Coordinates: 43°13′50.955″N 75°24′34.707″W / 43.23082083°N 75.40964083°W / 43.23082083; -75.40964083

Woodstock 1999, also called Woodstock 99, performed July 22–25, 1999, was the second large-scale music festival (after Woodstock '94) that attempted to emulate the original Woodstock Festival of 1969. Like the previous Woodstock festivals it was performed in upstate New York, this time in Rome, New York, around 200 miles from the site of the original event. Approximately 200,000 people attended the festival.^[1] Cable network MTV covered the concert extensively and live coverage of the entire weekend was available on pay-per-view. Excerpts from the performances were later released on compact disc and DVD. Woodstock '99 was marred by violence, rape, fires and an abrupt ending to the festival.

Attributes[link]

Facilities[link]

The concert was performed at the former Griffiss Air Force Base, a Superfund site.^[2]

Prior to the concert, the promoters of the event were determined to avoid the gate-crashing that had occurred at previous festivals, and had characterized the site as "defensible", describing the 12-foot plywood and steel fence intended to keep out those without tickets. About 500 New York State Police Troopers were hired for security.^[3]

In addition to two main stages, secondary venues were available including several alternate stages, a night-time rave music tent and a film festival (sponsored by the Independent Film Channel) held in a former airplane hangar.

Woodstock 99 was conceived and executed as a commercial venture with dozens of corporate sponsors, and included the presence of vendor "malls" and modern accoutrements such as ATMs and e-mail stations.^[4]

Tickets for the event were priced at $150 plus service charges,^[1] at the time considered costly for a festival of this type.^[5]

Reception[link]

The festival featured a diverse assortment of acts, and early reviews for many of the acts were positive; critics particularly praised performances by George Clinton, Jamiroquai, James Brown, Sheryl Crow, The Tragically Hip and Rage Against the Machine.^[6][7] However, critical and public attention quickly turned to the deteriorating environment and crowd behavior.

Problems[link]

Environment[link]

Oppressive heat —which reached above 100 °F (38 °C)— and difficult environmental conditions marred the festival from early on. Added to this was the fact that the site, having been a former air strip, had been cleared of many of its shade trees, with the result that there were very few areas one could try to seek shade.

Participants who had not brought sufficient food or water to the show had to either buy from onsite vendors, whose merchandise was expensive: a single-serving pizza sold for $12, and 20 US fl oz (590 ml) bottles of water and soda for $4; or travel via looping buses to Rome's modest shopping areas, where stores had long lines and low stock.^[8][9]

The number of toilets installed proved insufficient for the number of attendees. Within a short time, some facilities were unusable and overflowing. People stood in line to access the water fountains, until frustration led a few to break the pipes apart to provide water to those in the middle of the line; this in turn caused the creation of large mud pits.

Violence[link]

Violent action sprang up during and after the Saturday night performance by Limp Bizkit, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert.^[10][11][12] The band's vocalist, Fred Durst, stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy".^[10] Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?"^[10] Primus member Les Claypool told the San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."^[10]

Violence escalated the next night during the final hours of the concert as Red Hot Chili Peppers performed. A group of peace promoters led by an independent group called Pax had distributed candles to those stopping at their booth during the day, intending them for a candlelight vigil to be held during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' performance of the song "Under the Bridge".^[13] During the band's set, the crowd began to light the candles, some also using them to start bonfires. The hundreds of empty plastic water bottles that littered the lawn area were used as fuel for the fire.

After the Red Hot Chili Peppers were finished with their main set, the audience was informed about "a bit of a problem." An audio tower caught fire, and the fire department was called in to extinguish it.^[14]

Back onstage for an encore, the Chili Peppers' lead singer Anthony Kiedis remarked how amazing the fires looked from the stage, comparing them to the 1979 film Apocalypse Now.^[15] The band proceeded to play "Sir Psycho Sexy", followed by their rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". Kiedis later stated in his autobiography, Scar Tissue that Jimi Hendrix's sister had asked the Chili Peppers to play "Fire" in honor of Jimi and his performance at the original Woodstock festival, and that they were not playing it to encourage the crowd.

Many large bonfires were burning high before the band left the stage for the last time. Participants danced in circles around the fires. Looking for more fuel, some tore off panels of plywood from the supposedly inviolable security perimeter fence. ATMs were tipped over and broken into, trailers full of merchandise and equipment were forced open and burgled, and abandoned vendor booths were turned over, and set afire.^[16]

MTV, which had been providing live coverage, removed its entire crew. MTV host Kurt Loder described the scene in the July 27, 1999 issue of USA Today:

"It was dangerous to be around. The whole scene was scary. There were just waves of hatred bouncing around the place, (...) It was clear we had to get out of there.... It was like a concentration camp. To get in, you get frisked to make sure you're not bringing in any water or food that would prevent you from buying from their outrageously priced booths. You wallow around in garbage and human waste. There was a palpable mood of anger."^[17]

After some time, a large force of New York State Troopers, local police, and various other law enforcement arrived. Most had crowd control gear and proceeded to form a riot-line that flushed the crowd to the northwest, away from the stage located at the eastern end of the airfield. Few of the crowd offered strong resistance and they dispersed quickly back toward the campground and out the main entrance.^[18]

Aftermath[link]

Police investigated four alleged instances of rape that occurred during the concert.^[19] Eyewitnesses reported a body-surfing woman being pulled down into the crowd and gang-raped in the moshpit during Limp Bizkit's set.^[20] Seven arrests were made on the final night of the concert and, afterward, police reviewed video footage, hoping to identify and hold accountable rapists and looters who, amid the chaos, had not been arrested. Approximately 12 trailers, a small bus and a number of booths and portable toilets were burned in the fray. Despite six people being injured there were no recorded deaths.

Members of the National Organization for Women later protested outside the New York offices of one of the concert promoters.^[21] Several lawsuits by concert-goers against the promoters for dehydration and distress were announced.^[22]

The New York Times solicited festival performers Rage Against the Machine for their opinion of the festival's controversy. Tom Morello, the band's guitarist, wrote on August 5, 1999 in Neil Strauss's Times column:

"Hey man, leave the kids alone. I've had enough of the frenzied demonization of young people surrounding Woodstock '99."

"Yes, Woodstock was filled with predators: the degenerate idiots who assaulted those women, the greedy promoters who wrung every cent out of thirsty concertgoers, and last but not least, the predator media that turned a blind eye to real violence and scapegoated the quarter of a million music fans at Woodstock '99, the vast majority of whom had the time of their lives"^[23]

Performers[link]

No groups that performed at the original Woodstock festival took the stage at Woodstock 1999, although John Entwistle of The Who performed a solo set, and Mickey Hart, drummer of the Grateful Dead, played with his band Planet Drum. Other performers included:

July 22[link]

^[24]

West Stage[link]

• Frostbit Blue
• K.J. James
• Little Big Jam
• Gridley Page
• Djoliba
• Red Herring
• Rattlebasket
• In Bloom
• Flipp
• 3rd Bass^[25]
• Vertical Horizon^[25]
• Strangefolk^[25]
• G. Love and Special Sauce^[26]
• The String Cheese Incident^[25]

Emerging Artists Stage[link]

• Immoral Fibres
• Simmi
• Chris Glenn
• Gary Durdin & The Clay Pinps
• Johnny Rushmore

July 23[link]

West Stage[link]

• Spitfire^[27]
• Oleander
• The Umbilical Brothers^[28]
• moe.^[29]
• Lit^[26]
• Buckcherry^[26]
• The Roots^[26]
• Insane Clown Posse^[30]
• George Clinton & the P.Funk All-Stars^[6]

East Stage[link]

• James Brown^[6]
• G. Love and Special Sauce^[26]
• Jamiroquai^[26]
• Live^[26]
• Sheryl Crow^[26]
• DMX^[26]
• The Offspring^[26]
• Korn^[26]
• Bush^[26]

Emerging Artists Stage[link]

• Ben Lee^[25]
• Beth Hart Band^[25]
• Bijou Phillips^[25]
• Chris McDermott^[25]
• Chris Pérez Band^[25]
• F.o. N.^[31]
• Liars Inc.^[25]
• Linda Rutherford & Celtic Fire^[32]
• Mike Errico^[25]
• Sherri Jackson^[25]
• Sticky Pistil^[33]
• Sugar Daddy^[25]

July 24[link]

West Stage[link]

• Spitfire^[27]
• Guster^[26]
• Bruce Hornsby^[26]
• Everclear^[26]
• Ice Cube^[6]
• Los Lobos^[34]
• Mickey Hart/Planet Drum^[6]
• Moby^[6]
• The Chemical Brothers^[26]
• Fatboy Slim^[6]

East Stage[link]

• The Tragically Hip^[6]
• Kid Rock^[26]
• Wyclef Jean with the Refugee Allstars^[12]
• Counting Crows
• Dave Matthews Band^[26]
• Alanis Morissette^[26]
• Limp Bizkit^[26]
• Rage Against the Machine^[26]
• Metallica^[26]

Emerging Artists Stage[link]

• 2 Skinnee J's^[35]
• 3^[25]
• American Pearl^[25]
• DDT^[25]
• Full Devil Jacket^[25]
• Gargantua Soul^[25]
• Gigolo Aunts^[25]
• Serial Joe^[25]

July 25[link]

West Stage[link]

• Spitfire^[27]
• Mike Ness^[6]
• Our Lady Peace^[26]
• Rusted Root^[26]
• Sevendust^[26]
• Collective Soul^[6]
• Godsmack^[26]
• Reveille^[36]
• Megadeth^[26]

East Stage[link]

• Willie Nelson^[6]
• The Brian Setzer Orchestra^[26]
• Everlast^[26]
• Elvis Costello^[26]
• Jewel^[26]
• Creed featuring Robby Krieger^[26]
• Red Hot Chili Peppers^[26]

Emerging Artists Stage[link]

• Big Sugar^[6]
• Cyclefly^[25]
• Indigenous^[25]
• John Entwistle^[6]
• John Oszajca^[25]
• Moe Loughran^[31]
• Muse^[37]
• Pound^[25]
• Pushmonkey^[25]

Recordings[link]

Music from Woodstock 1999 was released on a two-disc compact disc set, Woodstock 1999. The album features 32 performing artists, and was released on Epic Records in October 1999.

A DVD of concert highlights, entitled Woodstock 99 was released in March 2000. It features one song each from 29 of the participating acts, along with interviews from the musicians and concert-goers.

Most of the Bush performance is available on the DVD of The Best Of: 1994–1999.

See also[link]

• Woodstock Festival (1969)
• Woodstock '79 (1979)
• Woodstock '89 (1989)
• Woodstock '94 (1994)
• Przystanek Woodstock

References[link]

External links[link]

• 'Live' Woodstock Report Including Riot Photos
• Woodstock Museum
• Writers View of Woodstock
• Archive of the Woodstock 99 Experience

Woodstock Music & Art Fair (informally, Woodstock or The Woodstock Festival) was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre (2.4 km²; 240 ha, 0.94 mi²) dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County.

During the sometimes rainy weekend, thirty-two acts performed outdoors in front of 500,000 concert-goers.^[2] It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history. Rolling Stone called it one of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.^[3]

The event was captured in the 1970 documentary movie Woodstock, an accompanying soundtrack album, and Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" which commemorated the event and became a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Planning and preparation[link]

Woodstock was initiated through the efforts of Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld. It was Roberts and Rosenman who had the finances. Lang had experience as a promoter and had already organized the largest festival on the East Coast at the time, the Miami Pop Festival, which had an estimated 100,000 people attend the two day event. Roberts and Rosenman placed the following advertisement in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal under the name of Challenge International, Ltd.: "Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions".^[4]

Lang and Kornfeld noticed the ad, and the four men got together originally to discuss a retreat-like recording studio in Woodstock, but the idea evolved into an outdoor music and arts festival, although even that was initially envisioned on a smaller scale, perhaps featuring some of the big name artists who lived in the Woodstock area (such as Bob Dylan and The Band). There were differences in approach among the four: Roberts was disciplined, and knew what was needed in order for the venture to succeed, while the laid-back Lang saw Woodstock as a new, relaxed way of bringing businesspeople together.^[4] There were further doubts over the venture, as Roberts wondered whether to consolidate his losses and pull the plug, or to continue pumping his own finances into the project.^[4]

In April 1969, newly-minted superstars Creedence Clearwater Revival were the first act to sign a contract for the event, agreeing to play for $10,000. The promoters had experienced difficulty landing big-name groups prior to Creedence committing to play. Creedence drummer Doug Clifford later commented "Once Creedence signed, everyone else jumped in line and all the other big acts came on." Given their 3:00 a.m. start time and non-inclusion (at Creedence frontman John Fogerty's insistence) in the Woodstock film, Creedence members have expressed bitterness over their experiences at the famed festival.^[5]

Woodstock was designed as a profit-making venture, aptly titled "Woodstock Ventures". It famously became a "free concert" only after it became obvious that the event was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had prepared for. Tickets for the event cost $18 in advance (equivalent to $75 in 2009 after adjusting for inflation)^[6] and $24 at the gate for all three days. Ticket sales were limited to record stores in the greater New York City area, or by mail via a post office box at the Radio City Station Post Office located in Midtown Manhattan. Around 186,000 tickets were sold beforehand and organizers anticipated approximately 200,000 festival-goers would turn up.^[7]

Selection of the venue[link]

The crowd and stage in 1969.

The concert was originally scheduled to take place in the 300-acre (1.2 km²) Mills Industrial Park (41°28′39″N 74°21′49″W / 41.477525°N 74.36358°W / 41.477525; -74.36358 (Mills Industrial Park)) in the town of Wallkill, New York, which Woodstock Ventures had leased for $10,000 in the Spring of 1969.^[8] Town officials were assured that no more than 50,000 would attend. Town residents immediately opposed the project. In early July the Town Board passed a law requiring a permit for any gathering over 5,000 people. On July 15, 1969, the Wallkill Zoning Board of Appeals officially banned the concert on the basis that the planned portable toilets would not meet town code.^[9] Reports about the ban, however, turned out to be a publicity bonanza for the festival.^[10]

According to Elliot Tiber in his 2007 book Taking Woodstock, Tiber offered to host the event on his 15 acres (61,000 m²) motel grounds, and had a permit for such an event. He claims to have introduced the promoters to dairy farmer Max Yasgur.^[11] Lang, however, disputes Tiber's account, and says that Tiber introduced him to a real estate salesman, who drove him to Yasgur's farm without Tiber. Sam Yasgur, Max's son, agrees with Lang's account.^[12] Yasgur's land formed a natural bowl sloping down to Filippini Pond on the land's north side. The stage would be set at the bottom of the hill with Filippini Pond forming a backdrop. The pond would become a popular skinny dipping destination.

The organizers once again told Bethel authorities they expected no more than 50,000 people.

Despite resident opposition and signs proclaiming, "Buy No Milk. Stop Max's Hippy Music Festival",^[13] Bethel Town Attorney Frederick W. V. Schadt and building inspector Donald Clark approved the permits, but the Bethel Town Board refused to issue them formally. Clark was ordered to post stop work orders.

Free concert[link]

The late change in venue did not give the festival organizers enough time to prepare. At a meeting three days before the event, organizers felt they had two choices. One option was to improve the fencing and security which might have resulted in violence; the other involved putting all their resources into completing the stage, which would cause Woodstock Ventures to take a financial hit. The crowd, which was arriving in greater numbers and earlier than anticipated, made the decision for them. The fence was cut the night before the concert.

The festival[link]

Part of the crowd on the first day of the festival.

The influx of attendees to the rural concert site in Bethel created a massive traffic jam. Fearing chaos as thousands began descending on the community, Bethel did not enforce its codes.^[9] Eventually, announcements on radio stations as far away as WNEW-FM in Manhattan and descriptions of the traffic jams on television news programs discouraged people from setting off to the festival.^[14][15] Arlo Guthrie made an announcement that was included in the film saying that the New York State Thruway was closed.^[16] The director of the Woodstock museum discussed below said this never occurred.^[17] To add to the problems and difficulty in dealing with the large crowds, recent rains had caused muddy roads and fields. The facilities were not equipped to provide sanitation or first aid for the number of people attending; hundreds of thousands found themselves in a struggle against bad weather, food shortages, and poor sanitation.^[18]

On the morning of Sunday, August 17, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller called festival organizer John Roberts and told him he was thinking of ordering 10,000 New York State National Guard troops to the festival. Roberts was successful in persuading Rockefeller not to do this. Sullivan County declared a state of emergency.^[14]

Although the festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and the conditions involved, there were two recorded fatalities: one from what was believed to be a heroin overdose and another caused in an accident when a tractor ran over an attendee sleeping in a nearby hayfield. There also were two births recorded at the event (one in a car caught in traffic and another in a hospital after an airlift by helicopter) and four miscarriages.^[19] Oral testimony in the film supports the overdose and run-over deaths and at least one birth, along with many logistical headaches.

Yet, in tune with the idealistic hopes of the 1960s, Woodstock satisfied most attendees. There was a sense of social harmony, which, with the quality of music, and the overwhelming mass of people, many sporting bohemian dress, behavior, and attitudes helped to make it one of the enduring events of the century.^[20]

After the concert, Max Yasgur, who owned the site of the event, saw it as a victory of peace and love. He spoke of how nearly half a million people filled with possibilities of disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. He states that "if we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future..."^[4]

Sound[link]

Sound for the concert was engineered by Bill Hanley, whose innovations in the sound industry have earned him the prestigious Parnelli Award.^[21] "It worked very well," he says of the event. "I built special speaker columns on the hills and had 16 loudspeaker arrays in a square platform going up to the hill on 70-foot [21 meter] towers. We set it up for 150,000 to 200,000 people. Of course, 500,000 showed up."^[22] ALTEC designed 4×15" marine ply cabinets that weighed in at half a ton apiece, stood 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, almost 4 feet (1.2 m) deep, and 3 feet (0.91 m) wide. Each of these enclosures carried four 15-inch (380 mm) JBL D140 loudspeakers. The tweeters consisted of 4×2-Cell & 2×10-Cell Altec Horns. Behind the stage were three transformers providing 2,000 amperes of current to power the amplification setup.^[23] For many years this system was collectively referred to as the Woodstock Bins.^[24]

Performing artists[link]

Thirty-two acts performed over the course of the four days:

Friday, August 15 – Saturday, August 16[link]

Saturday, August 16 – Sunday, August 17[link]

Sunday, August 17 – Monday, August 18[link]

Declined invitations[link]

• Bob Dylan, in whose "backyard" the festival was held was never in serious negotiation. Instead, Dylan signed in mid-July to play the Isle of Wight Festival of Music, on August 31. Dylan set sail for England on the Queen Elizabeth 2 on August 15, the day the Woodstock Festival started. His son was injured by a cabin door and the family disembarked. Dylan, with his wife Sarah, flew to England the following week. Dylan had been unhappy about the number of hippies piling up outside his house in the nearby town of Woodstock.^[26]
• The Beatles/John Lennon:^[27] presents two scenarios as to why The Beatles did not perform. The first is that promoters contacted John Lennon to discuss a Beatles performance at Woodstock, and Lennon said that the Beatles would not play unless there was also a spot at the festival for Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band, whereupon he was turned down.^{[28][unreliable source?]} The website claims the more likely explanation is that Lennon wanted to play but his entry into the United States from Canada was blocked by President Richard Nixon.^{[29][30][unreliable source?]} The Beatles were, in any case, on the verge of disbanding. Also, they had not performed any live concerts since August 1966, three full years before the festival (not including their impromptu rooftop concert given on January 30, 1969 a few months before).
• Jeff Beck Group: Jeff Beck disbanded the group prior to Woodstock. "I deliberately broke the group up before Woodstock." Beck says. "I didn't want it to be preserved".^[31]
• The Doors were considered as a potential performing band, but canceled at the last moment; according to guitarist Robby Krieger, they turned it down because they thought it would be a "second class repeat of Monterey Pop Festival", and later regretted that decision.^[32]
• Led Zeppelin was asked to perform, their manager Peter Grant stating: "We were asked to do Woodstock and Atlantic were very keen, and so was our U.S. promoter, Frank Barsalona. I said no because at Woodstock we'd have just been another band on the bill". However, the group did play the 1st Atlanta International Pop Festival on July 5, as one of 22 bands at the two-day event. Woodstock weekend, Zeppelin performed south of the festival at the Asbury Park Convention Hall in New Jersey. Their only time out taken was to attend Elvis Presley's show at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, on August 12.^[33]
• The Byrds were invited, but chose not to participate, figuring Woodstock to be no different from any of the other music festivals that summer. There were also concerns about money. As bassist John York remembers: "We were flying to a gig and Roger [McGuinn] came up to us and said that a guy was putting on a festival in upstate New York. But at that point they weren't paying all of the bands. He asked us if we wanted to do it and we said, 'No'. We had no idea what it was going to be. We were burned out and tired of the festival scene. [...] So all of us said, 'No, we want a rest' and missed the best festival of all.'"^[34]
• Tommy James and the Shondells declined an invitation. Lead singer Tommy James stated later: "We could have just kicked ourselves. We were in Hawaii, and my secretary called and said, 'Yeah, listen, there's this pig farmer in upstate New York that wants you to play in his field.' That's how it was put to me. So we passed, and we realized what we'd missed a couple of days later."^[35]
• The Moody Blues were included on the original Wallkill poster as performers, but decided to back out after being booked in Paris the same weekend.^[36]
• Spirit also declined an invitation to play, as they already had shows planned and wanted to play those instead, not knowing how big Woodstock would be.^[37]
• Joni Mitchell was originally slated to perform, but canceled at the urging of her manager to avoid missing a scheduled appearance on The Dick Cavett Show.^[38][39]
• Lighthouse declined to perform at Woodstock.^[40]
• Roy Rogers was asked by Lang to close the festival with Happy Trails but he declined.^[41]
• Procol Harum was invited but refused because Woodstock fell at the end of a long tour and also coincided with the due date of guitarist Robin Trower's baby.^[42]
• Jethro Tull also declined. According to frontman Ian Anderson, he knew it would be a big event but he did not want to go because he did not like hippies and other concerns including inappropriate nudity and the money being right.^[43]

Media coverage[link]

Very few reporters from outside the immediate area were on the scene. During the first few days of the festival, national media coverage emphasized the problems. Front page headlines in the New York Daily News read "Traffic Uptight at Hippiefest" and "Hippies Mired in a Sea of Mud". Coverage became more positive by the end of the festival, in part because the parents of concertgoers called the media and told them, based on their children's phone calls, that their reporting was misleading.^[14][44]

The New York Times covered the prelude to the festival and the move from Wallkill to Bethel.^[13] Barnard Collier, who reported from the event for the Times, asserts that he was pressured by on-duty editors at the paper to write a misleadingly negative article about the event. According to Collier, this led to acrimonious discussions and his threat to refuse to write the article until the paper's executive editor, James Reston, agreed to let him write the article as he saw fit. The eventual article dealt with issues of traffic jams and minor lawbreaking, but went on to emphasize cooperation, generosity, and the good nature of the festival goers.^[14][44] When the festival was over, Collier wrote another article about the exodus of fans from the festival site and the lack of violence at the event. The chief medical officer for the event and several local residents were quoted as praising the festival goers.^[19][45]

Middletown, New York's Times Herald-Record, the only local daily newspaper, editorialized against the law that banned the festival from Wallkill. During the festival a rare Saturday edition was published. The paper had the only phone line running out of the site, and it used a motorcyclist to get stories and pictures from the impassable crowd to the newspaper's office 35 miles away in Middletown.^{[1][46][47][48]}

Releases[link]

Films[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)

The documentary film, Woodstock, directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited by Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese, was released in 1970. Artie Kornfeld (one of the promoters of the festival) came to Fred Weintraub, an executive at Warner Bros., and asked for money to film the festival. Previously, Artie had been turned down everywhere else, but Fred Weintraub became his hero and, against the express wishes of other Warner Bros. executives, Weintraub put his job on the line and gave Kornfeld $100,000 to make the film. Woodstock helped to save Warner Bros at a time when the company was on the verge of going out of business. The book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls details the making of the film.

Wadleigh rounded up a crew of about 100 from the New York film scene. With no money to pay the crew, he agreed to a double-or-nothing scheme, in which the crew would receive double pay if the film succeeded and nothing if it bombed. Wadleigh strove to make the film as much about the hippies as the music, listening to their feelings about compelling events contemporaneous with the festival (such as the Vietnam War), as well as the views of the townspeople.^[49]

Woodstock received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature.^[50] The film has been deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress. In 1994, Woodstock: The Director's Cut was released and expanded to include Janis Joplin as well as additional performances by Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Canned Heat not seen in the original version of the film. In 2009, the film was re-released on DVD. This release marks the film's first availability on Blu-ray disc.

Another film on Woodstock named Taking Woodstock was produced in 2009 by Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee.^[51]

Albums[link]

Two "soundtrack" albums were released. The first, Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, was a 3-LP (later 2-CD) album containing a sampling of one or two songs by most of the acts who performed. A year later, Woodstock 2 was released as a 2-LP album. Both albums included recordings of stage announcements (e.g., "[We're told] that the brown acid is not specifically too good", "Hey, if you think really hard, maybe we can stop this rain") and crowd noises (i.e., the "rain chant") between songs. In 1994, a third album, Woodstock Diary was released. Tracks from all three albums, as well as numerous additional, previously-unreleased performances from the festival, but not the stage announcements and crowd noises, were reissued by Atlantic as a 4-CD box set titled Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music.

An album titled Jimi Hendrix: Woodstock also was released in 1994, featuring only selected recordings of Jimi Hendrix at the festival. A longer double-disc set, Live at Woodstock (1999) features nearly every song of Hendrix's performance, omitting just two pieces that were sung by his rhythm guitarist.