Burning Man in Nevada, and Coachella in California,
to name a few. All could be said to have been inspired
by Woodstock and its precursor, the Monterey Pop
Festival. “Woodstock was probably less explosive than
Monterey when it came to creating a new moment in
music,” suggests journalist Peter Ames Carlin.
“Monterey made San Francisco the center of rock, with
Janis, Santana, the Airplane, and so on.” While
Woodstock did make stars of several artists, such as
Santana and Joe Cocker, Carlin notes, the real impact
was cultural: “The symbolic creation of a youth-made
city, one where everyone was so ‘groovy,’ was
Woodstock’s biggest legacy. It did rub off on the artists,
in the sense that music of the ’70s centered on more
adult concerns. Revolution was always a thing, but now
music was a little more focused on what happens after
the revolution—you build a home, a community, a
workable sense of actually living.”
Perhaps the last word on Woodstock belongs to the
conservative, middle-aged farmer who viewed with
wonder the “youth-made city” that sprang up on his
rolling fields. “You’ve proven something to the world,”
Max Yasgur said, addressing the crowd near the end of
the festival. “That a half a million kids—and I call you
kids because I have children who are older than you
are—a half a million young people can get together and
have three days of fun and music, and have nothing but
fun and music! And I—God bless you for it!” l
AMONG THE PROGENY OF
Woodstock was a dark version
of the festival, the Altamont
free concert (above), just four
months later, when members
of Hells Angels lethally
overreacted in the name of
security during a performance
by Mick Jagger and the Rolling
Stones. Happier descendants
were 1974’s California Jam
(top, with Ozzy Osbourne) and
Woodstock ’94 (opposite), a
25th-anniversary festival in
Saugerties, New York.92 LIFE WOODSTOCK