Woodstock rock schlock
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/86076-Woodstock-rock-schlock/
Fun Fair of peace, pot, pop, & pooped people
By KEN EMERSON
July 23, 2009
This article originally appeared in the August 27, 1969 issue of the
Boston Phoenix
--
"And now we bring you a special message from the president of
Woodstock Enterprises, Inc.: 'Good afternoon. I would like to address
all those people driving to White Lake and the Aquarian Exposition. I
realize that you've been on the road a long time, you're tired, and
you've paid good money for tickets, but please, turn around and go back home.'"
That was on our car radio two hours before the first concert was
scheduled to begin. The president of Woodstock Enterprises, Inc.
sounded queasy. Fifteen miles from Bethel and White Lake the traffic
was just beginning to slow down. When the hitch-hiker we'd picked up
allowed as how he didn't particularly care for rock 'n roll but
thought he'd go anyway and asked what "Aquarian" meant ("Well, you
see, Jesus was a Pisces and..."), we began to get nervous. Who wasn't
going to Woodstock?
This was all in the heart of the Jewish resort area all those
places like Grossinger's (WELCOME JERRY LEWIS) which advertise in the
Sunday Times, plus a lot, dingy and ramshackled, that don't. And as
we became more and more bogged down, more and more chubby
vacationers, trundled their folding lawn chairs right out to the edge
of the road to watch the freaks inch by, slouching to Bethel. The
kids giggled and flashed timorous "V" signs. We assured them we
didn't bite. Parents tsk-tsked amusedly they should live so long
and dreamed of Florida. The last two miles to White Lake took over an
hour, as hawkers peddled lemonade and papers (the Village Voice and
Zig Zag) from car to car and it began (apologies to Ron Robin) to
drizzle. I needed to go to the bathroom. I did it on the road.
Bethel was, well, beleaguered. Stripped stores. Camaros in the
delphiniums. We abandoned our panting Barracuda and ran to escape the
housewife who wanted to charge us $15 to park there overnight. The
drive from Boston had taken us eight hours. AAA had estimated five.
Had we not taken some sneaky back roads as we neared Bethel and
those too were soon afterwards impassable I would have been behind
the wheel yet another two.
It was a four mile hike to "the unspoiled splendor" of those
"hundreds of acres to roam on." We felt like extras in Ben Hur, two
among hundreds of viscous thousands, oozing, but jauntily, along a
narrow, car-clogged road. Molasses trying to suck its way through a
straw. Some lost heart at the very onset. One modish couple who had
flown from New Orleans and rented a car in New York took one look,
turned around, and crawled back to J.F.K. New Orleans must have
seemed awfully inviting to the summer residents who lined the runnel,
shaking their heads and trmebling for their Chryslers and their
daughters. One matron slapped her son smartly 'cross the rear and
snapped, "Shut up, or I'll send you back to the bungalow." And then
he would have missed the show. What was remarkable about this rag-tag
horde, and what allayed even the property owners' fears, was the
extraordinary good humor of the crowd, though mud-spattered and
loaded down with sleeping bags, guitars, tents, and dope. It was a
frolic. Yankee troops marching to the first battle of Bull Run must
have felt much the same.
We arrived to find Sweetwater's vocalists engaged in a shouting match
which generated little excitement. What generated much disappointment
were the discoveries that "cokes and hotdogs and dozens of curious
food and fruit combinations to experiment with" were out of sight and
over-priced, that there was no water (we brushed our teeth the next
morning with concentrated grape juice), and that Sweetwater was
shouting because that was the only way to make one's self heard by
450,000 people. That boded no good for Tim Hardin, the Incredible
String Band, Joan Baez, Ravi Shankar, and Arlo Guthrie, all of whom
were scheduled to appear that evening. After all, Joan's no Janis
Joplin, nor Arlo a Wilson Pickett.
The enormity of the crush there's no way to describe it. There were
almost five times as many people at the Aquarian Exposition as live
in the entire city of Cambridge. The six hundred acre dairy farm was
like one immense Sunday afternoon concert on the Cambridge Common,
except that we couldn't hear the music. It was impossible to listen,
impossible to see, impossible to move. The thousands who had come
days in advance had been able to enjoy the pastoral peace the hype
had promised, but by Friday the fields were choked with cars, tents,
sleeping bags, bodies, and litter. Garbage cans were scarcer than
hen's teeth at Woodstock. And like a mosquito in your bedroom late at
night, the racket of helicopters could not be ignored. Only by air
could the performers get in or could people needing medical attention get out.
We'd never seen or smelled more dope. Not all of it was good at one
point we and several hundred other people walked over a kid writhing
on the ground, sobbing and screaming for help and thorazin. But much
that was good was freely shared, and you could have cut that funny
familiar smell with a knife. That there was only one fatal o.d. over
the weekend was a miracle. No busts, by the way, were made at the
Exposition, but many were hit on the way there.
It was another hike, forty-five minutes through the densest crowds
yet, to our campsite, and because of the darkness an even longer one
back to the music. The stage was elevated and at the bottom of a hill
which had been grassy a week before. We had to sweep away the rubbish
to plop our sleeping bags down in the mud. From where we were, as
close as we could get without splitting up and abandoning all hope of
ever leaving to see a friend, scrounge some food, or take a leak, the
stage could not be seen and Tim Hardin could not be heard. Ditto Ravi
Shankar, during whose performance it began to rain once again. Hard.
There was a lot of shrieking and scurrying about, and we crawled
under our neighbor's shower curtain and fell asleep. We were eight.
One shower curtain. I awoke about 1:30 as my legs started to float
away, and there was music! The tage end of Arlo's set. Enough people
had fled or dozed off that through the rain you could hear him and
Joan Baez, who followed. Never a fan of hers, I soon konked out again.
Saturday morning at seven, rain still sputtering down and the radio
forecasting more of the soggy same through Sunday, we started the
bed-raggled trudge back to our car. We didn't get home until six that
evening, and for every one of us who staggered away, five more piled
into the wallow.
You've read the papers. They were right when they called the weekend
a social success, for 450,000 people in the most wretched if
circumstances proved that they were human beings. The local
citizenry, deprived of gasoline, food, and peace, were wonderful, as
were most of the cops. Even the promoters, already hounded out of two
towns and desperately working against the clock to stage the festival
at White Lake, did the best they could. The vibrations or what have
you were beautiful. But there must be a better way? Why not several
mammoth parking lots, far away from the scene, with buses running to
and fro? This goes for Newport, too. And some sort of assigned
seating pardon the elitism and limitations of the numbers of
people. A festival simply cannot work with such vast hordes. But even
then, are fiascos such as Denver, Newport, and Woodstock worth it?
Will the magic of Monterey ever be recaptured? It appears doubtful,
though this article is being written prior to San Francisco's Wild
West thing. Festivals feature too many musicians playing sets that
are too short before crowds that are too many. Communication, and
what is more important, communion, are impossible. And communion is
what our music claims to be about.
--------
How much rock would a Woodstock stock if
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/86075-How-much-rock-would-a-Woodstock-stock-if/
Three-day festival of peace and music
By ELEANOR WEBER
July 23, 2009
This article originally appeared in the July 23, 1969 issue of the
Boston Phoenix
--
Can a Pop Festival, in its first year, find happiness and success as
a "three-day festival of peace and music"? Can the Woodstock Music
and Art Fair present "An Aquarian Exposition" in Wallkill, N.Y.
August 15-17 and avoid the riots and near-riots which have plagued
the Newport (California and Rhode Island) Festivals, and which caused
the town of Newport, R.I. to cancel the premiere of Blind Faith? Can
Woodstock Ventures, Inc. "do something right"?
Hopes are high among the quartet of rock entrepreneurs John
Roberts, Joel Roseman, Michael Land, and Arnie Kornfeld who think
they can succeed where George Wein, Newport promoter, has not.
"Sure, we're worried, because you always worry when there are that
many people," says sales representative Salvatore Scaltro. The
festival has collected $225,000 in ticket subscriptions so far: "no
festival has ever done the advance sale this one has," says Mr.
Scaltro. There will be an anticipated crowd of 100,000 fans per
night. (Brochures are available by writing Box 966, Radio City
Station, New York. Tickets are on sale in Boston at Krackerjacks,
Headquarters, Freaque, Boutique.
The problem of handling overflow crowds is one that has seriously
plagued the Newport Festivals. Woodstock Ventures hopes to correct
some of the tension-making situations in advance. Space will be
available and easily accessible. The festival promoters have
appropriated 60 acres of land in Wallkill (6 miles from Middletown, N.Y.).
The site was moved from Woodstock in consideration of city
ordinances. There will be approximately 12 gates where tickets will
be sold, but the crush at the gate to get in to the concert will be
eliminated by transporting people from the parking lot to the music
site via a fleet of 120 buses.
"Everything we'll need is on the grounds," according to Mr. Scaltro.
About 200 acres have been allocated for camping sites, and some area
hotels and motels have agreed to welcome the crowd. At the festival
site electricity and sanitary facilities will be provided, and there
will be concessions selling everything from food to clothing to
camping equipment. There will even be an information and service
booth to accommodate people with problems and complaints.
To facilitate the performances, experts have been working for the
past three weeks to perfect the sound system that will carry sound
reasonably but audibly over the hill area where the stage will be
raised. There will be no seats, with space on the grass available on
a first-come basis. The stage itself will be on an incline, enabling
all to see as well as hear, according to Mr. Scaltro.
A private security force of 350 off-duty police will be employed by
Woodstock Ventures, who have been working with the governor's office
in adopting recommended security measures. To insure the actual
accomplishment of the idyllic festival the Woodstock boys have in
mind is no easy matter the wilder groups (such as the Doors) were
not invited: "We want the kids involved in the music," not be incited
to violence by the pandemonium.
In "trying to keep in as close contact as possible with the people,"
Mr. Scaltro sees Woodstock Ventures as planning a festival "not for a
festival's sake" but for the creation of a happy, music-filled
weekend. Good luck!
Luck threw the Woodstock boys a curve last week in the form of
protest from the Wallkill town fathers. But, Woodstock Ventures
issued a statement assuring rock fans that the Festival will indeed
be held. A statement from the organization follows:
John Roberts, president of Woodstock Ventures, stated categorically
today that the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, to be held in the town
of Wallkill, N.Y. will go on, as scheduled, Aug. 15-17.
Roberts noted, "Statements to the contrary that have been made by the
Wallkill Town Zoning Board of Appeals, Assistant Town Attorney Joseph
Owen, and other individuals, are entirely false. Accordingly, we have
instructed legal counsel in New York City and in Wallkill to
institute damage proceedings and to provide relief from this
offensive and dishonest harassment. Never in the history of an
outdoor event of this kind have such massive and thorough
preparations been made for the security and well-being of everyone in
attendance.
"The staff we have assembled is composed of nationally recognized
experts in safety, security, sanitation, and parking. Wes Pomeroy,
chief of security for Woodstock Ventures, was associate administrator
of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, U.S. Dept. of
Justice, and director of the office of Law Enforcement Programs until
June, 1969. Prior to that he was a special assistant to the Attorney
General of the U.S. for Law Enforcement. He was in the office of the
Sheriff of San Mateo County, California, for 16 years (8 of them as
Under-Sheriff). In that capacity he planned, organized, and directed
outside policing and internal security for the 1964 Republican
Convention at the Cow Palace.
Mel Lawrence, who is responsible for the health and welfare of the
patrons of the Fair, performed administrative functions for the
following Popular Music Festivals (among many others): Magic Mountain
Music Festival, Mount Tamaltaif, Calif. (40,000 attendants); Newport
Pop Festival, Orange County, Calif. (110,000); Miami Pop Festival,
Hallandale, Fla., (100,000). "At no festival at which I have been one
of the directing forces has there been a security or health
disturbance. In all my experience I have never seen as much time,
money and effort spent on health and security precautions for a
festival as is being spent for this Fair," said Mr. Lawrence.
John Fabbri, security consultant to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair,
has been chief of police of S. San Francisco for 9 years, and is
responsible for traffic consisting of a quarter of a million cars a
day. He was also commissioner to the Governor of the State of Calif.
On Peace Officer Standards and Training, and was consultant to the
U.S. Dept. of Justice, President's Crime Commission 1996, and to the
International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Affadavits have been filed with the Supreme Court of the State of New
York, John Roberts indicated that "the legal battle resulting from
the untrue and damaging statements will probably still be going on
long after the Fair is a happy memory."
.
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