Journey Back To The Sixties at Woodstock

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from the journal: The Hartford Coureant:

Journey Back To The Sixties At Woodstock


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By the time we got to Woodstock, as Crosby, Stills and Nash later sang, we were half a million strong. What Joni Mitchell failed to include in the anthem's lyrics was that while 499,000 of us were traveling light as we headed to upstate New York in August of 1969, one of us had seriously over-packed.

It didn't take long for the real hippies to size me up as a poseur. Maybe it was the suitcase, pajamas and toiletries that gave me away. Possibly it was my hibachi, charcoal, six-packs of Tab and cooler. In hindsight, I think it was probably the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth.

Most of the other citizens of Woodstock Nation, I discovered, had prepared for the journey by packing nickel bags, not overnight bags. Smart move, since getting to the festival site involved a 5-mile hike from where we had to leave our cars. It's hard to look cool or flash a peace sign when you're lugging a cast-iron hibachi.

A long-haired guy, whose only provisions were some grass and a jar of bubbles, looked at me and said, "Babe, you've got a lot of s**t."

He was right.

The Age of Aquarius was not yet dawning at Central Connecticut State College, where I went to school. Civil rights, women's lib and the anti-war movement were radical, intriguing new concepts, but for a squarely middle-class, teenage girl from Hartford, making the leap from mainstream to counterculture was not going to be easy.

When I'd begged my parents to let me go to Cuba to harvest sugar cane with the newly formed Venceremos Brigade, my father looked at my mother in astonishment and said, "Is she crazy? She's never even mowed the lawn." In contrast to joining Fidel's army, a weekend concert on a bucolic dairy farm a few hours away seemed to them a much saner option.

I'm not sure what I envisioned when I set off for the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, but it couldn't have been anything like what actually took place. Ads and posters promised an "Aquarian Exposition" and "Three Days of Peace and Music." It turned out to be an uninterrupted stretch of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

By the time we arrived, fences and gates were down, collapsed under the waves of attendees who'd walked up and over the chain-link walls around the field. Love beads were on, clothes were off, joints were lit and music was blasting from the stage below.

We found a spot on the hill, set up our things and watched the concept of personal space vanish, replaced by one big experiment in communal living. Bathroom options were limited. I kept my tablecloth and pajamas out of sight and slept in my clothes.

We tuned in, turned on and dropped out for the rest of the festival — through rain, mudslides and ongoing warnings not to take the brown acid. We had to. Our car was in a 15-mile-long parking lot. The New York State Thruway, site of a major traffic jam, was closed, man.

I dumped my hibachi, sat on my suitcase, drank warm Tab, kissed strangers, danced, listened to Jimi Hendrix play the Star Spangled Banner and discovered the meaning of "contact high" and "free love."

When I finally got home, I learned that the whole world had been watching as a half-million individuals had created a peaceful mini-nation that had dealt with bad weather, food shortages and poor sanitation and maintained a surprising level of order and control.

It's been said that if you can remember the '60s, you weren't there. Wrong. I remember clearly the constantly moving, buzzing, overwhelming mass of people; an ongoing sense of disorientation; the smell of marijuana; falling asleep as Ravi Shankar played; waking up to Joan Baez's beautiful soprano voice; and the feeling that I'd been part of something extraordinary.

I always wanted to go back and see that field again. Turns out, I wasn't alone. Over the past four decades, thousands of Woodstock alumni have made the pilgrimage back to Max Yasgur's dairy farm to stand on the hill and remember the magical, mystical event that came to embody an era.

So when the Bethel Center for the Performing Arts announced this summer that a museum devoted to Woodstock and the Sixties had opened on the original site, I packed a bag and headed out to relive my Woodstock experience — this time without the hibachi.

What I found at the Museum at Bethel Woods (part of the larger Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, a concert venue), is an archival time capsule from the decade of peace and love — artifacts such as rock posters, peace symbols, Day-Glo lights, flower power signs and Hog Farmer Wavy Gravy's overalls. (Gravy, whose real name is Hugh Romney, attended Hall High School in West Hartford, where he grew up.) The Hog Farm created a festival security force whose job it was to "enforce the peace, not enforce the law."

Museum director Wade Lawrence says the combination of multimedia exhibits, interactive features, photographs, films and displays are designed to immerse visitors in the sights and sounds of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair — and the Sixties. (Smells of pot are conspicuously absent.)

"What we've done is integrate fashion, politics and pop culture with history to give visitors a more comprehensive perspective of the Sixties," says Lawrence.

Permanent exhibits unfold in three galleries: The Sixties; The Woodstock Music and Art Fair and The Impact of Woodstock and the Sixties. "The Evolution of Fashion," for example, takes visitors from Jackie Kennedy tailored suits to mini dresses and go-go boots to bell bottoms and dashikis.

An interactive map allows visitors to explore 20 hot spots of the festival, including the Main Stage, Hog Farm, Campgrounds and Woods. Booths are available for visitors to record personal stories about Woodstock and the Sixties.

Films are a major part of the museum and many include never-before-seen Woodstock footage. "Planning Woodstock," is a collection of four shorts covering the birth of Woodstock and how organizers convinced some of the biggest bands of the time to play in a field in upstate New York.

"1968: A Year That Shook America," produced by The History Channel, examines the most significant events of 1968, from the Tet Offensive and Vietnam War protests, to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

Visitors pile onto a Merry Pranksters psychedelic bus to view a film with original footage of the many cross-country journeys to Woodstock. The film is projected onto the front windshield.

"The Festival Experience," beamed onto four giant screens and featuring stars overhead, surround-sound and video of naked festival-goers, is a 9-minute snapshot of the three-day experience.

Festival attendee Nolan Asch, visiting the museum for the first time, was impressed by the exhibits and the memories they invoked.

"I've never stopped telling stories about my experience at Woodstock," says Asch, who was 20 when he made the trip from Yonkers to Bethel. "When you see these films, you realize how amazing it was that there were so many terrific performances given in such awful conditions."

The real heart of the facility is outdoors at the original festival bowl. Site interpreter Duke Devlin, who left a commune in West Texas and hitchhiked across the country to get to the festival, now guides visitors around the grounds and offers living history, psychedelic-style.

"I was 26 when I got here and just never left," says Devlin, 65, who has the Woodstock logo tattooed on one beefy arm and a license plate that reads "Woodstock '69" on his car. "I stayed to help clean up and I'm still here. Is the festival over?"

The gray pony-tailed, aging hippie points out the original location of the stage (a chunk of concrete is all that remains), the sound towers, the first-aid tent and the Woodstock Memorial Plaque.

He also acknowledges the drug culture that permeated the festival. When he holds up an aerial shot of the event, he quips, "I was so high, I could have taken that picture."

The place, he says, hasn't lost its magic. Visitors of all ages, dressed in tie-dye shirts, come from around the world to see films, hear music and listen to oral histories recorded by Woodstock performers Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens (who opened the festival by improvising his song, "Freedom" to fill time when other stars were stuck in the massive traffic tie-up), Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian and others.

But it is the Boomers who were at the festival who are most moved by the experience. Devlin says they stand out on the field, experiencing what he calls, "reflecting moments."

"I had David Crosby out here with me," says Devlin. "'He said, Duke, the vibe is still here.' He's right.

"You go out onto the field and you're back in the middle of it all," says Devlin. "You can see it, you can hear it, you can taste it and then it vanishes. It was a once in a lifetime experience. It changed all of us who were there and there'll never be anything like it again."

I did and I could and it was and there won't.

Right on.

~~~

If you go

Getting there: The Museum at Bethel Woods is at the site of the 1969 Woodstock Festival in Bethel, N.Y. Take I-84 West to Exit 4W toward Route 17 west. Proceed to Exit 104 onto Route 17B west. Travel about 10 miles, and turn right onto Hurd Road at the Bethel Woods sign. The trip is about 150 miles from Hartford.

Hours: From Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, the museum is open seven days a week, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (last admission at 5:30 p.m.).

From the day after Labor Day to Memorial Day weekend, the museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (last admission at 3:30 p.m.).

The museum is closed from early January to mid-March and closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

Admission: Adults (18 and up) $13; seniors (65 and up) $11; youths (8 to 17) $9; children (under 8, with adult) $4.

Information: 866-781-2922 and http://www.bethelwoodscenter.org.

[blaues hufeisen]

All About Jazz: FESTIVAL/CRUISE: Woodstock Remembered 2008-08-18 11:02:12.430 GMT

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THIS WEEKEND MARKS 39TH ANNIVERSARY
OF LANDMARK MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Woodstock Musc & Art Fair took place August 15 to August 18, 1969. This weekend we remember the landmark event with a few takes on Joni Mitchell's song of celebration, written from the perspective most of us have on this festival, i.e. from footage seen on television screens and the second hand glow picked up from attendees. Unable to be there in person, Mitchell watched the happening unfold on TV and yet captured the essence sans the mud, mess and mind-altering additives.


In the midst of festival season, it seems fitting to pause for a moment and honor this grandpappy of modern music gatherings. And for those seeking a taste of the actual event pop over here for our Sunday Spin from May that focused on the Woodstock soundtrack.


By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers jet planes
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation


Though best known for the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young version, we looked for some perhaps less familiar takes. We make a false start with Joni Mitchell attempting to play “Woodstock" at the Isle of Wight.

We highly encourage any of JamBase community that attended the original Woodstock gathering to share their stories with us. We are less interested in Woodstock 2 stories but one takes what the universe offersCheers, y'all. Fest it up, festivarians!


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