Woodstock

A detailed Summary of Woodstock

The muddiest four days in history were celebrated in a drug-induced haze in Sullivan County, New York. Music soared through the air and into the ears of the more than 450,000 hippies that were crowded into Max Yasgur's pasture. "What we had here was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence," said Bethel town historian Bert Feldmen. "Dickens said it first: 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times'. It's an amalgam that will never be reproduced again". Woodstock also closed the New York State Thruway and created one of the nation's worst traffic jams. Woodstock, with its rocky beginnings, epitomized the culture of that era through music, drug use, and the thousands of hippies who attended, leaving behind a legacy for future generations (Tiber 1).

Woodstock was the hair brained idea of four men that met each other completely at random. The counterculture's biggest bash, which ultimately cost over $2.4 million, was sponsored by John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld, and Michael Lang (Young 18). John Roberts was an heir to a drugstore and toothpaste manufacturing fortune. He supplied the money (Tiber 1). Joel Rosenman, the son of a prominent Long Island orthodontist, had just graduated from Yale Law School (Makowe

Tiber, Elliot. "How Woodstock Happened." Online. Internet. April 8, 2000. Available: http://www.woodstock69.com.htm.

Makower, Jeol. Woodstock: The Oral History. New York: Dolphin/Double Day, 1989.

The four met to discuss their idea at a high-rise on 83rd Street. Lang reminisces, "They were kind of preppy. Today, I guess they'd be yuppies" (Young 37). The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was the name that they came up with. The four had decided to have a little party- inviting only rich stars that could afford the giant cover charge to gain entrance. By the end of their third meeting to discuss the event, the party had snowballed into a "bucolic concert for 50,000 people, the world's biggest rock-n-roll show" (Obst 42). The four partners formed a corporation in March- Woodstock Ventures, Inc. The Woodstock Ventures team scurried around to find a site. The 300-acre Mills Industrial Park in Wallkill, New York, would have been perfect, but Roberts interjected, "The vibes aren't right here. This is an industrial park. We gotta have a site now". Finally, Max Yasgur's pasture in Sullivan County, appeared. He was a prominent dairy farmer, and was pleased to receive that $10,000 to rent out his fields for 4 days (Tiber 1-3).

The location had been chosen. Now the fearless foursome was on to bigger and better things. In the cultural-political atmosphere of 1969, Kornfeld and Lang knew it was important to pitch Woodstock in a way that would appeal to their peer's sense of independence. By early April, the promoters were carefully cultivating news of Woodstock in publications such as the Village Voice and Rolling Stone. The group settled on the slogan "Three Days of Peace and Music". They figured that "peace" would link the anti-war sentiment to the concert (Young 53).

After a much-anticipated wait, Friday, August 15, 1969 arrived. So many more people than

Some common words found in the essay are:
II Re-union, Sullivan County, York Thruway, Kornfeld Lang, Art Fair, Clearwater Revival, Woodstock Ventures, Ventures Kornfeld's, Michael Lang's, Peace Music, tiber 1, woodstock ventures, max yasgur's pasture, sullivan county, max yasgur's, yasgur's pasture, history tiber, traffic jams, industrial park, lang produced, kornfeld lang,

Approximate Word count = 1265
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History