From Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia to the 400,000 hippies in attendance, these pictures from Woodstock 1969 capture the free spirit of this historic event.
Billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music", Woodstock was organized by Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld with presale tickets available for $18 (equivalent to $120 today).Wikimedia Commons Hundreds of thousands of people descended upon Bethel 24 hours before the concert was slated to start. With traffic gridlocked for miles, many abandoned their cars and simply walked to the festival grounds.Hulton Archive/Getty Images A large group wait for a bus to take them to the festival grounds.Ralph Ackerman/Getty Images "On foot, in cars, atop cars, young people leave the great love-in of the sixties, the Woodstock Music Festival. Three hundred thousand young people descended upon Bethel, N.Y., and to the surprise of most, took part in a festival that will, no doubt, go down in history."Bettmann/Getty Images The traffic jams caused by the enormous amount of festivalgoers on the road reportedly measured as much as 20 miles long.Hulton Archive/Getty Images Satchidananda Saraswati, an Indian religious teacher and guru, delivered the opening ceremony invocation at Woodstock.Wikimedia Commons A pair of friends enjoy some downtime between performances.Wikimedia Commons Max Yasgur greets the crowd on his dairy farm in Bethel, New York. On the bottom left, a young Martin Scorsese returns a peace sign.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos On-and-off-again rain became a staple of the Woodstock weekend, though that didn't stop the energy or proceedings of the festival.Pinterest Initially expecting only 100,000 people, Woodstock swelled to more than 400,000 revelers. Concert organizers realized that they had neither the means or resources to prevent the flood of people and thus made the concert "free" by cutting all the fences surrounding the festival area.Wikimedia Commons "Hippie woman named Psylvia, dressed in pink Indian shirt, dancing to music being played by a flute at Woodstock Music Festival."Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Infamously, copious amounts of drugs such as acid were passed around the crowd, with organizers at one point having to warn people over the megaphone to not take the brown acid, which was supposedly bad and dangerous.John Dominis/Getty Images Jerry Garcia poses for a photograph before the Grateful Dead performed at Woodstock.Magnum Photos Festivalgoers who did attend Woodstock were widely dressed in the best hippie finery of the day — while scores of crowd members went completely nude.Magnum Photos Ravi Shankar plays the sitar during his performance on Friday night.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos A group of journalists work amid the chaos of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair.John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Impromptu shelters were commonplace -- pictured here, a group rests in the grass hut they'd built for the weekend.Factinate "Young woman with flute ecstatically raising her arms, amid crowd at Woodstock music festival."Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images With crowds so large, festival organizers ran out of food on the first day.John Dominis/Getty Images With food low, the resulting situation became so tense that two concession stands were burned down on Saturday night because of their prices.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos Strapped for cash and time, Woodstock's organizers contracted the festival's food service to a fledgling group with almost no prior experience.Wikimedia Commons By some reports, thousands of young children attended the festival.Getty Images Janis Joplin pours herself a cup of wine before her performance at Woodstock.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos While there is no definitive proof, reports have existed since 1969 that at least one baby was born during the festival.Pinterest Some 30 of the festival's acts were forced to perform during the rain that plagued the proceedings.Bill Eppridge/The LIFE Picture Collection Joe Cocker performs on Sunday, August 17.Magnum Photos Thanks in part to performers like Jimi Hendrix, fringe jackets have become one of the most enduring symbols of Woodstock fashion.Getty Images "A bedraggled young woman stands in the mud, a sleeping bag and backpack at her feet."Bill Eppridge/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Devotees of Swami Satchidananda meditate and perform yoga early in the morning at Woodstock. Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos "What a smile--two kids in blue--torn jeans, old leather camera bag, blue midriff t-shirt, long hair, amazing smile, at the Woodstock music festival."Ralph Ackerman/Getty Images Heavy rains, especially on the third day, forced many attendees into tents. However, there were plenty of patches of sunshine well documented by the wealth of Woodstock photos and footage that survive to this day.John Dominis/Getty Images Heady vibes point the way to various spots of Woodstock 1969.Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Acid, opium, cocaine, mushrooms, and, of course, marijuana were all widely used at the festival.Getty Images As popular depictions widely show, vibrantly painted hippie busses were common at Woodstock.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos From the fashions to the festival's official posters, the American Flag was a common design element on display at Woodstock.Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Music fans and hippies weren't the only people in attendance. Here, a bookseller offering revolutionary literature has set up shop.Scribol A festivalgoer reads a magazine between sets at Woodstock.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos "The whole thing is a gas," one attendee told The New York Times. "I dig it all, the mud, the rain, the music, the hassles."Wikimedia Commons "We're vestiges of our former selves," another attendee told the Times just after returning from the festival.Ralph Ackerman/Getty Images With few places to catch a good night sleep, Woodstock attendees had to make do with what they had.Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Creedence Clearwater Revival 3 a.m. start time meant that they began their performance to a crowd that virtually all asleep.Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Singer/guitarist John Fogerty performing with Creedence Clearwater Revival at Woodstock.Tucker Ranson/Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images "The dreams of marijuana and rock music that drew 300,000 fans and hippies to the Catskills had little more sanity than the impulses that drive the lemmings to march to their deaths in the sea," wrote The New York Times.Pinterest Janis Joplin raises her arms during her iconic Woodstock performance.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos A children's playground was set up to accommodate the amount of kids in attendance.Pinterest A woman enjoys a smoke while sitting atop a decorated bus near the free stage of Woodstock.Ralph Ackerman/Getty Images Attendees climb the sound tower to see the stage.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos One of Woodstock's two fatalities came when a tractor accidentally ran over an attendee sleeping in a field near the festival grounds.Pinterest From sculptures to makeshift shelters, festival attendees got creative in the absence of adequate facilities.Hulton Archive/Getty Images A sudden downpour on Sunday threatened the festival and delayed several performances while drenching the festival grounds. Here, a group wade through the water and mud.John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images "It's about the quietest, most well-behaved 300,000 people in one place that can be imagined," Michael Lang said. "There have been no fights or incidents of violence of any kind."Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Because of rain delays, Jimi Hendrix didn't actually take the stage until Monday morning.Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Graham Nash and David Crosby of the group Crosby, Stills, & Nash perform on Sunday August 17 during Woodstock.Fotos International/Getty Images A couple attending the Woodstock Music Festival smiles while standing outside the shelter they've built during the concert.Ralph Ackerman/Getty Images "Notwithstanding their personality, their dress and their ideas, they were and they are the most courteous, considerate and well-behaved group of kids I have ever been in contact with in my 24 years of police work," said one local police chief.Pictorial Parade/Hulton Archive/Getty Images A handful of prominent bands turned down performing at Woodstock. The Byrds were invited, but decided against playing. Said bassist John York, "We had no idea what it was going to be. We were burned out and tired of the festival scene... So all of us said, 'No, we want a rest' and missed the best festival of all."Wikimedia Commons People bathe and clean up in a stream adjacent to the festival.Bill Eppridge/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images A couple bathe naked in a stream among others at Woodstock.Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images "It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud," John Fogerty said of the crowd.Pinterest The Doors turned down an invitation to play at Woodstock, believing it would be a "second class repeat of Monterey Pop Festival." Guitarist Robby Krieger said it was one of his biggest regrets as a musician.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos "If we had any inkling that there was going to be this kind of attendance, we certainly would not have gone ahead," said John Roberts.John Dominis/Getty Images Melanie Safka performs at Woodstock. She would later write the hit song "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)" inspired by the lighters in the audience during her performance.Elliott Landy/Redferns/Getty Images "I guess this was meant to happen, and everybody is still with us," Artie Kornfeld said of the rain.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos By the time Jimi Hendrix went on stage near the festival's end, only 30,000 festivalgoers remained.Hulton Archive/Getty Images Hendrix's rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" in the final performance at Woodstock has since become a landmark in rock history.Wikimedia Commons The way out ended up being as chaotic as the way in. Here, a woman catches up on sleep as she waits for traffic to clear up.Pinterest The traffic jam trying to leave Woodstock.Wikimedia Commons A young man stands in front of the empty fields of Max Yasgur's dairy farm after Woodstock.Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos
69 Woodstock Photos That Will Take You To The 1960s’ Most Iconic Music Festival View GalleryA half-century ago, the most celebrated festival in American history was held in upstate New York.
Advertised as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music", more than 400,000 revelers flocked to Bethel, New York to take part in what would become the zenith of 1960s counterculture: the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival.
And it almost didn't happen.
The Decade-Defining Festival Gets Off To A Rocky Start
Ralph Ackerman/Getty Images"Portrait of three unidentified and barefoot women, two of whom are seated on the hood of a Plymouth Barracuda parked on the side of a gravel road near the side of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair."
The four young entrepreneurs from New York City who conceived of the festival — Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman, and John Roberts — encountered a handful of hurdles from the onset.
First, apart from Michael Lang, none of the organizers had experience with large festivals or promotion. When they first approached musicians, they were either rebuffed or flat-out rejected. Only when they secured Creedence Clearwater Revival in April 1969 were they able to then get further commitments from other musical acts to perform.
Second, it was proving nearly impossible to find a suitable location for the festival that also would be willing to have it. Residents in Wallkill, New York rejected the festival, as did a landowner in nearby Saugerties, leaving the organizers scrambling mere months before the festival was set to take place.
A six-minute compilation of footage from Woodstock.Fortunately, Max Yasgur, a dairy farmer in Bethel, heard of the festival's troubles and offered a field on his land to the organizers. After encountering some local opposition, Yasgur impassionately addressed the Bethel town board:
"I hear you are considering changing the zoning law to prevent the festival. I hear you don't like the look of the kids who are working at the site. I hear you don't like their lifestyle. I hear you don't like they are against the war and that they say so very loudly... I don't particularly like the looks of some of those kids either. I don't particularly like their lifestyle, especially the drugs and free love. And I don't like what some of them are saying about our government.
However, if I know my American history, tens of thousands of Americans in uniform gave their lives in war after war just so those kids would have the freedom to do exactly what they are doing. That's what this country is all about and I am not going to let you throw them out of our town just because you don't like their dress or their hair or the way they live or what they believe. This is America and they are going to have their festival."
The organizers then secured the necessary permits in July and begin construction of the festival grounds for the four-day event in mid-August.
The Show Goes On
Pictorial Parade/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesAmerican folk singer and guitarist Richie Havens opens Woodstock on August 15, 1969.
On Wednesday, August 13, two days before the start of the festival, there were already massive traffic jams caused by tens of thousands making their way early to the festival grounds.
Woodstock's organizers had prepared for a crowd of 150,000, but by the second day of the festival, somewhere between 400,000 to 500,000 had descended upon Max Yasgur's dairy farm. Without adequate time to prepare fencing and hordes of people at the gates, they had but one choice: make the event free.
Jefferson Airplane performs 'White Rabbit' on Sunday morning.Despite the logistical nightmares and unexpected crowds, Woodstock miraculously went off relatively hitch-free. There were barely any reported crimes and the only death occurred when a festivalgoer fell asleep on the field of a neighboring farm and was subsequently run over by a tractor.
Large volunteer centers opened up to serve food and first aid while free hits of acid were distributed amongst the crowd.
"It's about the quietest, most well-behaved 300,000 people in one place that can be imagined. There have been no fights or incidents of violence of any kind."
Michael LangThe counterculture mantra of peace and love won out with an audience that hit almost half a million who got to enjoy Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin, among others.
Woodstock Photos And Videos That Captured The Spirit Of The 1960s
Bill Eppridge/Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesA couple bathe naked in a stream at Woodstock.
Thanks to extensive coverage in the media, Woodstock 1969 had an impact far beyond its actual borders.
A front cover pictorial proclaiming "Ecstacy At Woodstock" was published in LIFE Magazine, bringing the free-spirited (and sparsely-clothed) hippies of Woodstock to magazine stands across the country, while The New York Times and others ran articles on the four-day festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqZceAQSJvc
The year following Woodstock, an eponymous documentary film was released to critical acclaim and distribution across the United States. The film was more than three hours long and featured performances by 22 of the artists that played at Woodstock alongside footage of the already immortalized audience. Likewise, Woodstock photos that circulated in the media gave outsiders some idea of what it was like to be at this festival that was quickly becoming emblematic of the 'Woodstock generation'.
To an entire generation, Woodstock 1969 embodied the central tenets of 1960s cultural revolution. Fifty years afterward, the legend of "3 Days of Peace & Music" lives on.
See for yourself in the gallery of Woodstock photos above.
If you enjoyed these Woodstock photos, check out our other posts on life inside hippie communes as well as this history of hippie culture.
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