44 Years Ago ~ Woodstock

[sheshe2]

44 Years ago today was the opening day of the Woodstock Music and Arts fair on Yasgar's farm in Bethel, NY.

Because other performers were late in arriving, Richie Havens became the opening act. Havens ended up playing for three hours. After playing everything he knew, and with the audience still calling for an encore, Havens improvised this song:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=632754483425639&set=a.149730225061403.24294.125955227438903&type=1&theater

Woodstock had officially begun. Don't take the brown acid. (RA) — with Raamah Aoxomoxoa.

[Taverner]

1. Ahhh, Woodstock. The Boomer's "defining moment" - not

Somehow stopping Vietnam (they did) and ending the draft (they did) never get mentioned when it comes to the Boomers, but Woodstock always comes up.

Look - - it was a concert. I love music, rock and roll and there were some mighty fine shows that weekend. Sly and The Family Stone, CSNY, Jefferson Airplane and, of course, Jimi Hendrix. The Dead had one of their worst shows ever there, and everything else was pretty "meh."

Oh and might I add most of the performers were actually older and of the 'Silent' Gen?

Boomers - you're selling yourself short.

Stopping a war and a draft is something I am far more thankful of.

I am glad I wasn't drafted - I am an Xer.

I am glad Vietnam didn't continue on into the 90s.

You know if Reagan could have, he would have.

[nolabear]

2. I'm sorry, Xer, but you are without clue.

Woodstock doesn't negate any of those other things. We carry the scars of that war and are crazy glad we did end it, so there's that.

But as a girl who was kept far, far away from the liberal ideals I held, who had to listen to music I loved when no one else in the family could hear, who didn't have access to what it was like "out there" where people could protest the war, and for a million kids, "boomers" like me, Woodstock meant "we" were somebody, even by proxy. We existed, we caused a sensation. None of the previous generations had done such a thing. I wore that album out (when no one was there) and hung on every word of what was happening, wishing I could have been there. Of course, in retrospect I was glad I wasn't because it was a drug-crazed swamp.

Some of the music wasn't wonderful, and many of the kids there were not to be idealized, they were just kids, some good, some bad, but in a melting pot that rattled the world. As for the acts, many were just getting careers going, and became something special later. But Janis rocked, The Who rocked, CSN rocked, Ten Years After rocked, and Richie Havens blew the place down. And Sly, Airplane, and many others. The Dead? I love The Dead. I ADORE The Dead, but you know, they had their days.

But trust me. We aren't selling ourselves short. It was part of our self concept. It was important.

[pipi_k]

3. Yep

I agree

It was important... And still is, to so many of us

[pinboy3niner]

4. +2. Good post, nolabear!

Another thing that is overlooked is the importance of protest songs, and the arts generally, in motivating and energizing movements of all kinds, not just the antiwar movement. That, too, was part of Woodstock.

Unfortunately, I missed it, too. I was serving in Vietnam at the time.

[sheshe2]

5. hey nolabear~

Thanks for that. Aaah Richie Havens, bless him.

Oh and Janis Joplin

John Sebastian

I came to the Lounge to relax...felt like GD for a minute.

Thanks~

[Taverner]

6. Yes, but you guys and gals stopped the draft

The fact that every American male is not forced to fight rich people's wars is much bigger than a concert.

Think about the lasting effect of ending the draft...

[nolabear]

7. Not exclusionary, as I said. I have live sons because of that!

[Joe Shlabotnik]

8. Actually, I kinda agree,

as a fellow X'er. The "spectacle" has become fetishized among boomers and accepted as the 'defining' point of history, despite the abject disintegration of an otherwise positive popular movement.

[Taverner]

11. I know - it makes all the blood, sweat, tears and life lost in that struggle look like a party

Kent State

THAT was a defining moment of the Boomers

They shed blood to stop a war

[B Calm]

9. Pissed me off they didn't have it in September. I was still on a Med Cruise in the Navy

and we got back to Newport, RI in early September.

[malthaussen]

10. Frankly, I was only 12 at the time, so Woodstock didn't define nothin'.

But it makes a convenient symbol.

-- Mal

[ConcernedCanuk]

12. Sad thing tho, it'll never happen again . . .

.
.
.

Too many rules and regulations nowadays.

And too many enforcement officers that love to harass and beat on people.

We ain't progressing as a race, not enough people do not realize we are sinking backwards.

The rich are getting richer (millionaires and billionaires while people starve and live without housing),

and war all over the World.

(sigh)

CC

[Archae]

13. Woodstock was an event I would have loved to have gone to.

Altamont was a fiasco I'm glad I avoided.

[kwassa]

14. I was at Woodstock, and I am in this picture, from Life Magazine

?w=1350

[pinboy3niner]

15. Cool!

And wet!

[Patciaable]

16. hahaha

sweet!

[Agschmid]

17. OMG right? It's AWESOME!