All language subtitles for Woodstock.3.Days.That.Changed.Everything.2019.WEBRip.Amazon

(orchestral tuning music)

('60s soul guitar music)

(crowd cheering)

- [Michael] The audience
was the star at Woodstock

and the bands were there because of that.

(crowd cheering)

- Remember, the original
prognostication was

that there'd be somewhere
between 30 to 50,000 people

for the three days.

Half of whom would spend the three days

and the other half of whom
would go home each night.

The half that would stay would be sleeping

in campground up there.

Well, as you know, that
did not come to pass.

(crowd cheering)

- It was also a chance for our generation

to prove that we could
be a peaceful generation

and live together in
peace based upon music

and love for each other.

So it was an experiment.

(crowd cheering)

('60s rock guitar music)

- It was originally
meant as a local concert

that would raise money to
build a recording studio

in Upstate New York.

It built way more than
anyone could imagine.

Hi, I'm Mark Goodman.

50 years have passed since
a live music festival held

from August 15th to 18th, 1969,

became a defining, cultural milestone.

Of course I'm talking about Woodstock.

It was a particular
alchemy of inspiration,

on-the-fly thinking, an
evolving business plan,

mother nature and of
course the power of music.

Those three days in 1969 created a moment,

one that still echoes today.

Half a century on, we have a
slightly different perspective

on what was then billed as
"An Aquarian Exposition,

"3 Days of Peace and Music".

So let's step back for a moment to explore

how one music festival,
among several that year,

came to surpass them all and
remains the gold standard

for every big cultural event to this day.

('60s psychedelic rock music)

After meeting, Lang and
Kornfeld quickly bonded

over their mutual love of music.

They started kicking
around ideas for something

that would capture what was
bubbling under in the culture.

Lang had been spending a lot of time

in an arts community in the Catskills,

where artists like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon

and Ritchie Havens lived,

and he had a passion
for attending live shows

around the country.

- What intrigued me was Monterrey.

I was completely taken by
that event and that film.

I realized that was
something I wanted to do.

- The Woodstock Festival
didn't start out as a festival

to begin with.

Michael Lang and Artie
Kornfeld had this idea

to build a recording studio

in the town of Woodstock, New York.

Woodstock, New York had
been a bohemian community,

an artist community, since the beginning

of the 20th century.

A lot of musicians lived there, Bob Dylan,

Ritchie Havens, Van Morrison.

They were all up in Woodstock,

but there was no recording studio.

"Let's build a recording studio.

"And we can raise money
to offset the cost of it

"by inviting all those local musicians

"and we can have a party, have a concert."

Well, they approached
their business partners,

Joel Rosenman and John Roberts,

and pitched the idea of
this recording studio.

Well, they'd already
built a recording studio

in Manhattan, they had no interest at all

in doing another recording studio,

but they did like this idea of the party.

"Bring all those musicians together,

"let's do a rock festival."

- Yeah, well the first concept was

what we said the first
night, a music and art fair.

It was supposed to be the shining light

of the war babies moment.

It was supposed to be the
moment the war babies exploded

into the world and said, "Here we are,

"here's our music and here's our art.

"Here's how we feel," you know, musically

and politically and in other ways.

But music came first, the
music part came first.

We did recognize that if it did happen,

it would have a profound affect

on what was happening in
the rest of the world.

Because all of a sudden, the
powers that be would say,

"Hey, wait a minute, here's
the vote for the future

"and they're showing up in
mass and they're peaceful."

- The seeds were taking
root for this combination

of an art event, music and people.

But how would it be different?
(harmonica rock music)

- The Woodstock Festival was
not the first rock festival,

that belongs two years earlier, in 1967,

with the Monterrey Pop Festival,
the Magic Mountain Fair

and other festivals in the summer of 1967,

The Summer of Love.

But after those festivals,
rock festivals sprouted up

all over the country.

Most of them, however,
were held at racetracks,

parks that had band shells and of course,

many of them had trouble with the law.

There were gate crashers,
trigger-happy policemen

who wanted to see that these
young people were kept down.

Several of the rock festivals
that preceded Woodstock

ended up in riots.

So when Woodstock was announced

and on the lead up to
the Woodstock Festival,

local law enforcement,
in fact law enforcement

all over the State of New
York and down into New Jersey,

were quite worried about
what was going to happen

in Bethel, New York for
that Woodstock Festival.

- We had a different vision,
a completely different vision.

Our vision was to create a very positive,

a very sort of comforting
environment for the audience.

Not to present confrontation in any way.

To make it something that,
if you could imagine the best

of what this could be,
that's what you're getting.

Then you make of it what
you will from there.

So I went to Denver

and I saw the 250 cops

with riot gear sitting in the bleachers

right across from people,

waiting for somebody tryin'
to break the gate down.

So into our plan went
free stage, free kitchens.

People are gonna come without money,

give them a place to
go, give them the music,

give them the experience, why not?

So that's kind of how

I developed a lot of the
strategies for Woodstock.

- But now they needed a site.

This quiet area of Upstate
New York was not enthusiastic

about havin' a bunch of rock stars

and several thousand young people descend

on their community.

Although the Woodstock team
initially struck a deal

for a location at Wallkill,

it fell through just weeks
before the event was to kickoff.

The pressure was on,

but for Lang, there had
always been one essential.

- It was always about
going back to nature.

It was always about organic

because I thought if anything
could allow people to feel

at ease, that would be it.

- Enter Max Yasgur,

one of the area's most prominent citizens

and his 600 acre dairy farm.

His son, Sam, looks back.

- It started as a straight business deal.

The summer of '69 was a very wet summer,

we couldn't get hay in the barn.

This was a hay field.

When you have that many cattle

and you've gotta put up enough hay

to get 'em through the winter

and you can't make it yourself,
the prospect of having

to buy that amount of hay was
daunting, to say the least.

Johnny Roberts and Mike Lang came on,

I think it was a Sunday afternoon,

and said they'd like to
rent a field for three days

and this field would be appropriate

because it has a bowl-shaped topography.

Then things changed and they
changed fairly dramatically

because some of the neighbors
had a very negative reaction

to, what were then called hippies,

coming to western Sullivan County.

That bothered Dad.

I can remember him saying to one of them,

"Look, the reason you
don't want them here is

"because you don't like
what they look like.

"Now I don't particularly like
what they look like either,

"but that's not the point.

"They may be protesting the war,

"but thousands of American
soldiers have died

"so they can do exactly
what they're doing.

"That's what the essence of
the country is all about."

From that point on, he became a champion.

- Word of the festival was spreading

and this was way before social media.

Something was in the air.

- When we started this
we permitted for 50,000.

50,000 was never really the number,

the number that we worked on,

that all of my projections
were made up of were 200,000

and that's where we thought we'd max out.

When we figured toilets,

when we figured whatever we figured,

we figured something that had to work

for a crowd of 200,000 people.

The permit process went on, I think,

until three or four days before the event.

But we knew people were
coming from everywhere,

because I get calls from California,

I get calls from all over the country.

Most of that was just from
rumor, from word of mouth.

So we knew that is was gonna be immense,

we didn't know it was gonna be as immense,

but we knew it was gonna be immense.

- But there was still something missing,

namely the artists.

Now with their connections
in the music business

and a growing number of
advance tickets already sold,

Lang and Kornfeld were able

to convince some acts to sign on, some.

- In order to get some credibility,

we overpaid the first couple of acts.

I think we paid $10,000 for Starship

and the Airplane, then, yeah.

First two or three acts
that we nailed down gave

us the credibility for
it to start to roll.

- [Artie] As long as the
advertising kept running

and the site kept being built,

okay, then I could hold
people on a string,

believin' this was gonna happen.

And then once Jimi Hendrix said yes,

then the gates opened.

When Jimi said, "Yes, I'll play,"

and he's the only artist that
got like big money for then,

everybody else would play
for nothing at Woodstock,

it didn't matter.

- In Upstate New York,
the summer of '69 was one

of the wettest on record.

After losing their
original site in Wallkill,

the festival pulled up stakes, literally,

and set to work reconstructing the stage

and facilities on the Yasgur farm.

But time and the elements
were not cooperating.

- So over the weekend that

we found the site, made the deal with Max

and got the trucks rolling the next day,

we were only 23 days out, or
24 days out of the festival.

We started moving the crews up,

dismantling and reassembling
stuff in Bethel.

I think of the 23 days
that we worked up there,

or the 24 days, whatever it was,

it rained probably 20 days.

It was unbelievable the
amount of water in the ground

and it's all clay.

I remember one piece of road
across the top of the hill,

I think I put the road in
eight times and it sank.

We'd put the road in and it would sink

and we'd put the road in and it would rain

and it would sink.

Every time I'd have to
do something like that,

'cause we'd discover,
okay, we can't bury pipe,

for example, we couldn't
bury the water system,

we'd have to run across
another piece of Max's land,

I'd call up and I'd say,

"Max, I need to talk to
you about something."

I'd always get his wife on the phone

and she'd say, "Okay, come
over in half an hour."

And Max, he had a heart condition,

he'd immediately go into the oxygen tent

to get ready for my visit. (laughs)

- As tickets sales increased,

it was clear that
security would be crucial

to manage the crowds on the
way to Bethel, New York.

But cops in riot gear could
easily escalate a situation.

- The concept, I think,

in all our minds from the beginning was

to make it just a very safe,
but very embracing environment.

You needed cops.

We had a security force
that was going to be made up

of off-duty New York City cops.

So we hired a guy named Wes Pomeroy

to do our head of security.

He was head of the Crime Commission

in Washington under Nixon.

He handled the '68 Democratic
Convention in Chicago.

He had great experience
in dealing with crowds

and the right attitude.

You don't want someone

who's gonna be a macho guy just creating

those irritations

and Wes understood it all.

Somewhere there is a questionnaire form

that he used to interview
the off-duty cops with

which is just riotous,

but was designed to
find out what do you do

when somebody blows
pot smoke in your face.

(light guitar rock music)

- The Hog Farm was originally tasked

with setting up services
like a kitchen, medical tents

and trip tents to help
anybody under the influence.

But after the police were pulled,

the Farm had one more
thing added to their list.

Hugh Romney, better known as Wavy Gravy,

and Lisa Law were commune members.

- The Hog Farm commune were
a bunch of misfits all living

together helping each other out.

The Hog Farm is known for
their caring for people

that are loaded and that's
why, actually, they were hired.

They were hired in order to help take care

of any drug problems
that were going to arise.

Which did because almost everybody

at Woodstock was loaded.

- We spilled off that aircraft

and there was the world press,

standin' around, klieg lights blazin',

cameras at the hip and ready.

This reporter looks at me, he says,

"Oh, The Hog Farm, huh,
you guys are the security."

- I said, "My God, they
made us the cops! (laughs)

I said, "Well,

"do ya feel secure?"

The guy said, "Well, sure."

I said, "See,

"it's working."

- Feeding people would be another factor.

The Hog Farm was setting
up kitchens on the site.

Lisa Law went to see the investors,

Joel Rosenman and John Roberts.

- So I went to the office there

and Joel and John were there and I said,

"I need another $3,000."

And they said, "Well, what for?"

I said, "Well, so far, I've
got have of what I need

"and I need some more
money to get the rest of it

"because we're going to be
feeding a lot of people."

So I bought 1,500 pounds of bulgur wheat

and 1,500 pounds of rolled oats, too,

and currants and things for muesli.

We got trash cans to
mix our vegetables in.

Cleavers, Chinese cleavers, onion cutters

and everything to mix the food in.

That's what we ended up
mixing the muesli in was

these big trash cans.

We had to think big.

(upbeat guitar music)

- The Woodstock planners
had originally thought

they might get 50,000 people,

but a few days out with things
nowhere near being done,

people were continuing to arrive

and those numbers well exceeded
the promoters estimate.

That summer, John Conway
was a teenager working

at a local gas station.

- We had these people coming
in in these Volkswagen vans

and a lot of them didn't have any money.

They had come from pretty far away

and they were desperate for gas.

They literally were begging,

"Could we drain the
hoses into the Volkswagen

"so that we can get a
little bit further on?"

At first, I was not aware
of what was going on.

In fact, I remember people coming in

and asking for directions to Woodstock.

Not knowing anything about
this Woodstock concert

at this early point in the summer,

we were literally directing people

to Woodstock in Ulster County.

At some point in time we realized

that there was this music festival

that was supposed to be happening.

These people came very
early for the festival

and they didn't have tickets.

That's another thing that I
think a lot of people forget is

that there were really
two groups of people

who came to the concert.

There were a group that had tickets

who arrived late for the most part,

found this amazing group
of people already there

who had come early because
they didn't have tickets

and had created this
site around the festival.

So it was pretty
interesting in that regard

to see this influx into the county.

It was different kind of person
than we were used to seeing.

- I walk out and it's like
the day before the festival

and nobody's even tried to put up fences

and there's 75,000 people on the field.

I said, "What are we gonna
do, ask 'em to leave?"

- But on either Wednesday
or Thursday morning,

there were already a few thousand
kids sitting on this site.

The way it was related to me is that,

particularly Johnny
Roberts became concerned.

The thing that he did not want
was a crush against the fence

and anybody getting hurt.

So he ordered the fence taken down

and Woodstock then became a freebie.

When Woodstock became a freebie,

one of the most popular DJs of the day

who happened to have a
house up here in the county,

a fella by the name of
Bruce Morrow, Cousin Brucie,

announced on the radio that
Woodstock was a freebie

and New York City emptied out.

(upbeat '60s rock music)

- I mean, I was a little nervous.

They just came rolling in
the morning, Friday morning,

and the sky didn't look too friendly,

but as soon as the music finally started,

as soon as we got the music goin',

you could feel where the
people were coming from

and what the crowd was feeling.

You could actually feel
it, it was palpable.

I knew we were okay.

(wondrous music)

(crowd cheers)

(upbeat harmonica music)

- By the first official
day of the festival,

about 400,000 people gathered
in Max Yasgur's field.

More were coming.

There were rumors

that some of the biggest
groups might appear.

They didn't show.

John Lennon, stuck in Canada.

Dylan didn't like crowds.

Jim Morrison hated
playing outdoor festivals.

Mick Jagger was filming
the movie, "Ned Kelly".

But in the meantime, 32
other acts were making

their way to Woodstock,
or at least trying to.

Weather, time and other
issues had slowed preparations

and the delays would affect performances

throughout the entire weekend.

Around five o'clock,

an anxious Woodstock team
enlisted Ritchie Havens

to start the show.

- So here we are at the two
hotels they told us to come to,

seven miles away from the grounds,

and I'm sitting there
and I'm sitting there

and I'm looking at television,
I was sitting there,

I'm looking at television
and saying hi to somebody,

it's now 3:30 in the afternoon.

I'm going, "Uh-oh, somethin's wrong,"

because no one's come to say anything.

"What is happening?"

The next thing I know, I
hear this really loud noise,

turns out that they found
a farmer down the road

with a helicopter.

So we crammed into this
helicopter, (laughs)

two conga drums in-between
me and the guy on this side

and the other guy sittin'
a little below us.

We made it to the back of that stage

and got off the helicopter

and started to walk around backstage.

The only person I saw was
Tim Hardin, the only person.

I went, "Oh, hey, Tim is here.

"Tim, did you go on?"

"No," (laughs) "I'm not goin' on first."

I said, "Wow, I know I'm
supposed to be fifth,"

so that's what I expected.

Of course, an hour later
they started chasing me,

'cause I was running, (laughs)

every time they'd say,
"Ritchie, would you go on,

"somethin's gotta happen."

I said, "Yeah, you want it to
happen to me, right?" (laughs)

- During the course of the day Friday,

waiting for Ritchie Havens

and the delay and the delay
and the delay, or whatever,

and then looking at what
was happening around you.

Then when he finally started to play

and hearing just the roar
that came out of the area,

at that point you kinda knew

that it was somethin' different.

(dramatic music)

- Logistics were making it
tough for other performers

to make it to the site.

- I was supposed to do maybe
40 minutes, 35-40 minutes,

and when I walked off the first time,

they said, "Ritchie, you
gotta do four more songs."

(laughs) So I said, "Okay."

I went back and I did four more songs

and I walked off again.

They said, "Ritchie, three more?"

On the sixth time that
I walked back, (laughs)

for real, they said, "Just one
more, somebody's on the way."

They couldn't get anybody there.

So I went out on the stage and
you see me kind of stalling

because that's exactly what I was doing.

That long intro to what
is "Freedom", the song,

was me trying to figure out what to sing,

I've sang every song I knew.

('60s psychedelic rock)

- Yeah, I was 22 years old.

I mean, I look back at other
people who are 22 years old

and they look like
little kids or something

and it basically scared
the hell out of me.

On the other hand, once
I got off the stage,

I also knew that there was no gig

that could ever frighten me

because I had just done this one.

Because there was people, like I said,

not just the people in the field,

when we were up in that helicopter,

there was people as far
as the eye could see

in every direction, 360 degrees.

It was only a small portion of them

that was actually in the field itself.

It was just sort of like a convergence

of stuff that was goin' on.

- Credeence Clearwater Revival had been

among the first to sign a deal to perform,

but the delays pushed their start time

to three in the morning
on Saturday the 16th.

('60s funk rock music)

By Saturday, the only
way for artists to get in

and out of the festival was by helicopter.

Some didn't make it, others did.

- One of the bands that didn't show up

at Woodstock was Iron Butterfly.

They were stuck at LaGuardia Airport.

They asked for a helicopter
to get them to the festival

and by that time, with
all the traffic problems

and all the other headaches,

the Woodstock promoters just
didn't have the inclination

or the time to honor their request.

The Woodstock promoters sent a telegram

to Iron Butterfly's manager.

The first letter of each line
of that telegram spelled out

their response to the
request for a helicopter.

I'll let you fill in the blanks,

but it started with f and ended with u.

One of the glaring omissions

at the Woodstock Festival
was Joni Mitchell.

She wasn't even asked to
perform at the festival.

She had wanted to attend to
support her fellow musicians

like Crosby, Stills, Nash,
John Sebastian, others,

but her agent said, "Nope,
you can't go to the festival.

"You're scheduled to be
on the "Dick Cavett Show",

"it's an important show.

"We can't afford to have you miss that

"if you're stuck in traffic,

"or if you can't get out
of the festival in time."

Joni Mitchell wasn't at Woodstock,

but she did get the last laugh.

She wrote that famous song "Woodstock"

and even though she
wasn't at the festival,

even though she wrote that
song from a hotel room

in New York City watching
the festival on television,

more than anyone, she captured the spirit

of the Woodstock Festival in that song.

- The weather reeked
havoc with the schedule.

Michael Lang had to
rethink the entire lineup.

- It was determined, organically,

we needed acoustic. (laughs)

It was wet, it was rain, we
didn't want anybody to fry

so it was a question of who's
here, who's ready to go on

and who's acoustic?

And during the dry segments,
it was also, who's gotten in

because the roads were a mess.

It was as the bands would arrive

and as we'd have their
equipment assembled,

it was kind of who's gonna be ready to go,

and it really happened that way.

I mean Ritchie played for
probably almost two hours

'cause I wouldn't let him off the stage.

We had nobody to follow him, (laughs)

just skip shipping him back out
and he kept making up songs.

That's really how I ran the stage.

It was of necessity, it who have we got

and when can we get 'em on?

- I wasn't on the poster,
nobody intended for me to play.

I was there strictly because

this was the most happening
thing that had gone on

and I wanted to be there and see it.

I wanted to be a spectator.

But because all my friends were backstage,

I practically walked from the
helicopter to the backstage,

so people began to go, "Oh,
great, when are you playing?"

And I go, "I'm not playing,
I don't even have a guitar."

Well, it just so happened
that my old pal, Timmy Hardin,

did have a guitar and was there.

So it was somewhere in the second day,

somebody hadn't showed up yet
and it had started to rain.

So I get summoned into
the sort of war room,

there in the center of the backstage area.

Chip Monck, the voice of
Woodstock that we all remember

describing how the purple
acid is not particularly good,

asked me,

"Look,

"it's raining, we're having
trouble with the sound system,

"we're afraid to put an
amplifier on the stage.

"We're figuring we could keep
this audience's attention

"if we had a guy with one
guitar who could hold 'em.

"You're elected."

So I go to Timmy and I say,
"Timmy, I need a guitar."

He lends me a Harmony Sovereign.

This is the great workhorse guitar

for people buying
instruments for under $60.

So with that instrument and a slight buzz,

I went on

in the rain and

as it happened,

(laughs) the rain had stopped
by the time I finished.

(upbeat rock music)

- Generally when you get on a stage,

well, you never know nowadays,

but before that if you get on a stage,

even in Monterrey, you look down and

your peripheral vision took
in the entire audience.

That was impossible at Woodstock.

You had to turn your head
to see the whole audience.

It was literally an ocean of people.

I had never seen anything and
the stage was huge, humongous.

- Some of the more incendiary
performances on day two came

from Janis Joplin, The
Who, Santana and Sly Stone.

- So when he sang, "I
Wanna Take You Higher"

and then I think Chip Monck
through the lights up and down

and everybody's singin' back,

we got caught in the middle of the vibe

of half a million people and Sly.

Just to be in the middle, I mean,

I believed in these things,
there is energy and it travels.

To be in the middle of that
energy was mind blowing.

I would say that was the
highest point, you know, to me

of the festival as far
as really enjoying it.

Grace Slick, the most
vivid spark that comes out

of a lot of hazy, you know, events

that occurred during the
course of that weekend,

waking up to Grace Slick screaming out,

"Time for morning maniac music,"

then going into "Volunteers".

And crawling out of the
tent and sliding my way down

through the mud or whatever
to get a better view

of what was happening,

when I think about it, that
was one of the focal points.

- One band that probably owes its career

to Woodstock is Santana.

Santana was a young band of
really talented musicians

in the San Francisco Bay area
that were very well known

on the West Coast but had not released

their first album yet.

It was in the can, ready to be released

when they appeared on
the stage at Woodstock

and Santana exploded on the stage.

Drummer, Michael Shrieve,
banged on those drums

and created an impression.

That's widely recognized

as probably one of the best
drum solos in rock history.

Santana's shining moment

at Woodstock was "Soul Sacrifice",

it was towards the end of their set.

Carlos Santana was very high on mescaline,

or LSD, at the time

and he was havin' a hard
time keeping it together.

He's been on record as saying

that the guitar neck was
turning into a serpent

and he was struggling
to keep it in his hand

and play all the right notes.

Everybody was playing at their best.

"Soul Sacrifice" became
an anthem for Woodstock.

(hard guitar rock music)

The Who was at the top of their game

when they hit Woodstock.

"Tommy" had been released
earlier in the year,

a month before they had
started performing it publicly.

So when they hit the stage at Woodstock,

they played a couple of their old songs

and then launched right into "Tommy".

They did the entire rock
opera for an audience

that was probably very
familiar with the material.

Just as Roger Daltrey is
singing, "See me, feel me,"

at the end of the rock
opera, the sun is coming up.

(light guitar music)

- Performers on day three
included Joe Cocker,

Blood, Sweat and Tears,
Crosby, Stills and Nash

and Country Joe and the Fish.

It hadn't been planned,

but the need to constantly
shift the lineup was a bonus.

- That was a surprise.

No, just the way the first
day was basically folk music,

the second day was acts
that were really good

and the third day was
like one after the other

of killer acts, so it built up.

I think if the killer acts
had opened the first day,

it could have been bedlam,

'cause the mosh pit
might have been invented

40 years earlier, you know.

- While Crosby, Stills, Nash
and Young had recently formed,

Neil Young hadn't planned on appearing.

- I don't remember at what point
he actually walked onstage,

but I remember he walked on.

But he wasn't supposed to
be there, he just showed up.

It's a secret, guys,
I'm letting a secret out

and it's been let out, the
fact that they were only act,

'cause they were on Warner Brothers,

that overdubbed in the Woodstock movie.

They actually went in the studio,

that's not them live at
Woodstock on the record,

although the song, "Suite
Judy Blue Eyes" is one

of the classics of all time.

They were blown away,
'cause I know David, too.

So they were just blown
away, they were shocked.

David even said, he says,
"I'm scared shitless."

He says, "This is our second gig, man."

That's just what he said, you
know, and they were scared.

- Because of the delays,

what began as a three-day festival,

spilled over into part of a fourth day.

One of the quirkier moments, Sha Na Na.

- You gotta ask yourself,

how in the world did Sha
Na Na end up at Woodstock,

especially sandwiched right
in front of Jimi Hendrix,

the opening act for Jimi
Hendrix if you will.

Sha Na Na, for those of you who don't know

who Sha Na Na was,

they had a very popular syndicated TV show

in the '70s and '80s, but
they were caricatures.

They were doing '50s music
and it was a shtick for them.

And they knew it, these
guys were intelligent guys,

they were all Columbia students.

How in the world did they
get booked at Woodstock,

I don't have a clue?

Except maybe,

Michael Lang was down in
the village some night

and somebody said, "You
gotta see this group,"

and he saw 'em and said,

"Sure, you wanna come to Woodstock?"

But to put them in the bill,

the second to last act
of the entire festival,

right before Jimi Hendrix,

I would think that the brown
acid would have been doin'

its work right about then.

- And then one of the most
iconic moments of Woodstock,

Jimi Hendrix.

- Quite honestly, I was disappointed,

you know, when he first came.

He came with his manager, Michael Jeffery,

and he came on Sunday morning.

I had a house in the back of the stage,

up on a hill across the road for him,

and I said, "Look,"

and part of the deal
was he closes the show,

and again made my way back,

said, "That's not gonna be the
best spot for you. (laughs)

"You really oughta think

"about doing something at
midnight, it'll be the high point

"of the night," and blah, blah, blah.

"No, we're closing the show."

Because in those days and I
guess it's still true today,

whoever closes is the
king, that's the big act.

It's changed somewhat.

People are starting to
realize that there are spots

in the show which are better.

In any case, but they insisted
so he went up onto the hill,

and I was disappointed
about the size of the crowd.

He also had put together
a band, "Band of Gypsys",

which was kind of a pickup
band, guys from Woodstock.

Good players, you know, Juma,
a congo player, good players,

but not a great moment
in his musical career.

So the set I thought was kind of mediocre

and there are maybe 30-40,000 people left

and I felt it was a
little sad to see that.

The lights were gone

and it was sort of the
starkness of the day.

And then he did the
"Star Spangled Banner",

it just changed everything. (laughs)

That was it, it was just
one of those moments

that said it all for us.

('60s soul guitar music)

(crowd cheers)

(lively music)

- Woodstock was now over,
leaving behind a major imprint

on Max Yasgur's farmland,
not to mention the culture.

After those three-plus days,

we had crossed into something else.

Things would never be the same, ever.

- What also made Woodstock
successful was its legacy.

The promoters brought in a film crew

that documented every bit
of the Woodstock Festival

and that documentary won the
1970 Best Documentary Award

at the Academy Awards that year.

The soundtrack album, a triple album,

made the music of
Woodstock famous worldwide.

And the musicians that
played on that album

became the soundtrack of our youth.

It really was three
days of peace and music.

One of the lasting impacts of Woodstock is

on the music industry, itself.

The music industry at Woodstock realized

that there is a large, large
audience for this music

and that there's a large audience,

not just for the recorded music,

but also for the performances.

Of course, the Beatles
had played Shea Stadium,

Candlestick Park, a lot
of other large venues,

but they had the house PA,

they didn't have great sound systems.

At Woodstock there was a
custom-made sound system

for this venue.

There was attention paid
to having great sound

over a large area for a large crowd.

- That was the moment that
made all of their careers,

all of their careers.

That was Crosby, Stills
and Nash's first gig.

Could you imagine?

They made the record, it was on the radio,

and they got to sing
more than a quarter of,

or half a million people, more.

In three days, Woodstock,
the Isle of Wight in England

and Blind Faith as a band
in the park over there was

over a million and three-quarters
of people in three events.

Can't change that.

We're now looking to have that
event over and over and over,

and we have it.

It's here, it's in every
venue, you know, around

that's open to hear what people wanna do.

So to me, that's the good part.

- But what really sent a ripple out

into the ether was
something less tangible.

- It certainly was
mythological in its impact

on the people that were there.

I don't think you can exaggerate that.

You could feel that the unity

and the togetherness of that crowd,

you can cut it with a knife.

I mean, you could feel it,

people who were passing
through it could feel it,

people on the thruway could feel it.

It wasn't like some mysterious space,

I say it was a real vibe
that couldn't be denied.

- I don't know.

I don't know is the honest answer there.

I certainly felt part of the event.

A kind of a humanism that
was part of the hippie-ethos

that had a power

and I guess it did give you the illusion

of infinite possibilities.

You know, hippie's never
gonna be a bad word to me.

I don't care how out of
fashion the various lifestyle.

(laughs)

I may not have my tie-dyed Levi jacket on,

but it's on

inside.

- But this rock and roll thing,
man, this is like, (laughs)

and I don't know, it's still goin' on.

It's still goin' on and
music, global music,

is never gonna be the same.

We did it,

we did it as a generation,
as collection of people.

From the audience, to the sound mixers,

to the camera people, to those
goofball promoters (laughs)

who got this crazy idea,
to the venture capitalists,

to the great guy who's
cleanin' the toilet,

who's got a kid in the
audience and a kid in Vietnam,

we just kicked their fuckin' ass!

- What made Woodstock I think was just

a right time, just a blending
of a lot of different things

that all came together, very
much by accident, I think.

It was just, boy, a very hard one to word.

Enough people angry about what
was happening in the world.

Enough people thinking that
the potential was there

to change the world.

There was a lot of hope that went on

at that stage of the game.

It wasn't just a matter of,
"Let's go over and get wasted,"

or whatever, it was a matter of,

"Let's try to do something."

- Perhaps the most immediate
legacy of Woodstock was felt

just a few months later.

On November 15, 1969, half
a million people gathered

in Washington D.C. to
protest the Vietnam War.

I was one of them.

The collective power felt

at Woodstock no doubt had
an impact on the moratorium.

('60s rock music)

After those three days in 1969,

that same spirit would find
its way into other festivals.

One of the biggest, "Live Aid" in 1985.

I was there, too.

Two major concerts, one
held in Philadelphia

at JFK Stadium, the other
at London's Wembley Arena,

raised $127 million to fight
the severe famine in Ethiopia.

Like Woodstock, Live Aid featured some

of the biggest music acts in the world,

U2, Queen, Madonna, Paul McCartney.

16 years after playing Woodstock,

Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young reunited for the show,

so did The Who.

There would other big music
events like Coachella,

Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, Lollapalooza

and there were two more runs
at Woodstock, '94 and '99.

- '94 was great.

'94 had a real warm feeling,
it was kind of a nice bridge

between the older generation

and we had a lot of parents
came with their kids.

We had a lot of the acts from the '69 era

as well as newer acts.

'99 was much edgier.

Much too edgy, actually, as it turned out.

You wind up having to make compromises

because of corporate involvement.

I'm never one who had a
problem with art and commerce.

I always thought there was a way,

but you pay a price for it.

So I think that the purity

of what we did in 1969 was unique.

(upbeat music)

- One of the more recent
echoes of Woodstock occurred

when the students of Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School

in Parkland, Florida, mobilized

after a mass shooting at their
school in February of 2018.

Just a month later, these
high school students organized

the global "March For Our Lives" protests,

advocating for stricter gun control laws.

On a single day, 800
simultaneous protests took place

around the world.

1.2 million people
joined in, making it one

of the biggest youth protest
events since Vietnam.

Arlo Guthrie recalls the same
kind of determined thinking

from Woodstock-era kids.

- Most people I knew
just wanted to hang out.

Go to school, meet your
girlfriend, eat a pizza,

drive around somewhere, look
at a sunset or whatever,

play some music, have a good time.

Well that was true for everybody.

We thought we were normal!

And they were tellin'
us that we were nuts.

That we were criminals.

That we were acting in a way

that was contributing

to the demise

of civilization

and we knew that they were nuts.

That their way of doin' things
had got us to this point.

We thought, you know, we
gotta do somethin' different.

So everybody started doin'
things a little different.

So there was a whole lot of
young people all over the world

who said, "Enough of that,
we can always get back to it,

"but we gotta try
somethin' different here."

Maybe a little love and peace.

Maybe a little gettin' along.

Maybe a little get away from the fear

and all that kind of stuff would help.

So we actually started doin' it.

These were brave kids
who would stand out there

with flowers in their hands,

givin' them to soldiers with loaded guns.

So these were not just some wimpy kids

with nothin' else to do, these were people

who were willin' to face
even death at some point.

Because they knew that what
they were thinkin' about,

what was in their heart was
at least a better alternative

to the way things had been goin',

at a time when people begin to realize

that they do have the wherewithal,

they do have the inner strength
to do those kinds of things.

And so that will be the next revolution

that I predict we'll see is that

there'll be hundreds of thousands

and then millions of people, young people,

who decide on their own not to wait to see

what the President says,
or who he or she is,

not to wait to see what
the Congress has to say,

just in your own heart,
you know somethin' right,

you go ahead and you do it.

- I think the lasting
legacy is people being heard

and either that's through
the music that they express,

the causes that they support,

or what they speak to
power to communicate.

And the lasting legacy has
to be standing up for right.

Woodstock isn't just about
those three days in 1969,

Woodstock is a feeling that lives today

and it lives in a lot of people's hearts.

We hope that young people will look

at the legacy of the 1960s,

the legacy of the Woodstock
Festival, and ask themselves,

what do I want from the world today

and how will I get that?

- It's been 50 years since
four young entrepreneurs took

their idea for a local festival

at an obscure New York art colony

and turned it into a defining
moment of the 20th century.

Clothes may have changed, the music, too,

wars have stopped and sadly started again,

but for those that were there,
and for those who weren't,

Woodstock's impact has not dimmed.

It's felt in every
impulse to create change,

to disrupt the status quo,

to evolve both culturally and personally.

To paraphrase Joni Mitchell
in her famous anthem

about the event, "Life is for learning."

A half a century later,

the lessons of Woodstock
are still being revealed.

I'm Mark Goodman, thanks for watching.

('60s soul music)

('60s uplifting harmonica music)

('60s rock music)