BY: DANIEL WATERBOURNE
What occurred in 1969 on a dairy farm in the Catskills of Bethel, New York will forever be the subject of rebellious imagination and acid flashbacks. Woodstock would be an event that would define a generation, and be regarded as the catalyst for a broader countercultural movement. It would put centre stage the disciples responsible for the dissemination of Rock n’ Roll like The Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Band, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Of course, a last minute change of venue gave festival organizers little time to prepare. The fences were dropped and the concert became free.
But the one-time temporary community of 575,000 hippies, bikers and bohemians were so drunk on booze, drugs and social harmony that even those who were lucky enough to have been there often wonder, “what the hell happened?”
These are the statistics of a three-day weekend whose legend has stretched half a century.