That's what makes the 40th anniversary of the 1969 Woodstock festival so compelling. Just think of what a different place the world is today. The long-haired, tie-dyed, VW bus-borne idealists who swarmed Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York on that hot and muddy summer weekend became the moms, dads, lawyers, teachers, engineers and artists who are now about to (if they haven't already) retire and live out the next 40 years looking at the world much differently than when peace, love and flower power reigned. Put that in your Pay-Pay and smoke it!
The Celebrations of Woodstock
Past anniversaries have fallen somewhat short in recapturing the spirit of the original event. The tenth anniversary in 1979 was marked by performances from several of the artists who were at the original festival. The problem was that the venue was Madison Square Garden, where it was .. how should I put it? ... IMPOSSIBLE to recreate the atmosphere of the original.The 20th anniversary celebration in 1989 was staged at the original site, but was hastily planned, not promoted, and was almost totally devoid of anyone who was even remotely connected with the original event.
In 1994, the 25th anniversary, the venue was an empty field about 100 miles north of New York City. You could count on the fingers of one hand the artists performing who had been there in '69, and have fingers left over.
1999 - 30 years out - another random upstate New York location. More than 200,000 attend, MTV covers it, it's live on pay-per-view, but its place in history is carved by oppressive heat, rampant violence, arson fires, $12 pizza slices and a grand total of ZERO bands who had performed at the original festival.
Celebrating 40
On the site of what used to be Max Yasgur's dairy farm (actually, Yasgur died in 1973, just four years after the event that put his name in the history books) the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts opened in 2006. It quickly became a major concert venue. Concerts in the summer of 2009 include Chicago, Earth Wind & Fire, Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, Doobie Brothers, Bad Company, and, on August 15, Heroes of Woodstock, including Levon Helm (ex-The Band), Jefferson Starship, Ten Years After, Canned Heat, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Mountain, Tom Constanten (ex-Grateful Dead) and "Country Joe" McDonald -- all performers at the original Woodstock festival 40 years ago.In 2008, the Museum at Bethel Woods opened, at the same site as the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. This co-attraction at the site of the original festival is devoted to interactive displays recalling Woodstock and explaining its place in our cultural and musical history.
The Brooklyn Connection
Seemingly oblivious to the events at the original Woodstock site, two of the event's original organizers, Michael Lang and Joel Rosenman, have been trying (in vain, for obvious reasons) to put together a Woodstock tribute show in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Excuse me ... Brooklyn? Mind you, I have nothing but love for Brooklyn -- I have close relatives and several present and former professional colleagues who live there and love it -- but ... Brooklyn? For a Woodstock celebration? I'm having trouble coming up with much confidence that it will happen.The 40th anniversary of Woodstock may bomb just as badly as the rest, but I have a feeling about this one. Finally, the moon is the seventh house, Jupiter aligns with Mars, and peace will guide the planets. And suddenly it's not so hard to conjure up that idealistic (albeit unrealistic) view of life that transformed Woodstock 1969 from a weekend music festival to a history-making event.
