I wanted to put up more Woodstock videos, but I guess enough is enough. It's actually starting to be something of a drain, having so many YouTube videos in a row. Those things have some pull to them it seems. If anyone wants to see more, there are plenty more posted on the site-Grateful Dead, The Band, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ten Years After, Janis Joplin, and many more. Although a great many other musical icons of the sixties did not attend, there were more than enough to amount to what was probably the greatest assembly of raw musical talent to ever occur at one time and one place up to that point.
This of course was a big factor as to why the festival was such a success, but by no means was it the only factor. By all rights, the thing should have been an unmitigated disaster. It was a logistical horror show, frankly. There was far too little available water, food, and bathroom facilities to accommodate the multitudes of people who showed up, which was more than twice the number expected.
Yet, for all the potential problems, there were only two deaths. One of these was the result of a heroin overdose. The other didn't even occur on the property, but was the result of some hapless soul sleeping in an adjoining field being run over by a tractor.
Otherwise, though there were several bad trips due to acid, there were no significant injuries, and the weekend was overall peaceful.
I don't think the festival was a success in spite of the many problems, but because of them. The rain was probably the decisive factor. Had it not rained and had it also been a few degrees hotter, that along with the lack of sanitation and scarcity of food, with the prevalence and availability of drugs, might well have contributed to a disastrous weekend.
It was an event which could never in a million years be replicated, nor should any ever under any circumstances make the attempt. Oh, of course there have been Woodstock commemorative type festivals, but that is hardly the same. Going to one of these highly commercialized events is all well and good, and I do not discourage it by any means, but by the same token, attending a "Woodstock 2019" fifty years after the first could no more give you a legitimate feel for the experience of the original than attending a Civil War battle re-enactment could give you anything close to the feel of what it must have been like to have participated in the actual Battle of Gettysburg.
Some things just can't be planned, and in fact, it was the free-wheeling nature of the festival and the hopeful mood of the participants, the bands as well as the audience, that made it what it was. No one knew what they were getting into here. If they had known what the conditions would have been like, most probably would not have attended and not given the decision a second thought.
But once they were there, they could but make the most out of what could have been a horrid situation, and they made history. There were many people taken into special teepee type structures in order to bring them down from the experience of a bad trip. Once they recovered, most of them hung around to assist with others who experienced the next bad trip.
Well meaning locals and others attended and supplied extra food and blankets. The state police attended the festival, but harassed no one. They managed to remain a calming, possibly stabilizing presence without being obtuse. They did not pursue drug arrests, but simply watched over the crowd and otherwise left them in peace.
The relative lack of planning along with the unexpected elements of food and water scarcity, lack of sanitation and bathroom facilities, and the bad weather-at one point during the festival it rained in what one participant described as coming down in buckets-that made the festival goers pull together and unite, but not just to make it through the ordeal, but to enjoy it as they had intended to do. Again, the drugs and the music helped immensely.
You just can't plan something like this. It just happens. Things just all come together in a natural kind of way, and when it does, you find yourself swept up and away into it. You become a part of history in the making. That was the true magic of Woodstock.
