Thoughts of woodstock 1969 and what it should truely mean to people who were there and wanted to be there

It was 50 years ago this week that 500,000 people gathered on a farm for what would become a iconic historical event. That's right on August 15th, 16th, 17th, & 18th we would celebrate what they would have called and still call to this day three days of peace and love at a festival called Woodstock. No one at that time realized just how historical this event would be and also had closed out the decade of the 1960s. The year 1969 would have a lot of things happen that are remembered in history some good some bad of course, the bad and the good would basically equal out on the scale for instance we finally had sent man to the moon and he walked on it, some of the bad would be we still were fighting in the vietnam war which wouldn't end for a few more years still. Charles Manson was convicted as being the mastermind behind the Sharon Tate murder and would be sentenced to life in prison. Another good thing or so most people would say it was good some might not was we had this big three day festival of peace and love and although it would be declared a disaster area by the second day, because of all the people who had came to this festival, it was proven that there was no violence for those days of the concert, that proved that the young american generation could go and have a good time but not have any sort of violence occur during those days there. The concert was originally a ticketed event where you had to pay for either 1, 2, or all 3 days each day the ticket price was a mere $6.00 a price that you could never pay again for a concert event as huge as this one was in the present day. The concert would feature many acts some brand new to the crowd and some familiar acts they knew as well, the acts would include Janis Joplin, Ritchie Havens, Country Joe and the Fish, Ravi Shankar, Sweetwater, Quill, The Who, Burt Sommers, John B. Sebastian, Santana, The Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, Johnny Winters, The Keith Hartly Band, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Ten Years After, Sha-na-na, Melanie, The Greatful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Canned Heat, and of course the big closer of the show Jimi Hendrix with his Gypsys, Sun and Rainbows band. A stellar packed bill of artists on a bill like this today if it were to happen probably would cost anywhere's from $300-$400 easily, and...and could not be replicated to be anywhere as good as this show would turn out to be for the simple fact that it was already tried two different times once in 1994 where there was some of the same scenario from the rigianl including the monsoon rain that occurred for 4 hours at the 1969 woodstock right after Joe Cocker's set was performed, and then we tried again in 1999 where we had fire set in some dumpsters, violence and let's not forget that there were even some rapes reported at Woodstock '99, so let's think about this did we honestly think that 50 years later after the original Woodstock happened that we could get lightning in a bottle again to happen like the original??? i'm not thinking so on that question, for the simple fact that yes in 1969 there was a tremendous traffic jam and people just left their cars as close to the grounds as they could and walked to the farm, we also have to remember the bathroom situation at the 1969 event was not as great as people would have thought, and let's not forget a couple of other things at the 1969 event there was a drinking water shortage, and a food shortage, but amazingly enough people had banned together and volunteered to help make sandwhiches and provided some sort of food as donations to give to that massive crowd of people, no one thought to bring coolers with food and drinks for the three days or change of clothing for the three days what happened was again there was no violence, but there were three deaths none were due to violence though one was an overdose of drugs, an appendix had bursted, and lastly a person was asleep in their sleepingbag and got ran over by a tractor, so all in all those were accidental deaths. What we've learned from Woodstock in 1969 is a few things since they've tried but never was anywhere near successful as the original and that's first off we didn't have the technology we have today like cellphones which personally i think ruin a lot of events for the simple fact that you're taking away from the artist making ticket sales for shows if you put the whole thing up online then you don't have to go and see that artist now do you? Second it was proven as I said earlier there was no crime of any sort during the 1969 attendance of Woodstock now if we were to have another Woodstock there wouldn't be enough security for such an event as even if you had 100,000 people in attendance there's no way that security could be on the lookout for everything going on in their surroundings, and lastly let's remember this old cliche saying and that's 'you can never go back to the past' which is the truest saying of all. We didn't have to wait twenty five years even to prove that Woodstock was like lightning in a bottle four months later in 1969 the rolling Stones would attempt to do a smaller scaled version of Woodstock at the Altamont Speedway in California with the same promoters and it was a horrific type of festival that i'm sure even mick jagger of the rolling Stones himself would like to forget, as they thought they'd need security for this show so they hired the "Hells Angels' as security and the turn out of that" brilliant idea" notice the words in double quotes meaning sarcasm there that it was not that good of an idea people were killed due to the security being drunk as they weren't paid in money they were paid in alcohol, you'll see how upset mick jagger was if you watch their concert documentry 'Gimmie Shelter' What the results were from Woodstock, besides three days of peace love and music, was some great music acts came out of the period at least two songs that I can recall were written about the festival the first being "woodstock" written by Joni Mitchell who was supposed to perform at the festival but her manager decided against it as he was afraid she wouldn't make it in time for her television appearance on the Dick Cavett show, and the second song written in honor of the festival was Lay down (Candles In The Rain) written by Melanie who did actually attend and performed. Can we say that there were songs written about the other two Woodstocks that happened???.....no we can not, because as i've stated it was never replicated again, and let's face it as a friend of mine says it already happened so why did we need to do it again and that friend is absolutely right about that, we never had another montery pop festival if we did no one really remembers it as it wasn't documented like the first one, where as most people think that the beatles played Shea Stadium only the one time because it was on television that's where you're wrong they played it again the following year in 1966 it just wasn't filmed and very few photos were even taken at the show i'm with most of the people who say you can't go back and personally I wasn't even there as I wasn't born yet, I wish i had been there but that's why we have the documented films from various videographers that were there, yes i know it doesn't bring you there but we can at least see what it was like for the people who were there, and if we're lucky enough maybe we can possibly meet someone who was there and they can tell you what it was like to be there, most people who've talked about it say it wasn't what everyone thought as yes in the film it looks like everyone is happy and having a good time, but in reality most people didn't come prepared for the conditions like the mud and rain storm that effected the third day of performances and made the scheduled times of the acts carry over to monday the 18th, most people left before jimi Hendrix even took the stage, so he didn't get to experience playing in front of those 500,000 people but he still played in front of a large crowd and it was approximately 40,000 people which for a concert for any artist is still impressive, but again this is why we could never go back to create another Woodstock.