The crowd at Woodstock…

One of the factors that kept the scene peaceful at Woodstock was that it rained most of the weekend. The air and earth were cooler than they might have been in mid-August in upstate New York, and this kept the people cool; and it invoked a mild sense of crisis that gathered the energy and reminded people to take care of one another. There was very little food; people came expecting a fairly well-stocked rock festival and did not bring much, while promoters and vendors were expecting an audience less than one-third the size.

But word got out. The proximity of the event to New York City, Boston and many small upstate cities provided a wide population to draw from. So many people came that the New York State Thruway turned to gridlock. People abandoned their cars and walked (noteworthy, as the Thruway comes nowhere near the festival site). This in turn created a sense of mission and the energy of the event built on itself. By the time long-traveling seekers got there, it was obvious that something truly unique in the world was happening. The fence around the pasture was never actually completed. At a certain point the promoters gave up on trying to collect money or tickets. Instead, they put their faith in the future: such as record sales and the inevitable movie.

In the spirit of Woodstock, here is yesterday’s Planet Waves subscriber edition about the chart for the event. There is a second article, written in 2007, linked from a PS at the bottom of the piece.