Endless lines of cars waited in the blistering August sun as they trekked their way to a small farm in Bethel, N.Y. These approximately half-a-million people, overwhelmed with a sense of anticipation for the first band’s presence on the concert stage, had made their way to see the festival which would later define them and their generation.
Marketed as “3 Days of Peace and Music,” Woodstock was the three-day music festival in August of 1969 that included music from 32 musicians such as Santana, Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Janis Joplin, as well as a slew of naked, mud-covered, drugged out, skinny-dipping music lovers. This festival became the symbol of the counterculture of the 1960s and a landmark music festival that set up the standard for the festivals music fans are flocking to every summer.
Recent mega-festivals such as Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and All Points West have brought together a large group of popular bands to larger audiences at single venues. Most of these festivals will have chart-toppers such as Coldplay or Jack Johnson headlining with waves of independent and lesser known bands sprawled throughout the daily itineraries.
These festivals definitely share a spirit for music with their Woodstock predecessor; however, these shows might be having audiences pay a little more buck for their bang. With ticket prices ranging from 50 to a few hundred dollars, I highly doubt music festivals today would attract the stereotypical ’69 hippie. Unlike the original Woodstock, which was free, ticket prices for the modern music festival can be daunting (a ticket to the three day Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee will set concertgoers back $224 plus about $35 dollars in ticket fees).
Music festivals seem to be getting more popular and mainstream. The commercialization of these festivals has increased substantially. Lollapalooza’s line-up will be led by alternative rock favorites Tool, The Killers, Kings of Leon and Depeche Mode. Coldplay, the Grammy winner of this year’s Best Rock Album, will be headlining this year’s All Points West festival. A meager 2002 Bonnaroo (opening year) line-up has been industrialized this year with the help of the Boss (Bruce Springsteen).
Although Woodstock was not the first music festival, it has become a majestic legend for the musical generations that followed. Woodstock set the foundation and expectations that followed. Unfortunately, many music festivals that followed were more or less a failure to the spirit of the 1969 festival.
Originally marketed as the west coast Woodstock, a free concert held by the Rolling Stones at Altamont in December of 1969 would become the anti-Woodstock when a concertgoer was stabbed and killed by the drunken Hell’s Angels security guards hired by the Stones.
Woodstock has had many incarnations, including the “2 More Days of Peace and Music” Woodstock ’94 and Woodstock ’99. A general failure, Woodstock ’99 seemed to capture the complete opposite of Peace and Music, as concert-goers thrashed around to the music of Limp Bizkit, Korn and other popular alternative rock of the time; the festival came to be more characteristic of Hell, with fire pits, mud slinging, rape and lots of broken limbs.
Recently, the music festival has taken a much safer approach and has started to decline back to its roots, lending itself more to the music and the fan. However, recent festivals fail to reflect a 1969 counterculture, in a 2009 struggling economic, consumer society. Some might even argue that recent festivals are no better than these failures with swarms of “wannabe hippie” hipsters, the occasionally crappy band, and of course the ridiculous price. Plus, I could never see any modern chart-toppers taking the throne from Jimi Hendrix’s mind-blowing festival-closing performance at Woodstock, which included a face-melting rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.”
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