Woodstock (2737 words) Essay Example For Students

Woodstock (2737 words) Essay WoodstockWoodstock To some, the 60s were a decade of discovery as Americans first journeyed to the moon. Others remember the time as a decade of Americas moral decline with the advent of rock and roll and its representation of sinful, inappropriate ideals. Yet for many people, the 60s symbolized a decade of love and harmony. Hippies exemplified these beliefs, and in 1969 they gathered at a music festival known as Woodstock to celebrate their music, their love, and their freedom in a concert that has remained on of the most influential events of the 60s. The youth of the 60s were known as the Love generation. They made love promiscuously and openly, and preferred open to formal marriages. Weekend love-ins, free form gatherings, communal living quarters, and rock festivals were held in response to the love movement. The love movement was the hippie belief for peace and harmony. It reached its peak in the summer of 1967, and by then it had over 300,000 followers who referred to themselv es as the love children or the gentle people. They gathered in San Francisco, the hippie center of the world, during the summers. During these Summers of love, they lived on the streets of Haight-Ashbury, sitting in groups along the street and strumming their guitars (Frike 62). These love children, otherwise known as the hippies were the result of the antiwar movement that was sweeping the nation during the Vietnam war. Hippies were resolutely against the war. They participated loudly, and often violently in countless anti-war protest rallies and marches. They were known to publicly burn draft cards, and some even renounced military service for prison (Hertsgard 124). Hippies were not only antiwar, they were predominantly antiestablishment. The status symbols of their elders were decisively rejected: wealth, social position, culture, physical attractiveness, and economic security. They held in disdain, cosmetics, expensive jewelry, nightclubs and restaurants and all other refinements of the affluent society. Wealth meant nothing to them. Personal freedom to express oneself was believed to be the most important thing in life. They were antiauthority, antirace discrimination, and antipollution, in short they were rebels against the society, fighting against the moral standards of America they felt were unjust (Hertsgard 153). Events such as rock concerts soon became a platform against the repressive government and accepted morals. Such events provided opportunities to express their resentment. The rock concert of Woodstock was a prime example. It was described by psychoanalyst Rollo May as a symptomatic event of our time that showed the tremendous h unger, need, yearning for community on the part of the youth(The Big Woodstock 17). Rock concerts of the 60s had become the equivalent of a political forum for the young for the expression of political ideas, the spirit of community and awareness of the world around. Woodstock was a celebration of joy which wiped out, at least temporarily, the persistent feelings of meaninglessness that permeate our culture This concert, held in Bethel, New York, in August of 1969, has become a symbol of the 60s. It is a symbol of the hippie culture embodied in the youth of the time. This concert was the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Billed by its youthful Manhattan promoters as An Aquarian Exposition, it promised music, peace, and great rock and roll. By a conservative estimate, more than 400,000 people, the vast majority of them between the ages of 16 and 30, showed up for the Woodstock festival. Thousands more would come if police had not blocked off access roads, which had become parking lots ch oked with stalled cars. The multitude of cars and people also forced the New York Thruway to close, creating one of the nations worst traffic jams (Peace Mecca 10). People walked as many as twenty miles to get to the concert, all the while singing songs of peace and love and carrying placards displaying their hippie sentiments. Among the many were Keep America Beautiful-Stay Stoned, Love is Power, and Flower Power. Flowers, along with a dove perched upon a guitar became the symbols of the festival. These images were painted on cars, clothes and even bodies (Rock Audience). Their shabby clothes were a symbol of their freedom, their uniforms being faded jeans and worn tee shirts. They wore beads and feathers with their long hair pulled back in bandannas and beaded headbands Had the festival lasted a little longer, as many as one million of these colorful youths might have made the pilgrimage to Bethel (What Happened 8). The lure of the festival was an all-star cast of top rock artists , including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jefferson Airplane. But the good vibrations of the good groups turned out to be the least of it. What the youth of America, and their observing elders saw at Bethel was the potential power of a generation that had in countless disturbing ways rejected the traditional values and goals of the U.S. Thousands of young people, who had previously thought of themselves as an isolated minority realized now what power they had as a group over society (Fass 3). Woodstock was the brainchild of four young entrepreneurs who wanted to put on a great Rock and Roll show for America In 1968, the four men, Michael Lang, Artie Kornfield, Joel Rosenman, and John Roberts, made a visit to their friend Max Yasgur who lived on a farm near Bethel, New York. They had chosen the town of Bethel for their concert because of the symbolic biblical reference in its name. The four managed to convince Yasgur to let them hold their concert on his 600-acre farm. He agreed to the estimate that only ten to fifteen-thousand people would be attending the concert on his land (Woodstock Music). Hobby And Sport EssayDespite the religious pressures, rock music flourished in England, as did the music scene in the U.S. San Francisco immediately became the heart of it. Known as the Liverpool of the West, San Francisco was bursting with rock activity in the 60s. Embedded in this citys rock scene were such groups as the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Byrds. The music of these groups began the infamous Acid Rock movement. It symbolized and portrayed the drug abuse of the decade. The widespread use of mind altering drugs such as marijuana and LSD provided the inspiration for the creation of this music (Grunwald 254). The music of the sixties was diverse and colorful in its nature. The different sounds of sixties rock included folk, reggae, acid, blues, soul, punk, and countless others that helped shape the music of this period. Compared to the fifties, it had become subtler and more sophisticated. Songs of this decade reached for the poetic, the symbolic, and the mystical in an effort to better pinpoint the moods of the times. Through such varied means, rock music became an art that appealed to the youth of America This music provided a support during the turbulent times of the sixties. It stood firmly while the mushroom cloud of the atom bomb and the smoke from the devastation in Vietnam hung menacingly over America, and it remained a support throughout the antiwar movement which deeply involved the young. In revolt to the war, the youth of America had become flower children, or hippies. They rebelled against a society whose morals they held in disdain. They symbolized the universal need for love and harmony. Finding an outlet in music, they created songs that expressed their need for personal freedom and societal peace crying out to give peace a chance (Hertsgard 309). The music festival of Woodstock was a prominent event of their time that was viewed as a celebration of life in the sixties, during which Hundreds of thousands of kids cam e together to enjoy each other in the presence of music, and of peace. They knew about art and nature. They lived for a weekend in the still eye of the hurricane (Woodstock). BibliographyWorks CitedAll Nature is but Art: Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Vogue. December 1969:194-201. Big Woodstock Rock Trip. Time. August 1969:14b-22. Ewen, David. All the Years of Popular Music. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.,1977. Fass, Don. The Sixties. http://www.sixties.net (19 March 1999). Frike, David. Minor Epiphanies and Momentary Bummers. Rolling Stone. August 1989:62-91. Grunwald, Henry. Youth Trip. This Fabulous Century: 1960-1970. 1986 ed. Hertsgard, Mark. A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles. New York: Dell Publishing Groups Inc.,1995. Huges, Rupert. Music Lovers Encyclopedia. New York: Doubleday Inc.,1984. Rock Audience Moves to Dusk-to-Dawn Rhythms. New York Times. 18 August 1969:25. Tired Rock Fans Begin Exodus From Music Fair. New York Times. 20 August 1969:1-3. What Happened in the Sixties?. http://www.bbhq.com/sixties2.htm (19 March 1999). Woodstock: Dawn of the Bigtime. Economist. August 1989:75. Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Newsweek. August 1969:88. Woodstock: Peace Mecca. Billboard. August 1969:1,10. Music Essays