Peace, love and music: Woodstock kicked off 57 years ago today
Aug. 15, 1969. Half a million people. Three days of music. Mud, rain, freedom, peace, love … and a whole lot of unforgettable moments.
Take a look at these photos from Woodstock 1969 and you can almost feel it — the clothes, the crowds, the smiles, the spirit of a generation that came together for something bigger than themselves. 🎶☮️❤️
Beetle nap
Passerbys look on in this picture as two Woodstock attendees nap on the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle.
Woodstock Festival
Crowds gather at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in Bethel, New York, on the land of farm-owner Max Yasgur in August 1969. The festival organizers expected around 200,000 people, but close to half a million guests showed up for three days of music and mud.
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Joan Baez
Joan Baez closed the first day of Woodstock in 1969 and almost instantly achieved a new level of fame with her standout performance. A decade earlier, at only 18, she had performed at the Newport Folk Festival. Throughout her career, Baez has been a champion for civil rights and humanitarian causes, and in 2015, Amnesty International awarded her its top honor—the Ambassador of Conscience Award—for her continuing leadership and efforts in this arena.
‘Woodstock’ (1970)
- Director: Michael Wadleigh
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 184 minutes
Michael Wadleigh’s Oscar-winning documentary, covering the epic three-day love and music festival held in Bethel, New York, in 1969, features split-screen technology to show what was happening on stage while also revealing what was happening off, like traffic jams and sex. Legendary film director Martin Scorsese served as an editor and assistant director alongside editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who would go on to a decades-long collaboration with the director.
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"Woodstock: Music From the Original Soundtrack and More" by Various Artists
- Year released: 1970
- Album length: 139 min.
It is considered by many to be the ultimate music festival of all time. In August 1969, hundreds of thousands of music lovers, peace seekers, and believers in love descended upon a small farm in upstate New York to watch some of the biggest names in music take the stage. It was three days of peace, love, and music. The 1970 three-LP album was the first time the concert had ever been commemorated, and that tradition has been continued on milestone anniversaries ever since, most recently on the 50th anniversary, which was in 2019.
1984: Wigstock begins
Like many great New York City traditions, Wigstock began on a whim. One evening in 1984, a group of drag queens was leaving the Pyramid Club and wound up putting on a spontaneous performance for the homeless in Tompkins Square Park. The drag festival became an annual, organized party named after Woodstock that, with the exception of a break for a few years, still runs to this day.
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Woodstock - 1970
'Woodstock' (1970)
- Director: Michael Wadleigh
- Stacker score: 95.2
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 184 minutes
This portrait of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s has reached cult classic status. It captured the epic three-day rock and roll concert that featured diverse performers including folk singing legend Joan Baez, British rock band The Who, and guitar god Jimi Hendrix.
'Woodstock' (1970)
- Director: Michael Wadleigh
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 184 minutes
“Woodstock” dives deep into the history of the iconic 1969 music festival of the same name, which attracted half a million people. In 1996, Entertainment Weekly called it one of the most entertaining documentaries in history, as well as a “benchmark” of concert films.
1969: Woodstock music festival
Billed as “three days of peace and music,” the Woodstock music festival featured more than 30 rock bands and was attended by more than 400,000 in upstate New York. The event is widely regarded as a key turning point in popular music history and the counterculture movement of the times.
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#25. ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ by The Beatles
- Covers: 157
Joe Cocker’s cover of “With a Little Help From My Friends” at Woodstock in 1969 sealed Cocker’s place as a musical legend. Though Cocker covered it best, the song—initially branded “Badfinger Boogie” and written solely for Ringo Starr—has dozens of different versions. Meanwhile, Count Basie, The Beach Boys, Ike and Tina Turner, Toto, Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees, Cheap Trick, Santana, and Puddle of Mudd each put their touch on the tune.
Woodstock Music Festival arrives in New York
The Woodstock Festival was a three-day rock concert from Aug. 15–18 that became one of the most famous music events in American history, as well as a symbol of hippie culture. The festival took place on a 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, N.Y., and drew over 400,000 people who had traveled from far and wide to see Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix, among others. The turnout was significantly higher than was expected, and highways in the area became unusable as attendees parked their cars in the road to walk to the festival.
Woodstock music festival draws nearly a half-million music fans
Some 400,000 rock fans flooded an upstate New York farm for the multi-day Woodstock music festival in mid-August 1969. The hippie gathering would be remembered for countless memorable performances by the most famous musicians of the time, including Jimi Hendrix, who played a rock ’n’ roll version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Monterey Pop (1968)
A documentary about the legendary pre-Woodstock rock music festival.
1969: Woodstock
In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York, wound to a close after three nights with a mid-morning set by Jimi Hendrix.
1969: Woodstock and a wave of teen pregnancy
- Total births: 3.60 million (fertility rate: 86.1 births per 1,000 women; crude birth rate: 17.9 births per 1,000 women)
- Infant mortality rate: 20.9 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Average life expectancy at birth: 70.5
- Most popular baby names: Boys: Michael, David, James; Girls: Lisa, Michelle, Jennifer
The famous Woodstock music festival occurred in 1969, on the cusp of the louche and laissez-fair 1960s and ‘70s. This attitude carried over towards pregnancy, with fewer couples opting to marry just because the woman was pregnant, and teen pregnancy rates beginning to climb.
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