Woodstock at 50

By ROB PATTERSON

Wow. It’s been 50 years since Woodstock this month. Time flies indeed when you are living life.

I almost made it to the festival. Hitchhiked down Route 17 from my hometown of Binghamton. NY on Saturday morning. State police waved over the car I was riding in when we hit Monticello. I walked down a road jammed with parked cars until I was about six to eight miles from Max Yasgur’s farm, then ran into some friends sitting in their car. Hung out with them for a while until the jam started untangling and mounted police came along to tell us to get moving.

The rumors swirling by from the fest were everything from it’s a disaster area (which it was declared by he state) to The Beatles were expected to play. My two friends and I asked one another: “Wanna split?” We all said yes and headed home, and I never really regretted it. (I’ve enjoyed a splendid life since in the rock music world.) If I recall the number correctly, I was among the 200,000 or so who tried to get to the Fest and didn’t, as cited by noted rock music journalist David Fricke in the liner notes to the first “Woodstock” CD box set in 1994. The Woodstock experience went beyond Yasgur’s farm.

Most all of my friends back then who did get to the festival gave it mixed reviews: rain, mud, almost no food, couldn’t really hear the music that well unless you were close to the stage. One who was close to the stage – he is among the crowd pictured from the stage in the gatefold of the original 1970 “Woodstock” vinyl album set – spent all three days tripping on LSD and had the time of his life. After he became a casualty of the era that followed and died in his 20s after a few stretches in Attica state prison for heroin, I was glad he at least had that peak experience.

Another friend I met in my college years also had a helluva good time there. He was on a camera boom right in front of the stage helping to film the show. Also tripping on acid. (Among those with him on the crew was Martin Scorsese.)

But the truth is that the way Woodstock has been remembered since soon after has some mythic polish over the reality. Not that I wouldn’t have had a good time if I made it. Not that it wasn’t a very significant event. But memory enhancement and the media have buffed up Woodstock into the Aquarian Age golden moment that it is considered today.

The most upsetting media portrayal to me is in the film “A Walk on the Moon.” It pictures stars Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen at the fest on a verdant hillside lawn in the sun with no one nearby. For the life of me I cannot understand why the filmmaker didn’t make an effort to at least try to portray the event as it was.

One who did so is director Ang Lee in his film “Taking Woodstock.” Largely set on the roads near the fest, it was uncannily close to what I experienced. I was delighted as I read the end credits to see that a friend of mine, New York-based English filmmaker David Silver, was the film’s historical consultant. (I immediately messaged him on Facebook to say a job well done.)

When Woodstock’s 15th anniversary rolled around, I was working in music PR, and spent the day with Woodstock promoter Michael Lang and Wavy Gravy, its “Chief of Please” and a stage announcer, making the rounds of TV talk shows. (Wavy was then still known as Hugh Romney. He wouldn’t get the nickname he’s best known for until two weeks later, given to him by B.B. King at the Texas International Pop Festival, promoted by yet another friend of mine.) We arrived early to the CNN studios at the World Trade Center, and while we waited went to the observation deck atop Tower One. It’s very strange indeed to have one of my Woodstock-related memories conjoined with the tragedy of 9/11.

My how times change. Even if Woodstock wasn’t quite all in reality what it is in myth, I’d still like – to borrow and adapt a line from Joni Mitchell’s song – to get back to that muddy garden. Or even just nearby.

Populist Picks

Book: “The Road to Woodstock” by Michael Lang with Holly George-Warren – Anyone interested on how Woodstock came to be should well enjoy this memoir by the festival’s primary promoter.

Documentary Film: “ReMastered: The Devil at the Crossroads” – This doc about blues icon Robert Johnson is the first stumble in Netfiix’s excellent ReMastered series. It relies too much on animations and doesn’t even mention his recording sessions. Nonetheless it’s still worth watching by anyone who appreciates Johnson’s stunning talent and seminal place in blues music history.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2019

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