The 40th Anniversary of Woodstock
 

"Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music"

What do you think of Woodstock '69? How do you feel about the event, the bands & artists, and the music?

Who had the notable most performance?
Do you think the music was better then?

(the line-up taken form wiki)

i think woodstock '69 is the high water mark of the hippie(crosy) movement. do you really expect people to not remember the ultra awesome woodstock '99 whenever this comes up?

the event itself was interesting, especially from a cultural perspective. the music was alright. i think a lot of people look back at that music and think it's somehow 'better' because they're associating it with the idealistic innocence that everyone was wrapping themselves in at the time. they're applying their memories of the time when they first heard that music as a reflection of the music as opposed to just being a reminder of being young. whatever.

hendrix owned that show.

Hell no, you're just being unfair.

The overall lineup was awesome, not just the big names, the little ones too, like Ten Years After, Johnny Winter and the opening act Richie Havens. It really was a great time for music.

If anyone is letting nostalgia cloud their judgement it's you, Woodstock 99 was clearly a piece of sh*t.

i didn't say the music was bad, the question was 'was music better back then?' and just about every hippie / boomer i run into who was 'with it' back in the 60s definitely thinks it was, and i think they're letting nostalgia confuse things.

it's not that the music is better or worse but that the perspective of youth is different.

i don't pretend that woodstock '99 was anything besides crap, woodstock '94 was only marginally better. look at what they were, thinly veiled facades to cover up a mad commercial cash grab hiding behind an idealistic banner. THAT is the legacy of woodstock (and the hippie movement in my eyes) - hypocrisy.

It was cut above every haphazard attempt to revise Woodstock, without a goddamn doubt.

I seriously can't stand people with your attitude, it always has to be about capitalism or another, that it somehow diminishes the quality of music or the importance of a musical movement. Chuck Berry is an old guy playing the same old songs he did 60 years ago for a bunch of senior citizens at casino's and ****. Why don't you rant about that?

I don't think anti-capitalism was all that the hippie movement was about. I don't see how it's hypocrisy so much as the natural order of things, or people changing their outlook on things as they get older.

You can't really say anything about woodstock that doesn't also apply to every other generation, it's just human nature to become part of the system, no matter how much you ralied against it in youth, isn't that the story of every generation? This is especially true in the music business.

Woodstock wasn't advertised as some rally against capitalism or anything like that, I don't think anyone ever claimed that it was such a thing, it was a big money maker, everyone knows that. It was about great music, community, getting high and doing a lot of f*cking and that was it, and goddamn if it didn't achieve everything it set out to do.

Chuck Berry never tried to pass himself off as anything besides some dude who played old songs on his guitar. he never talked about how his generation was changing the world (even though HIS generation DID accomplish significant social/cultural changes)

what is it about my attitude that you can't stand? is it the fact that i can look at the past, draw my own opinion on it and present it without giving a crap about having it validated and approved by someone else? the OP wanted to know what people thought, I posted what I thought on the matter. should i just not post for fear of having a different view than the MB hive mind?

the hippie movement wasn't anti-capitalism? i guess you're right, but i never claimed it was. there was most definitely a large element of anti-establishment, fight the power, stick it to the man BS throughout the movement though. the hippie commune movement wasn't exactly pro-capitalism either.

you claim i'm letting nostalgia cloud my view on things, at least i've got a view on them. your last comment on the festival shows you're clueless aside from what wiki and google are telling you, and just baiting me at this point. woodstock '69 made NO money, it turned out to be a great festival about community, getting high, and f*cking, but that is not at all what it was intended to be initially.

and with that, i'm done with another thread.

And this is why I don't like you, this is the kinda attitude that you like to settle all your arguments with and it's very redundant at this point.

Seriously, I'm expressing my opinion as well, just because it's not your totally revolutionary point of view doesn't mean it's not a goddamn point of view, seriously, stop being such a condescending ass.

I think the fact that it turned out to be different from what it was intended to be, IS the great beauty about Woodstock and it`s for that reason amongst others, that it holds its place in rock legend and always will.

Woodstock 69 is something that I dig out and watch every 3 or 4 years and even today as a music festival I find it unsurpassed. The whole 3 days are littered with outstanding performances starting with Ritchie Havens banging away on his guitar, the display of Santana highlighted by Mike Shrieve`s drum solo, watching both Grace Slick and Marty Balin perform with Jefferson Airplane, the vocal performance of Joe C*k*er, watching Alvin Lee of Ten Years After performing "Goin Home", the 25 song set by the Who probably gets my vote as the best performance especially "See Me, Hear Me...." and of course Jimi Hendrix winding down the marathon to a depleted crowd after the rains.

Personally, I envy those spectators that were there and witnessed the event as it happened.

As for the music, well that`s always going to be subjective but anybody with a general appreciation of music cannot fail to be impressed. I suppose, if somebody isn`t keen on 1960`s west coast american bands (which probably made up 50% of the set) and wasn`t too keen on either blues rock or folk rock, then watching the concert might be wasted on them. Saying that though, you could even forget the music and just watch the whole thing as a documentary and still be impressed.

I'm just upset that they are making another movie about it. WHY WATCH A GLAMOURIZED HOLLYWOOD RENDITION (or as Urban says "Hollywood crapfest") WHEN YOU CAN WATCH ACUTAL FOOTAGE AND DOCUMENTARY???????????????

LIKE THIS!!!!!!

http://www.altfg.com/Stars/posterw/woodstock.jpg

Yeah, but... Demetri Martin's in it. :(

Just kidding, I agree.

The original Woodstock was amazing. A truly great event caught on video that captures the true nature of the hippe/music scene around the time. Either Santana or Canned Heat are my favorite performance.

^ Agreed.

And I also agree with Flower Child in that all the modern imitations of it/ hollywood renditions ruin the original concept and footage that was captured.

Woodstock makes me wish I grew up in the '60s.

^Everything in the 60's makes me wish i lived then.


there's two of my favorites separated for the 3 nights ...

Friday:
Joan Baez
Ravi Shankar

Saturday:
Janis Joplin
Jefferson Airplane

Sunday:
Jimi Hendrix [I'm gonna count that one double]

really hard to choose

VH1 Classic had the woodstock movie on last night. I watched a bit of it. Ritchie Havens' opening performance is unreal. What a way to kick it off.

Sly & The Family Stone & The Who pretty much nailed it.

I don't know why people think Hendrix was so great, he was awful that night.
It was his first ever live show with the Band Of Gypsys & they were woefully under-rehearsed & it shows in their set. Compare that to his sets at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 or the Isle Of Wight festival in 1970 where he smoked out the entire bill and you'll see just how lackluster his Woodstock set actually was.

Yeah man, Vietnam was kickass.

i think this is what made his performance so great. he was willing to take a fresh band and wing it, he had the guts (or enough lsd) to not give a crap and just run with it. i can't think of any other well established musicians who would be willing to take a huge risk like that then or now.

i thought the 20 minute version of 'red house' (at least it felt that way) from the isle of wight festival was hendrix's lowest recorded point. even though it was rough the woodstock performance still showcased new ideas and sounds, he comes off as refreshed and revitalized to my ears.

the US is not the center of the world.

If that was a bad Hendrix performance that it's no wonder he's considered the greatest guitarist ever.

Most people from the US think otherwise.

so... how about filling people in on the rest of the non-US based elements of the 60s that were so amazing? the whole hippie movement directly started in san francisco after all (which indirectly spawned psychedelic music).

so unless there's another major cultural element to the 60s i'm overlooking, in this case the US actually IS the center of the matter.

From where I'm sat, you're the condescending ass here. Dave made a reasonable post and wasn't at all offensive. The first WORD of your post on the other hand was 'Hell' followed swiftly by a little pretentious rant about how woodstock was clearly the most awesme thing ever liek omg.

Not to mention, Dave is right. For everything it did, the hippie movement was total bull**** in the way it portrayed its ideas. It was realyl nothing more than a big excuse for people to feel superior to 'the man' and toke it up. Even the Beatles realised that sooner rather than later, and they were off their faces on drugs more than most. the vast majority of hippies who could even be bothered to HOLD ideals, did so in a half assed way and basically just whined about it without ever doing anything.

Hippiecrosy indeed.

Uh? British f*cking invasion?

That would be me.

*invades*

...and where were they trying to invade? what was the target? where was the center of that matter again?...

i meant the 60's isn't only the war between the US and Vietnam ... it was a major thing, but not the only thing.
and personally i'd want to live in Britain or France in the 60's and definitely not in the US.

and being the #1 power in the world doesn't make the US the only country or culture in the world ... i assure you we weren't thinking about the hippies, the flower power or the vietnam in the middle east ... still even here, the 60's were the best years in the last millennium [musically and culturally, overall] , and not only in the past century.

Invade= The USA, The Target= The US music market.

It could be argued that groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the Who etc were very much the centre of where it was at.

Psychedelia fitted in and around all this and later blossomed prog.

I think Woodstock is idealized more for its cultural douchebaggery than it is for anything else.

Its hard to imagine why anyone would care about music that old and at this point, stale. No one immortalizes the first Boonaroo or lollapalooza.

Its fairly obvious to me it still gives people faith in some vague, shallow notion of peace and love and supposedly tells us what it can do for the world, but just as the assertion the music can "heal the world" is constantly proved wrong, what is similarly constant is that "peace and love" are just taglines to **** stoned blonde-women back in your tour bus.

I'm glad you like playing without your shoes, go nuts. But I paid $60 for this ticket you freeloading moron, now play me some music or I'm going to **** all over your youtube videos.

When you're talking about the 60's, we sorta are. I'm not going to get into a culture war here, but I wouldn't look at the U.S. like you look at Euro countries because we don't operate in the same way. There is nothing that makes a person distinctly "american" and so despite our arrogance, its hard to lay claim to what makes up "better" than anyone else.

You should view U.S. culture as your culture to.

By 1967 America had well caught up to the Brit's if you look at music as a whole. James Brown was arguably the most dominant force out there at the time and as far as revolutionizing a sound few things compare to the godless monster of funk. He gave birth to less bands than the Beatles, or the Stones, but who's going to argue that there are better offspring than PFunk and Prince?

I'm not mindlessly pro-american. I use to think we were **** at one point but thats when I thought I knew everything. We have a great amount of value and I'm not sure what purpose is served by undermining that.

Woodstock was still **** btw.

I don't get it, why should be view the U.S. culture as our culture, too? I see US culture as completely separate to the culture of my country.

Of course when it comes to Woodstock, it's the US that is the centre of all that. I wasn't referring to Woodstock or the hippie movement specifically but more broadly about the operation of the world on a larger scale in the '60s.

I can see how America was significant to other countries in the 1960s, but it was still not the only place in the world where significant things were happening - I guess that's what I was trying to say. Australia in the 1960s had a shitload of its own stuff going on - especially a huge movement of protests/ strikes trying to claim Aboriginal land back and hippie movements focusing on living peacefully with both Aborigines and other Australians.

I was responding to a statement about what it would be like to live in the 1960s, and just wanted to point out that the US wasn't the only place in the world and existed and lived through radical change during that time.

I guess I'm also just sick of the US being portrayed as the center of everything and a lot of people thinking the America is the center of the world and everything revolves around them. Not you personally, just a general frustration.

Oh and I just want to be really fucking anal and say to everybody that 1960s or any other date for that matter doesn't have an apostrophe before the 's'. Haha.... sorry :shycouch:

This is stereotypical though. I don't know many people who think the U.S. is the center of the world.

I say you should think of it as your culture to because all cultures have influence on American culture. Its hard to imagine some nation that doesn't have a foothold here somewhere.

that's fair, but at the same time i have to wonder how many of the other protests and social movements from the 60s would have happened during that decade had it not been for the influence of the states and how they in turn handled their own issues.

how many protests would have really gone ahead had the attempt of the african american civil rights movement of the late 50s and early 60s failed? had the government chosen to react with force or simply ignored the demands of the people would it have really encouraged other idealists from across the globe to pick up a sign in protest? the 2nd wave of feminism?

it's hard to say really, it might have encouraged them even more, although in a time where questioning the hand that feeds was still very frowned upon and tv news were the 'be all end all' source of information for the newest news for most people, i think it would have been pretty simple to spin things in a way to keep the populace placated. it's not to say social reform would never have happened, i just don't think the 60s would have been as busy from that perspective.

instead precedents were set, new attitudes were embraced, and 'traditional values' had their validity questioned in regards to the modern world. and like it or not, that came from the states and it spread outward to any other democratic english speaking country out there for the most part.

while i abhor the mythologizing of woodstock and the hippie movement there's really no denying the social and cultural influence the states had on the world during that time. no matter how closely any other nation followed along they still weren't leading the pack.

Yeah of course the states had a major, major influence on the movement, and I do realise I am probably being quite stereotypical! I was just pointing out that there were other things happening around the world also :) I don't deny the major influence and significance that the US held during the 1960s and the various activist movements etc.

Case in point it was a movement that didn't start in America. The british psychedelic and canterbury scenes shouldn't be ignored either.

And this is based on absolutelty nothing but stupid generalization. Tell me, how was the hippie movement any different from modern youth and musical movements? Other than you know, actually making a difference and the music not being total f*ckballs.

And how does saying "Hell no" warrant a personal insult? I expressed my opinion of disagreement, I didn't insult him at all, I disagree with someone and for that I'm an idiot who wiki's all his opinions?

Yeah, sure.

Says the Tom Waits fan.

And as usual you make little to no sense, I'm defending Woodstock here and you're telling me I'm anti-american culture? That's gold.

Do you ever engage in a civil argument? This isn't even logical. Whats stale and old about Tom Waits? He released 7 albums in this decade.

And tell me how I called you unamerican?

Michael McDonald still puts albums out dude, let's be fair.

I'd like to know what's so old and stale about Hendrix, The Who or any other band for that matter. I would think you'd be able to appreciate the 60s since The White Stripes have based their whole career off of imitating it.

Or for that matter, you seem to be more into roots revivalism than anything else, I'm not saying Tom Waits or Elvis Costello aren't great musicians, but they were always about reviving that kinda music that a lot of people might consider "old and stale", and they're not doing anything terribly new nowadays, let's be honest.

Anyway when you said "You should view U.S. culture as your culture to." I thought it was directed at me, sorry about that.

Yet's lets be fair and honest.

Well I don't know about you, but I've had the who and their classic rock cohorts smashed over my head for far too long at this point. The Who have been playing the same songs for 40 years now. At least Hendrix has an excuse.

And Costello released an album this summer - what is "new" to you? Yesterday?

Also, where did I call you "unamerican."