How Did the Woodstock Music and Art Fair Affect Music

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The Woodstock Legacy

Woodstock was, like many storied musical occasions, a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. However, the impacts of the 1969 festival take continued to ripple outward for decades, permanently altering the business concern of live music and inspiring millions, many of whom weren't even born at the time. To honor the 50th ceremony of more than 400,000 gathering on a muddy dairy farm in upstate New York for what was billed as "three days of peace & music," here are the virtually objective and of import ways Woodstock'southward influence inverse the earth, in means that can still be felt today.

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Capturing the Event on Flick

With the exception of the lives of those who were there, Woodstock wouldn't take inverse much if it hadn't been caught on film and preserved in the 1970 documentary of the same name. Edited in part by a young Martin Scorsese, "Woodstock" was key not only to the festival's promoters recouping their losses, just to establishing the import and significant of Woodstock — too as the '60s youth counterculture in full general — in our broader cultural imagination. Morris Dickstein, professor at the Urban center University of New York and author of "Gates of Eden: American Civilization in the Sixties," summed up the documentary's importance in a PBS roundtable on Woodstock, saying: "It'southward the film that ... turned Woodstock into the enduring myth that information technology later became. And so many people think they were at Woodstock, but they really only saw the movie."

Launching Music Careers

Few were afflicted by Woodstock as much as some of the artists who played there, including musicians like Santana, Sha Na Na, and Sly and the Family Stone, who credit the festival for their subsequent success. "Getting into Woodstock and getting featured in the middle of that picture, which was the only (live music) video bachelor back then, everything just took off," attested ex-Santana keyboardist and singer Gregg Rolie. "If yous had a gig at Woodstock, you had a career."

Embittering the Local Community

The unexpected overflowing of young hippies to rural Sullivan County in upstate New York wasn't always well-received by the expanse's residents. This much is axiomatic from the town of Bethel's fall 1969 election, which replaced the town supervisor who had approved Woodstock'due south permit application with one who ran solely on his opposition to the festival. The town as well adopted an ordinance banning mass gatherings of more than ten,000 people — a police that was copied by other municipalities — ensuring an event on the calibration of Woodstock would never again occur in their borders.

Enriching the Local Community

There's another, positive side, however, to Woodstock's effects on surrounding communities. Antagonism toward the festival and the youth counterculture it amassed dissipated over the decades, so now Sullivan County embraces the legacy and tourism revenue earned past attractions like the Museum at Bethel Woods and commemorative monuments at the original site, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017. Steve Gilt, a native of nearby South Fallsburg who was 15 in 1969, says Woodstock taught the earth, and him personally, "important lessons most community and caring." When his parents and other hotel/bungalow owners in Sullivan County heard the "hippies" didn't have enough sustenance, they started preparing food, which had to exist gathered and delivered via helicopter due to the backed-upwards roads. "I saw the manner people treated each other in that location," recounts Gilded. "Fifty-fifty though there were a lot of social issues being debated and protested at the fourth dimension, at Woodstock anybody was equal ... I think those actions and feelings led to the startup in the 1970s of more nonprofit organizations trying to make people'southward lives better." In Gold's case, he was inspired to establish Peace of Phase, which sells pieces of the original stage and other commemorative Woodstock merchandise while donating a cut of the gain to charity.

Countering the Violence and Political Upheaval of the Era

The 1960s were a time of cultural upheaval and political violence, however nosotros call up it besides as an era of peace and love thanks to events like Woodstock. Information technology provided a counternarrative to grisly happenings like the Manson murders, which occurred a week before the festival, and fostered a new sense of customs only equally social cohesiveness seemed to be unraveling in other spheres. While subsequent attempts to recapture the magic — like the Altamont Free Concert later that year — may have ended in tragedy, Woodstock gave participants and observers reason to believe huge numbers of people could come together and harmoniously coexist in the aforementioned infinite.

Demonstrating Pop Music's Power — Michael Ochs Archives/Stringer/Getty Images

Demonstrating Pop Music'south Power

"No longer can the magical multicolored phenomenon of pop civilization be overlooked or underrated," stone journalist Ellen Sander wrote in 1969 of Woodstock'southward significance. "Information technology'due south happening everywhere, but now it has happened in one place at once so hugely that it was indeed historic ... the audience was a much bigger story than the groups." When the entire nation witnessed how many people were willing to gather and endure less-than-stellar atmospheric condition for the sake of music and community, something clicked about the influence pop music and other mass-media forms of cultural expression could have on the world, and artistic and concern communities akin have been reorienting themselves to capitalize on this established sense of power and economic opportunity ever since.

A0645 JIMI HENDRIX Live at Woodstock 3LP by vinylmeister (CC Past)

Giving Us a New National Anthem

If Woodstock was a sit-in of pop music's power as a cultural strength, there was no ameliorate showcase than Jimi Hendrix'south guitar-led rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" in the festival's final hours, which remains one of the best-remembered moments of Woodstock, even by those who weren't there to experience information technology. In musical terms, the performance, like the festival itself, asserted that rock and other youth-oriented forms of pop music weren't only a trend or sideshow, but were capable of adding to and recontextualizing American civilisation and history as a whole.

The Peak (and Demise?) of '60s Counterculture — Michael Ochs Archives/Stringer/Getty Images

The Elevation (and Demise?) of '60s Counterculture

Much as information technology's come to epitomize the ideals of 1960s counterculture, there's another view of events — espoused by the likes of Pete Townshend and Neil Young — that sees Woodstock with less enthusiasm. "It was a turning signal for stone; rock became bigtime," said Woodstock veteran Country Joe McDonald in an interview with The San Diego Marriage-Tribune. "It was a beginning and an stop." Namely, when the commercial world saw just how numerous the youth counterculture was at Woodstock, it started marketing to them with corking fiscal success, which arguably undermined the movement'south anti-materialist origins and radical political aspirations.

Tapping into the Youth "Lifestyle" Marketplace

While some like Gold were inspired to become more civically engaged, Woodstock was a for-profit venture far more than than a political event, and many in the mainstream seemed to have abroad the lesson that they could participate and make money off the counterculture without wading into politics. That meant more mass-produced commodities that appealed to the counterculture's psychedelic aesthetic and maverick style sense while neglecting the controversial ideas behind them. Information technology became more well-nigh what clothes you wore than what causes you supported, as summed up by Dickstein: "Woodstock represented a failed utopianism that very easily got commercialized and ... turned into style ... [T]he people who were ... protesting the war and other things at Woodstock were acting out a criticism non past going to the election box, but by the way they dressed, the clothes they wore, various kinds of mores that got the label 'lifestyle' afterwards."

Giving Rise to Mod Music Festivals

Woodstock was not the kickoff rock fest of note, coming two years after the Monterey Pop Festival, but it crystallized what such events could exist in a way that concert attendees and promoters are still striving for 50 years on. Information technology featured the largest live audience always assembled and the largest lineup of talent, blending oft-segregated genres like folk, stone, soul, and land in much the same mode festivals similar Coachella and Bonnaroo try to today.

For promoters, music historian and writer Stacy Harris alleges Woodstock "proved that if enough large names were present, a concert of its reach could withstand the big names that never appeared." Adds musician Trent Hankinson, forepart-man for the band Aqua Seca, "Woodstock set the bar for what a music festival should be. When you lot attend whatsoever of these festivals today, there is e'er a sense of community, [and] Woodstock was the festival to make that happen."

Michael Boltzman, executive talent heir-apparent for G7 Amusement Marketing, concurs, saying, "It was an experience of epic proportions that included cultural immersion, exploration, and fifty-fifty individual growth for people from all walks of life. This is what audiences want today; it's come full circle. The new generation of festival-goers want collaborative, engaging, and inspiring experiences where they are captivated by the on-stage performances and all things offstage likewise."

Inventing the "Freak Out" Tent

Another modernistic music festival staple to originate at Woodstock was the concept of a tent to help drug-addled attendees at-home down, today run past companies like The Zendo Project on the footing of psychedelic harm reduction. At Woodstock, the concept was adult organically onsite past members of the Hog Subcontract commune from New United mexican states, who'd been flown in to aid set up campgrounds but quickly became embroiled in security measures amidst all the chaos. In improver to staffing a "freak out" tent to coach users through bad trips, they opened a free kitchen to feed crowds.

Unused Three-Day Woodstock Ticket — Steiner Sport Memorabilia Auction & Consignments

Raising Concert Prices

For many, the biggest takeaway from Woodstock was merely how much money at that place was to be made off this whole rock music thing. Even Woodstock's $20 admission price for three days' omnipresence was considered pricey at the fourth dimension, but festival organizers and ticket sellers have establish many new and more expensive ways to monetize the festival feel in years since Woodstock's unprecedented success. As musicians understood the demand and began commanding higher prices for their services, it became less viable to volume as many major bands on a unmarried beak without a respective hike in prices, leading to the renewed partition of the market for live music. A three-day festival ticket is unlikely to go for less than $300 today — Vivid Seats put the average 2018 music festival price at $659 — and in lieu of strangers sharing whatsoever nutrient they take, attendees to subsequent iterations of Woodstock in '94 and '99 were treated to $4 bottled water and $12 personal pizzas.

Raising the Bar for Live Sound Systems — Woodstock Preservation Athenaeum

Raising the Bar for Live Audio Systems

You can bet Woodstock wouldn't have had much communal temper or gained such a legendary reputation if people weren't able to hear the musicians they'd come up to see, and Woodstock'south audio arrangement set a template for how future engineers could accommodate such ambitious outdoor events. "It's been said that the Woodstock sound system was the largest, nigh advanced sound system ever synthetic proving that, if implemented well, sound could be projected a great distance while maintaining quality, clarity, and intelligibility," says Julia Lescarbeau, a contract business relationship executive for audio equipment manufacturer McIntosh Labs. Adds David Hawkins, a music producer and CEO of Your Songmaker: "The genius audio engineer was Bill Hanley, [who] knew what he was doing from a decade of working with everyone from The Beatles to Dylan, Hendrix, and everyone in between. He combined powered amplifiers, microphones, and instruments together like no one had previously done. Some say he is the unsung hero of Woodstock. I tend to agree."

Raising the Bar for Event Organization

Woodstock's organizers told local residents they expected an attendance up to l,000, too guilty to confess they'd actually sold 180,000 tickets in advance. Somewhat ironically, by being such a spontaneous, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing, the original Woodstock fabricated certain that later festivals were improve organized. Where Woodstock was similar a high stakes experiment wherein thousands came together to solve logistical problems as they arose, later festivals sought to address these concerns in advance, and when they didn't, crowds were normally less willing to endure or accept responsibility for less-than-ideal atmospheric condition.

Leading to Stadium Concerts

After Woodstock, concert promoters and investors sought to maximize their profit margins from alive music events by installing facilities to outset increased prices and placing more stringent controls over ticket collection at the gate. Eventually, this quest for profit and convenience saw festivals motility from pastoral outdoor settings like Woodstock to sports arenas and convention centers, limiting the experience to a single-day or evening with assigned seating. Thus, the '70s stadium era supplanted the more than egalitarian communal events of the '60s that had helped inspire it.

The Rise of Arena Rock

According to a 2002 statement on Woodstock'southward cultural significance by the Bethel Performing Arts Eye, the development of "arena rock" afterward the festival also marked the finish of rock'southward "vaudeville circuit," resulting in the shutdown of many smaller concert halls in 1970-71 that had incubated various and innovative acts throughout the '60s. The increasingly homogenized and expensive stadium settings for alive music reportedly gave an advantage to heavily amplified, power chord playing hard rock bands that could amend sonically fill these enormous new venues.

Inspiring a Resistance to Stadium Concerts

Like whatsoever event that produces such a lasting cultural footprint, Woodstock's legacy is, in many ways, contradictory. Just as it inspired some to make live music events bigger and amend organized than ever before, it'south too inspired others to counter this trend by organizing their own outdoor, genre-bending music festivals every bit truthful spiritual successors to Woodstock, including the likes of Lollapalooza and the H.O.R.D.E. Festival, with mixed success never equaling the original.

As a Cultural Touchstone — Michael Ochs Athenaeum/Stringer/Getty Images

Every bit a Cultural Touchstone

Woodstock has become a legend we laissez passer on in American civilisation, a subjective symbol for the events and ideals of an entire era that continues to impact how many of us call up about the past and human activity in the nowadays. Unfortunately, those are the kinds of invisible and individualized impacts we can't really mensurate, but only sense. In this way, Woodstock's significance continues to unfold the further we go from it and the larger the fable becomes, whereas many at the time had little to no thought they were making history. Nonetheless, one of the clearest distillations of Woodstock'southward importance was published just days later the event by Time magazine, and it's this insight we'll end on: "The baffling history of mankind is full of obvious turning points and significant events: battles won, treaties signed, rulers elected or tending, and at present seemingly, planets conquered. Equally important are the great groundswells of popular movements that affect the minds and values of a generation or more, non all of which tin exist neatly tied to a time or place. Looking back upon the America of the '60s, future historians may well search for the pregnant of one such motion. Information technology drew the public's notice on the days and nights of Aug. xv through 17, 1969, on the 600-acre farm of Max Yasgur in Bethel, Northward.Y."

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Source: https://blog.cheapism.com/woodstocks-importance/