3 Days of Peace and Music, 40 Years Later

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

“We didn’t want to say dropping acid is the greatest thing in the world because obviously there are problems with that,” Mr. Lawrence said. “But it is part of the history, just like the March on Washington and the British Invasion.”

THIS year is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, and what a difference four decades makes.

Jimi and Janis are long gone, and there’s no need to “Watch out for the brown acid” on Yasgur’s farm. These alfalfa fields, where a half-million young people gathered for the three-day music festival in August 1969, have been transformed into a $100 million performing arts center run by a nonprofit corporation called the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.

There are two outdoor performance spaces, including one that seats 15,000, on this 2,000-acre parcel in Sullivan County, about 90 miles from New York City. The centerpiece is the Museum at Bethel Woods, which opened last June in an immaculate wooden building dedicated to the 1960s and the 1969 Woodstock Festival.

None of the structures were built where the original festival stage stood because “we would never disturb hallowed ground,” said Wade Lawrence, the museum director, on a tour.

During the tour, on a recent Sunday, Joni Mitchell’s song “Big Yellow Taxi,” with its familiar lament about paving paradise to put up a parking lot, came drifting out of the gift shop, where designer Woodstock shirts sell for $69.95. Since much of Max Yasgur’s acreage is now designated for parking, you might wonder on which side of that song the museum falls.

Throughout the museum, there is a bit of what might be called Wood-schlock, including large flower-power shapes projected on the carpeted floor and cool spinning lights and psychedelic designs. There are also the obligatory displays of groovy clothing and other artifacts.

But there is also substance. Museum officials were leery of fetishizing Woodstock as a big party, Mr. Lawrence said, but neither did they want to be didactic. The idea was to create an “experience” in the Hendrixian sense, one that visitors could live through and come out a bit transformed.

Yes, it was important to show the festival in its proper historical, political and social context, so there are serious exhibits devoted to the politics, culture and music of the ’60s. Other exhibits address a range of aspects about the event itself — including how the concertgoers got there (the crush of cars shut down the New York State Thruway).

But mostly, the museum seems focused on the visceral. The point is to let visitors feel what it was like to be there, Mr. Lawrence said. Indeed, it is the performers and their music that dominate — there are images of Ravi Shankar, Carlos Santana, Joe Cocker and others.

Perhaps most striking is the theater in the round, where concert footage plays on tall video screens stretching up to an overhead screen of the sky. Roadie equipment boxes are scattered about, and visitors can lie on the carpet watching Joan Baez and other performers. Nearby, a more conventional theater shows a 21-minute film in which the musicians annotate their performances.

Of course, there are plenty of “wow” items. There is the trippy-hippie magic bus with the psychedelic paint job and videos projected on its windshield. There is the swirly-colored Volkswagen Beetle.

The Woodstock Festival, originally called An Aquarian Exposition, did not occur in the village of Woodstock, but in Bethel, which is more than 40 miles away. Museum officials say that would-be visitors call saying that they have driven to Woodstock and cannot find the museum. (Hey, man, you should have Googled it first.)

In fact, one exhibit explains how promoters had considered holding the event in Woodstock, then in nearby Middletown, and later rented Mr. Yasgur’s farm.

The museum tour begins with a peace sign projected on the floor, and Country Joe and the Fish singing “What are we fighting for?” from a video screen. There are displays of quotations and photographs of performers, attendees and local residents — and Wavy Gravy, who as master of ceremonies uttered the famous words, “What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000.”

Then there are snazzy touch-screen computer displays offering detailed information, and an interactive map table detailing the festival locations.

Yeah, yeah — but where’s Hendrix’s guitar, the white Stratocaster he used for his famous abstraction of “The Star Spangled Banner?” It is perhaps the most requested item here, but it is on display in Seattle, Hendrix’s hometown.

(more)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/arts/art...ial/19love.html

[Danno 1,228]

What I always find amusing is, these puff pieces on Woddstock, (in print or film) are always done by

"like minded souls".

It would kinda be like Evangelicals covering "The Jerry Falwell story" or something.