http://www.cw.ua.edu/perception-of-woodstock-differs-from-reality-1.1864362
By Peterson Hill
September 3, 2009
The 1960s are almost alien to a contemporary train of thought. It was
a decade of breaking apart and coming together, a decade of politics
and revolutionary action. It was impossible to go through the 60s
with any sense of apathy. Your haircut said if you were with "us" or
"them." It was an era of divisiveness and hope.
In 1969, in the mid-August heat of Bethel, N.Y., there was a concert
that defined a generation. Only a year earlier had there been the two
assassinations that changed the political and cultural landscape of
America. When Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were
murdered, the nation changed from one of hope to a nation on the
brink of implosion.
That same year, there would be the patriotic, or infamous, depending
on who you ask, act of Tommie Smith and John Carlos making the signal
of the Black Panther party during the medal ceremony at the Mexico
City Olympics. And, there is no way to separate the '60s from the
mass riots at the Democratic National Convention in 1968 and the
brutal force that Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago police force used to
quash those protesters.
The decade had reached the boiling point. The youth were as hopeful
as they were dejected, as angry with the system as our founding
fathers. When news broke of a concert festival in the middle of a New
York farm, there was no way to estimate the attendance. The early
projections of 50,000 attendees were blown away. There is no way of
knowing just how many people attended.
Jim Hall, director of New College, said the concert offered some type
of community for the youth.
"Historical judgment on it is still up in the air," Hall said. "The
ostensible anti-authoritarian way, the climbing of fences to get in
without paying was just part of the shtick."
Today, much of the debate centers on how the concert was operated.
"How do you operate an improvised space for 100,000 people?" Hall asked.
Eric Weisbard, professor in the American studies department with a
specialty in popular music, said that, perhaps because of this,
"Woodstock isn't the model for rock events. It moved to arena rock."
In a lot of ways, Woodstock seems to have been the last great
concert. The modern spawn of it, such as Coachella and Bonnaroo, are
much more orchestrated and thought out than Woodstock.
There was something spontaneous about Woodstock. Even though there
was a dollar to be made, there wasn't the same overarching
consumerism put on display that there is with something like Bonnaroo.
Unlike those festivals, Weisbard says, "Woodstock has this image of
rock Camelot. The vision of rock that didn't quiet happen. What does
it say that this festival of peace and love was practically racially
segregated?" Weisbard asks.
Of all the performers, there were only three black acts: Richie
Havens, Jimi Hendrix and Sly and the Family Stone. Of these, Jimi
Hendrix is probably the one most people associate with the event. His
performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" is about as patriotic an
act that any musician has done with the song. Also, Havens'
performance of "Freedom" has a deeply patriotic bent to it.
However, Sly and the Family Stone was possibly the pinnacle
performance of the entire event. It was a wild and raucous show that
is just as much about the music as the integrated band on stage.
There are few bands in the history of music that can produce that
type of energy. It still baffles many as to how this performance
isn't as widely renowned as some of the others. For those who don't
believe, just watch their performance of "I Want to Take You Higher."
Weisbard said one of the trends that came from the festival was the
emergence of the singer/songwriter. People like Neil Young and Janis
Joplin really grew from the experience of Woodstock.
"The notion of the singer/songwriter really emerged… rock was
becoming more pastoral, and Woodstock feeds that," Weisbard said.
Hall said it is interesting how the conservative right and
evangelical Christians don't look upon Woodstock with as much
vitriolic hatred as certain other events of the 1960s.
"There is a core conservative value to it," Hall said. "It wasn't a
particularly political moment.
"If you surveyed the crowd there would be a mass anti-war sentiment,
but in '69 there was plenty of that going around," Hall said.
Both Hendrix and Havens' performance keyed in on the idea of America.
Hendrix, through his own interpretation of the song that brings all
Americans together, and Havens, on a song about what it means to truly be free.
Hendrix performance wasn't cynical, but was birthed out of his right
to interpret "The Star Spangled Banner" as he saw fit. It was a
version that, in many ways, defines the distance people felt from
each other in those days. There is almost violence to it, an
unraveling of the beliefs that the country held.
Ultimately, the reason people really came was to experience something
with people who had similar values. People came from everywhere to
experience something with their own generation, the culture they had created.
In the end, there are two Woodstocks: the cultural myth that we have
created, and the actual event. There will always be a divide between
what was and what we perceive.
It's hard to imagine that only two months before, there was an entire
community turned to see man land on the moon. There was a moment that
will be remembered for as long as we exist. People touched ground
that seemed unattainable.
Then, on the muddy banks of a hamlet in New York, there was something
else that was beautiful. It was one generation's way of closing their
decade. Their parents had the moon, while they had each other.
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