Remembering Woodstock

Woodstock 1969: THE seminal rock-and-youth-culture event of the ages.

Are you old enough to remember it?

If not, maybe you’ve seen the movie, “Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music.”

A fabulous film spotlighting what came to be known as “the Youth Counterculture.”

I wasn’t there, but I do remember it happening in upstate New York. I, however, was on the other side of the country that August weekend.

Me and three friends were in California – four young guys (I was 19) from Iowa on a Grand Road Trip to visit the Golden State where there were beaches, palm trees and girls waiting to be inspected.

Oh, and one other thing: the Manson murders. They happened while we were there in Southern California, although we -- of course -- were in no danger.

In retrospect, I wish we had gone east instead of west and maybe been part of that historic weekend. Because, as the movie shows, it was epic in so many ways. The venue was filled with guys around my age sweating the draft -- worried about being sent to fight and maybe die in Vietnam.

Many were growing their hair out for the first time to show solidarity against the war, trying marijuana (and some less harmless drugs) to expand their consciousness while rejecting the materialism and the “love it or leave it” mentality of America at the time.

And here we are, 53 years later -- this month -- wondering how much has changed.

Well, a lot, I guess.

The anti-war sentiment expressed at Woodstock ‘69 eventually led to the end of the Vietnam war, but it took six more long bloody years to happen. And guess what? A united Vietnam today is doing fine and has NOT become a Communist stronghold -- as our leaders were predicting at the time.

Some kids and young adults still grow their hair long, but not nearly as many. That idea of “letting your freak flag fly,” as articulated by the singer David Crosby, has pretty much flown away.

Today, people with long hair rarely get ridiculed -- or physically threatened and beaten -- as happened in 1969.

And that's a good thing.

And materialism? Unfortunately, that’s still part of our cultural landscape and – sadly – young people are often in the vanguard of that, obsessed with cool clothes and cars and smartphones and the latest digital toys.

Woodstock ‘69 was probably the high point of the "Peace and Love" counterculture, as ensuing years brought dangerous drugs and a growing loss of innocence to American youth.

Woodstock ‘69 organizers decided to throw another three-day festival 25 years later at Woodstock 1994. It turned out OK, but I thought the music lineup was far inferior to the original.

Still, the movie of that event shows a fairly peaceful, muddy gathering and – like the original Woodstock – people still found ways to sneak in and avoid buying tickets.

And just have fun.

That came to a screeching halt when organizers threw a third Woodstock in 1999 – 30 years after the original. It was held in an abandoned Air Force base with a solid, unbreachable wall around it.

“Trainwreck: Woodstock ‘99” is a documentary now airing on Netflix, and it shows why that festival was the death of the Woodstock Dream. First, tickets for that event cost $150 ($255 in today’s dollars) so it wasn’t cheap to get in.

As it was a former military base, much of the compound was concrete instead of the fields of grass at the two previous events. It was a very HOT weekend, and the expanses of concrete exacerbated the heat and discomfort.

Organizers failed to secure enough affordable food and a reliable water supply. Porta-potties weren’t serviced adequately, and the putrid stench from overflowing units permeated the area.

To top it off, organizers invited several raging, angry bands of the time, who constantly fired up a pissed-off crowd. And the cherry on top? Candles were handed out on the last night apparently in a naive attempt to recapture that Woodstock sense of hope for a better future.

Instead, some attendees began lighting fires around the compound, turning it into a blazing conflagration of senseless destruction.

Yeah, a total downward spiral from the “Peace and Love” Woodstock ‘69 to the fires and fury of Woodstock ‘99.

Could the senseless rage and destruction of Woodstock ‘99 have been avoided?

I think so, but too many mistakes were made by organizers of the previous two events, who stupidly chose a terrible, impersonal site to hold it; did not provide the security and services needed; and brought in bands almost guaranteed to light the fuse of attendee frustration.

All I can say is: If you haven’t already done so, check out the original Woodstock movie to recall why it was successful and memorable and seemed to signal – for a brief moment – the possibility of what could have been.