Forty years ago, hundreds of thousands of people descended on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York to enjoy "3 Days of Peace & Music."
Over a period of three days, the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival tapped in to all the raw emotion, all the confusion, and all the struggles of the Sixties and gave young people a moment in history to show that they could come together in a time of war, inequality, and despair in a broken society.
I did not live through Woodstock, but part of me has always been drawn to and spellbound by the festival---its music, the people in attendance, the turmoil and historical events surrounding it.
Michael Lang, a man who is partly responsible for developing the concept of Woodstock, went ahead with plans after contemplating the state of his generation. He ultimately decided to celebrate the social movements of the Sixties by organizing a music & arts festival.
Lang intended to show that a generation could believe in one another. He wanted hundreds of thousands of people to come and just enjoy the music and participate in something that was about "ideas and music interwoven through their lives." He wanted them to experience a festival that they could "hang [their] hope for change" on.
When I think of Lang's success, I'm stricken with jealousy and cynicism. Not just because my generation's music is a lot of bullshit---auto tunes for the masses---but because as I imagine what it would be like if somebody in my generation organized a Woodstock I am disappointed.
I imagine what it would be like if today I had heard about a music & arts festival and was on the road to Woodstock and think that I would not come away with the sense of pride and rebellion that hundreds of thousands of people came away with after that event was over.
Nowadays, LiveNation and Ticketmaster would sell the tickets through their service. Woodstock tickets were $5 or $6 a day (and as more and more people arrived, it became free for tens of thousands of people). The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Camping Festival (which seems to be modeled after Woodstock) costs at least $200 to attend the festival.
Probably, members of the counterculture in my generation wouldn't pay that much. And iwouldn't pay that much either---$25/ticket or whatever the price would have to be to cover all the costs of logistics would be all I would be willing to pay and nothing more.
Inevitably, there would be problems with the location (whatever that location would be). The city it was held in and its zoning commission and politicians especially asswipe conservative Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats wouldn't want it to happen fearing problems with security, water, sewage, traffic, etc. They would be afraid of hundreds of thousands of young people coming together.
This wouldn't be unique to the time. Woodstock Ventures ran into this problem in Walkill,. A Concerned Citizens Committee (CCC) organized and gathered signatures on a petition to stop the festival arguing "citizens fear for the health, welfare, and moral well-being of the community and festival visitors as well."
What would be different is that now all the fears and paranoia would bounce around in a vacuum on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC and the blogosphere (like health care rumors are bouncing around). Stories would air comparing this festival to Woodstock and misinformation would definitely be spread.
Also, the anxiety that has been perpetuated by the idea that somehow Americans live in a post-9/11 world would infect the festival's atmosphere. When the concert occurred, there would be security checkpoints, tight supervision by authorities (police and possibly even military), and lots of press who would be preying on the event searching for controversy.
My generation, Generation Y, is bought off by gizmos and gadgets. You would have tens of thousands of people with cell phones, text messaging and possibly Twittering. The iPhones would be out and people would be updating their Facebook status like crazy.
How many people do you think would be live blogging and letting everybody know what is happening instead of cutting loose and having a good time? I admit I would find it difficult to not write a blog post at the end of each day of the festival.
Would this event even be a counterculture event? Those attending Woodstock were making a political statement during clashes over civil rights, women's rights, Vietnam and taking on issues of sex and drugs that were societal taboos. They were standing up to prejudices against their generation.
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