‘Woodstock 3 days of peace and music’ Is Out!

JOE COCK-ER, MAN! (with a tie-dye shirt in August, 1969)  On Friday I managed to pick up the DVD: “Woodstock-3 days of peace and music.” It`s been forty years now since the historic festival happened, that apparently changed so many things. When the documentary film came out in 1970, directed by Michael Wadleigh, I immediately went out to see it, and then I saw again until I had memorized every scene *(100 times or more!). Naturally, I got the triple LP soundtrack; some of the kids in my neighborhood, who were garage musicians such as myself, tried to learn many of the songs on the record. When Woodstock came to the Gemini Drive-In in Dallas, we had a whole caravan of kids there to experience this festival together again.

The Museum at Bethel Woods has opened now at the original site of the festival, with many exhibits about Woodstock and also about the 1960s in general. I`d sure like to get up there to see it sometime. I did meet a man once, a Vietnam Vet, who was there all three days, and he related to me his own personal stories about the event. One item I remember, which he told me about, is that he somehow lost his Volkswagon Bug there, but later retrieved it. For myself, I would say, that I loved to experience the freedom and music of the festival, because the atmosphere of own life in Dallas was so oppressive, so uneventful, and those kids seemed to breaking out of the mold of mediocrity.

The film itself was well done; there was the split screens that required you to pay attention. It`s like three or four films all going on at once. The shots from the helicopter of the whole crowd are astounding! I guess that`s why they called it a nation. The bands were in top form; I have come to the belief that Santana was the very best act. Carlos playing that red Gibson SG on “Soul Survivor” was the peak for me. But I love all the little things too, like the interviews with the town folk, the port-a-let worker, Wavy Gravy, the Jerry Garcia clip, interviews with many of the kids, and the trash-cleaning ending, with Jimi Hendrix still jamming. We are still processing this whole affair; the importance to the American Experience is still in an assessment stage. It`s still unclear how a half a million people could have congregated peacefully for three days straight?

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