Woodstock Festival 1969
The first Woodstock Festival took place from April 15-18, 1969. It did not, in fact, take place in Woodstock. It took place in the town of Bethel. Woodstock was where the festival was supposed to be, but a permit to have the festival there was unattainable. The permit was secured in Bethel for $75,000. The name was Woodstock catchy and it stuck, even though the festival was not in that location. The Woodstock Festival took place after the Martin Luther King assassination and the summer of love and in the midst of the equality movement and the Vietnam War. Young people were rebelling with their sit ins at colleges and the like. This was the time of hippies and peace lovers and rock music.
Woodstock was one of the largest rock festivals at the time. The talents featured at the festival include Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and many other famous names. The turn out to the festival was huge, over 400,000 people showed up. One of the most remarkable things about the festival was that it was surprisingly peaceful for its size. There weren’t really any significant fights or breakouts. Woodstock changed popular music and pop culture forever simply by being a rock and peace concert, allowing people to live and be together in a peaceful way. It also changed the music industry by making rock music the more popular music and increasing the popularity for more artist collaboration festivals.
Here is a link to a video of Janis Joplin to give you a feel for the festival:
