Woodstock (1969)

Yes, Woodstock just celebrated its 40th Anniversary last month! Billed as "3 Days of Peace & Music", Woodstock was a music festival held at a 600-acre dairy farm in the town of Bethel, in upstate New York, USA, from Aug 15 to Aug 18, 1969. It was not the first of its kind. But Woodstock reigns supreme in most people's memory as the rock festival, being the most chronicled and quoted example of its genre.

It started, as most music business events do, as a relatively simple plan to make some money. A site was found - a land near Bethel, owned by farmer Max Yasgur. And a date was set. Work began on assembling the biggest and best list of top acts, and on putting together the stage and other infrastructure for the fans.

What the organisers certainly did not expect was the complete chaos the festival would cause in the surrounding countryside as about 500,000 people tried to make it to the farm. There was traffic jam of 20 or more miles all round. Ticket booths and entrances were swamped so quickly and comprehensively that the gates were simply thrown open and the festival was designated 'free' eventually.

Among the 32 acts who played in the outdoor festival were The Who, Crosby,Still, Nash & Young, Credence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Sly & The Family Stone, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Santana (yes, Carlo Santana has been in the music scene for more than 4 decades now!). Alvin Lee became a superstar via his performance with Ten Years After. Ravi Shankar was there too with his sitar.

Joni Mitchell wrote a song "Woodstock" to commemorate this counterculture and it became a major hit for Crosby, Still, Nash & Young.

There are a lot of "Woodstock" related albums available in the internet. But the best album should be "Woodstock 40 years on: Back to Yasgur's Farm". It contains 77 songs (and that's only about 20% of what went down at the festival) with almost eight hours of music and chatters across 6 CDs.

The event was captured in the successful 1970 documentary movie titled "Woodstock". I remember watching the almost 3-hour long film at Ipoh's Lido Cinema in 1970. It was a censored version, of course, as there were many scenes of the fans taking baths, walking and standing naked in the rain and mud, hippies or the flower people getting high with marijuana and smoking pots. The bulk of the film consists of footage of selected musicians who played at the festival. There are some great split-scene sequences.

I re-watched the un-cut version from the internet recently and the music still mesmerises me. Right from the first set from Richie Havens to the last song "Hey Joe" from Jimi Hendrix, it is a musical trip unparalleled. It is still fascinating to watch a young Santana with his guitar solos on "Soul Sacrifice", the wild acts of The Who and Ten Years After. It is enlightening to watch Joe Cocker air-guitaring while performing Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friend". Sha-na-na's "At The Hop" however is, to me, out of place among the acts. My personal favourite goes to Crosby, Still and Nash's rendition of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes".

Woodstock was truly a party to celebrate popular music, the pivotal momemt that changed the history of rock 'n' roll. No rock festival would ever be the same again.