Woodstock Music Festival

Woodstock Music Festival which held on 15-18 August 1969, was always considered as a counter culture history which ended 1960 decade. These were the golden times for hippies or flower generation. They used pop and rock and its frill as a free-lifestyle reference, communalistic, rebel, and politics.

Woodstock music festival was created by 4 promoters. They were Michael Lang, Joel Rosenman, John Roberts, and Artie Kornfeld. They chose Bethel, New York as a concert venue, attended by more than 400.000 audiences.

Woodstock music festival was not the first giant music festival in the United States. There was Monterey Pop in California before and watched by approximately 200.000 spectators and presented Jimmy Hendrix and Otwas Redding.

A year later, there was a Miami Pop Festival, which was also promoted by Michael Lang. And few weeks before Woodstock music festival, there was Atlanta International Pop presented Led Zeppelin, CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival), and Janis Joplin.

What Made Woodstock Music Festival So Special?

Then, what made Woodstock so special? The answer was in this article-opening paragraph: in a post factum, or post event, Woodstock music festival was the sign for the end of the flower generation era.

1960 was a very historical decade as the west was shocked by alteration. It started from rebellious ‘Beatlemania’ in early 60s. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were outposts for the pattern of ‘The British Invasion’.

Hundred musicians from England made some tour to United States every year, which considered of the final achievement. The exchange of idea, musical influence, life style, and trans-Atlantic politics, triggered the born of flower generation.

Woodstock Music Festival and Flower Generation

American flower generation started to bawl social protest since the invasion to Indo China starting from John F Kennedy until Richard M Nixon.

They jolt the transparency and credibility of government institutions especially for homeland security, since the failure at Pig Bay in Cuba, and the assassination of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The Cold War, and weapon competition against Soviet Union was just a lucrative business for military.

Flower generation critics to the authority escalated when several colleges were in turmoil and assailed by the repressive military in 1967-68. Regardless they held a peace protest. Many students died. From that year The Beatles changed their music from pop to psychedelic through the album of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Afro American Blues was become more popular and traditional protest music has been promoted their dignity by Bob Dylan.

If the British artist stroke “The British Invasion” to United States, then America exported the anti-Vietnam-war protest to London, Amsterdam, and Paris. Peace protest of the flower generation to the power in Western Europe reflected from The Beatles’s song Revolution, Rolling Stones’s hit Street Fighting Man, and John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance. And thus it was, love, peace, rock and roll became a liquid ideology from flower generation.

This ideology was summarized in Woodstock Music Festival. It organized so sudden and in messiness, but they worked so fantastic. Mass media had no care about Woodstock Music Festival which considered as a-useless-drug party. The prestigious newspaper, New York Times almost not wrote about it.

As a music festival, Woodstock was not success. The A-list artist rejected to perform-from Bob Dylan to John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, and The Doors. Several musicians performed under drug influence, and it made their performance was distorted, like Carlos Santana who took mescaline too much and The Who consumed alcohol and LSD. Even Hendrix was performed average, not because of drug, but he was lack of practice.

There were 33 artist on stage such as Tim Hardin, Arlo Gutherie, Sweetwater, Incredible String Band, Ravi Shankar, Bert Sommer, Melanie Safka, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, CCR, Grateful Dead, Canned Heat Mountain, The Band, Joe Cocker, BST(Blood, Sweat, and Tears), CSN (Crosby, Stills, and Nash), TYA (Ten Years After), Sly & The Family Stone, and Johnny Winter. Iron Butterfly was on the list, but they had been cancelled as their fanatic fans joined the group with the anarchist and vandalism.

The sound system and lightning were so awful. Jerry Garcia from Grateful Dead and Bob Weir shocked by electricity when they touched the mike. TYA had to stop twice as their voice became unlistenable to their audience. Musical instrument malfunction happened to Stephen Stilts-CSN guitarist, BST, and Sly & The Family Stone.

American-contemporary-history expert, Bert Feldman named Woodstock music festival as a part of cultural lexicon describing hedonism of flower generation.

According to Feldman, Woodstock was once in a life time event in life. The best and the worst memory all it once-and it was unrepeatable cultural experience. Was Woodstock ended the golden times of flower generation, and also an anticlimax?

The Beatles ended their journey not so long before Woodstock, the bombing of Cambodia and Vietnam had done by 1968-elected President Nixon was getting more brutal, and president candidate from Democrat, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in California.

The ideology of flower generation was stabbed at back by profit-oriented-music commercialization. They had beaten by heavy metal music like Led Zeppelin or Cactus, progressive rock by Frank Zappa or ELP (Emerson, Lake, and Palmer), and glam rock by David Bowie and Alice Cooper.

Flower generation was replaced by 1970 generation which claimed as “The-Me Decade” because they were more “that-so-me”, political, apathetic, and fatalistic. Not so long after Woodstock, a free concert was held in Altamont Speedway, California, in December 6^th 1969. It claimed as “West Woodstock’ to compete New York, the East Coast.

Altamont image was disgraced by the murdered of Meredith Hunter committed by Hell Angel’s member when Rolling Stones was on the stage closing the concert. Before Rolling Stones, there performed Carlos Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and CSN.

Altamont Concert often contrasted with Woodstock music festival. If Woodstock representing peace and love, the fact of Altamont was a conclusion chapter from hippie era and a symbol of death of the state of Woodstock.

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