When news broke that Woodstock would be having a 50th anniversary festival in 2019, I immediately received an inquisitive call seeking more information — from my 67-year-old father. “What’s this I …
?,” he asked with a little excitement but more skeptical curiosity, which turned out to be a fair reaction, as the anniversary festival collapsed and was cancelled last month.
In the summer of 1969, I was 17 years old and had just graduated from high school. I was working as a busboy at the Raleigh Hotel in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. At the time, the Catskills were a popular resort area, with upwards of 200 small hotels and bungalow colonies catering to family vacation for people, mostly from New York City. Most of the waiters and busboys that I worked with were students who worked at the hotels as summer jobs.
By then we’d heard that the crowd had become so large that the festival organizers had stopped bothering to collect tickets — that solved one of our problems — but we still had to contend with the mud. So we stole a dozen tablecloths from the hotel linen supply room to sit on, and we also rolled a few joints to take with us.
We wanted to get closer to the stage, but it was at the bottom of an amphitheater-like hill, and the night was so dark we could hardly see the people sitting on the ground; the only light was the constant tiny flashes from people lighting their joints and cigarettes. As we moved forward, it was impossible not to step on people — most were actually cool about it , but one guy seemed angry, so I handed him a joint. “Groovy!,” he said. “You can step on me again if you want to give me another joint.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Woodstock 50th AnniversaryWoodstock kicked off 50 years ago to the day. In this mini-documentary, musicians David Crosby, John Fogerty and Santana tell AP what made the festival so seminal. Read our Woodstock50 coverage here:
Read more »
Woodstock 50th Anniversary: 10 facts about the iconic 1969 counterculture festivalWoodstock was a counterculture music festival that took place between August 15 and 18, 1969, in Bethel, New York.
Read more »
https://people.comGet the latest news about celebrities, royals, music, TV, and real people. Find exclusive content, including photos and videos, on PEOPLE.com.
Read more »
The Forgotten Woodstock: The Oral History of Woodstock '89, The Impromptu Little Festival That CouldThis is the oral history of Woodstock ‘89, sometimes called The Forgotten Woodstock, as told by the people who lived it.
Read more »
The Woodstock Adidas Ultraboost Sneakers Are Almost Too Cool to Run InPeace, love, and Woodstock Ultraboost sneakers. ✌️
Read more »
'Creating Woodstock': how festival came together, and almost fell apartMick Richards was among the 450,000 people at Woodstock in 1969, but he did not ...
Read more »