Stills,
and Nash,

looking at the sheer beauty
of the night sky,

wrapped in a blanket of music.

It was the feeling of oneness
with it all.

["Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" ends]

["Star-Spangled Banner"
by Jimi Hendrix playing]

WAVY GRAVY:
The last morning of the festival,

I'm wandering through people
rising up out of the mud.

And this amazing music,
suddenly...

[blows air]

It was Jimi Hendrix just filling
my ears

with the wonder
of the national anthem.

["Star-Spangled Banner"
continues]

[playing improvisational riff]

COLLIER:
I was backstage writing up some notes,

when suddenly, into my head
stabbed this sound.

[continuing riff]

It sounded exactly
like rockets, missiles,

and bombs bursting in air.

[Hendrix continuing riff]

I'd never heard anything
like that in my life.

[Hendrix resumes melody
of "The Star-Spangled Banner"]

LAW:
We're at the most peaceful gathering

that was probably happening
on the planet at the time.

And he hooked us up
with Vietnam.

It was the devastation and
the brutality and the insanity.

[riff continuing]

That was a quintessential piece
of art.

[playing pedal effects
and whammy bar]

["Star-Spangled Banner" melody
resumes]

[holding chord,
chord feeding back]

GREEN:
There was an essence that is indescribable.

You can feel it in your body,

you can feel it right here
in your heart,

when you know that this is life.

This is the essence of life.

He had it, and he gave it to us.

[modulating tone
with whammy bar]

[playing pedal effects]

[song pausing]

[concluding
"Star-Spangled Banner"]

DILTZ:
Everybody was so still.

Most of the crowd had left.

I was onstage.

I was shooting right next
to him.

Just, God, it was just a moment,
you know,

that was just wonderful.

It's his guitar ringing out.

[Hendrix playing riff,
pedal effects]

And then suddenly,
it was all over.

["Star-Spangled Banner" fades]

MORRIS: The site looked like Civil
War pictures of battlefields.

I was terrified
I might find somebody dead.

And so I walked all of the site.

And it stank, it really stank.

There were just a few people
wandering around.

Nobody injured, nobody dead.

A great relief.

And then we started
the cleanup.

DILTZ:
What was left behind was this incredible sea

of soggy, wet sleeping bags
and cardboard boxes

and tents that were all,
you know,

knocked down and trampled on.

All this flotsam and jetsam.

["Highway Anxiety"
by William Taylor playing]

GEORGE:
We stayed for a while,

helping clean up trash.

There were a lot of people
out there helping clean up.

["Highway Anxiety" continues]

STAROBIN:
We so did not want to leave.

We kind of sensed
that, you know,

we could change the world
for three days,

but the rest of the world
wasn't with us,

and we knew that it was going
to be a real culture shock

coming back into society.

REPORTER: More than 350,000 people
came looking for peace and music.

Many said they learned a lot
about themselves

and learned a lot
about getting along together

and priorities.

And for most, that alone
makes it all worthwhile.

["Highway Anxiety" continues]

WAVY GRAVY: We realized that we
were part of this amazing event

that nothing like it
ever was before.

LAW: The festival became a symbol
of intelligence and humanity

and cooperation and love
and affection.

It was the start
of a phenomenal change

in a lot of people's lives.

MAX YASGUR: When I realized,
Friday night and Saturday morning,

that we were getting up close
to the half-a-million mark,

and there was a sea of people
here,

I became
quite apprehensive.

Uh...

Thoughts flashed
through my mind

of some other problems that they
have had throughout the country.

And these kids,

these young people
made me feel guilty today,

because there were no problems.

They proved to me, and they
proved to the whole world

that they didn't come up
for any problems.

They came up

for exactly what they said
they were coming up for,

for three days
of music and peace.

DAYE:
It was a mark in cosmic time.

I have no doubt about that.

I'm not saying
it never happened before

or that it couldn't happen
in the future.

But that, that stopped
the clocks for three days.

GEORGE: I felt like I had finally
gotten to fully experience

what I was hoping
the counterculture meant.

Woodstock was
a very powerful confirmation

that, "Yeah, this is
what you're looking for,

and that you're headed
in the right direction."

["Highway Anxiety" continues]

STAROBIN:
Everyone looking after one another,

everybody caring
about one another.

I mean, once I experienced that,

I made it the basis
for the whole rest of my life.

["Highway Anxiety" continues]

ROSENMAN: At Woodstock,
we tried to let the audience know,

in every way that we could,

that we believed in them.

That inside them
was a loving nature,

a decency,
and a fineness of spirit.

You can forget it sometimes,

but very few of us
want to be other than that.

You just need the opportunity.

[cheering and applauding]

["Highway Anxiety" continues]

[song ends]

["Catch the Wind"
by Donovan playing]

♪ In the chilly hours
and minutes of uncertainty ♪

♪ I want to be in the warm heart
of your loving mind ♪

♪ To feel you all around me

♪ And to take your hand
along the sand ♪

♪ Ah, but I may as well try
and catch the wind ♪

♪ When sundown pales the sky

♪ I want to hide a while
behind your smile ♪

♪ And everywhere I'd look,
your eyes I'd find ♪

♪ For me to love you now
would be the sweetest thing ♪

♪ 'Twould make me sing

♪ Ah, but I may as well try
and catch the wind ♪

[vocalizing]

♪ When rain has hung the leaves
with tears ♪

♪ I want you near
to kill my fears ♪

♪ To help me to leave
all my blues behind... ♪