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there were a million people on the road that day
trying to get to the festival. A million people; 186,000 tickets had been sold;
the promoters figured that maybe 200,000, tops, would show. That seemed
outlandish, if believable. But no one was prepared for what happened,
and no one could have been. 
Perhaps it was, but no one could have estimated the effect those three
days would have on rock music and American pop culture. The
festival actually took place in Bethel, New York, on Max Yasgur's
farm about fifty miles away from Woodstock. 
Woodstock was the original
location since that was where Bob Dylan was currently residing. The
change in location is contiguous to the fact that the music was secondarily
important and the art was for the most part under produced.
In fact, no one comments about the art fair anymore, and a lot of
people at the festival said that the community aspect was more important
than the music. What makes this remarkable is that no other festival
is referred to in this manner; no one speaks of the Monterey Nation,
and especially not the US Festival Nation. Woodstock was about being
there.
It was much easier to be there after Woodstock had begun since so
many people arrived that crowd control was next to impossible. The
festival was then declared free instead of $18 for all three days.
An aspect of Woodstock of which few people are aware is despite how
it may have looked, it was a very calculated, organized, and commercial
venture. 
The four principal promoters were incorporated in the state
of New York as Woodstock Ventures, Inc. As an organization, they were
powerful enough to supervise the filming of the festival, and arrange
for its production and release, with all profits going to them; this
was not a charity event. They dealt with the bands and organized payment,
transportation, and security. It might be surprising to discover that
everyone that performed was paid; paid very well. However, a musician´s
job is to play music, and Woodstock was no exception. 
The Jimi Hendrix
Experience´s $18,000 was the most received for a performance at the
festival. After a performance at Woodstock, a band could promptly
start charging more for their time. Many of the participants never
worked again for less than $10,000 to $20,000.
They were
only performing for the money. They didn´t need the prestige a festival
could confer, and they had no use for the rhetoric of hippie pastoralism that ruled
at Woodstock.
The Woodstock Nation´s only meeting gave hope
that a lifestyle that they all wanted could actually be possible,
but the repression free weekend was provided by promoters as a way
to increase their take.
The big point was not that pot was passed
around openly, but that because there was a minimum of force and
restriction, a huge crowd of people handled itself decently.
The schizophrenic vocabulary betrays the speaker´s
discomfort. On one hand he uses the hip phraseology of the day: acid
and your own trip. On the other hand, he uses the abstractions and
passives of corporate and military bureaucracy: circulating; specifically
and - worst of all - please be advised. However inappropriate his
language, it allowed him to disavow personal responsibility for what
he was saying.
The Woodstock Nation took heed of the warning, thinking that the warning
was just as hip as they were. It would not be fair to say that the
audience was fooled about many issues, but rather that the necessary
situations were explained to them in ways that they would understand
better. The two most important aspects of Woodstock were very clear:
music and community. It was either for the music that the Nation came
together, or just to be part of the Nation. Those that came just to
be there certainly had a great time. 
To be with a group of that size
with everyone feeling the same, and having the same concerns would
be next to impossible today without some sort of common theme like
the Amnesty tours. Certainly, no one in this country had ever seen
a society so free of repression.
Although generally looked upon as a hip event, it has been estimated
that maybe half the crowd was weekend hippies, out from Long Island for
a quick dip in the compelling sea of freaks.
but some bands were not as established than others.
Crosby Stills Nash and Young played together for one of the first
times. Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Band, and Jefferson Airplane
joined the Grateful Dead, 
Janis Joplin, and Santana for a celebration
of the best in underground music that would also lead rock music into
the seventies. Jimi Hendrix, who established himself as an influential
member of the rock community at Monterey two years earlier, gave a
once in a lifetime performance that separated himself from everyone
else. 
His guitar solo based on the "Star Spangled Banner" could be
the most memorable musical event of the festival, as well as being
one of the most popular guitar solos in rock history. Although they
didn´t really want to play, the Who gave an amazing performance, climaxing
with We´re Not Gonna Take It, from their rock opera Tommy, as
the sun rose. But even if it was a lousy show by the Who´s high standards
- Daltrey called it the worst gig we ever played - it was legendary
in the morning.
Melanie
Safka, was a performer at Woodstock. Melanie sang "Beautiful
People" to the crowd, she won them over and her career was launched.