Woodstock Music and Art Festival 
August 1969

My situation at the time
Getting to Woodstock
Sly, The Who, Jefferson Airplane
Leaving Woodstock
Reflections
 

My situation in August 1969

I was 20 years old and in the U.S. Army stationed at Ft.Monmouth in New Jersey. This is about 50 miles south of New York City. I lived in a barracks situation. Bunk beds and footlockers. One of the fellows had gotten a new album. Tommy. A rock opera by the WHO. The radio stations were giving a lot of air time to Pinball Wizard but it was that Saturday morning that I learned about Tommy and listened to the double album. I had been stationed in New Jersey for a long time and had already completed one course for microwave radio repair. I was close to finishing another course on specific tactical equipment and was sure I'd be getting orders for Viet Nam.
I didn't have a car and neither did my close friends. So I usually stayed on post on the weekends. I'd taken the bus to New York City several times, just to get out and about. My family was in Wisconsin, nearly a thousand miles away. You had to make your own fun while in the Army.
 
 

Getting to Woodstock on Saturday

It was a lazy Saturday and we were looking for something to do. I didn't know about the concert beforehand. We were watching Television in the community lounge area. The news broadcasts were talking about an outdoor concert that had gotten out of hand. Too many people showed up. A few of us were talking about how cool it would be to be there and one thing led to another. I really didn't know the guy that had the car very well but it just happened that there were four of us that were ready for an adventure. I think we stopped for a loaf of bread, a package of bologna, and some drinks and then hit the road. We had no intention of going to the concert. We were just going out for a drive thinking maybe we'd get a chance to meet some people.

We couldn't get off the major highway. The exits were closed. Somehow we doubled back and snuck off an on-ramp to get to the local roads. We didn't know where we were going. Or care. Most folks were trying to get out so our main directional was to head toward the heavy traffic. The going was slow. Cars were parked along both sides of every road and a lot of kids were walking. Finally the pedestrian traffic got so heavy that we couldn't hardly move at all. We decided to get out and walk around ourselves so we pulled into a spot as another car pulled out. It was already dark by this time and we thought we would just walk around a while. I don't remember how far we walked but we did hear music eventually and kept heading toward it. The well traveled roads led us to a center of activity. There was a hill with a lot of portable toilets. We were quite excited to have gotten this far. But it seems we were too late for any further concerts that night. So we just weaved through the muddy hillside looking for a spot big enough for the four of us to lay out like everyone else. I don't think the spotlights were on until we'd been there for quite a while. There were tall towers with huge lights that were scanning across the countryside. No matter how far the beacon went out, there were people in its path. It was then that we started to get an idea on how many people were around. But the lights must have been a curtain call and the music began.
 
 
 

Concerts from Sly, Who, Airplane

• SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE

 

 
 
 

 I don't remember much about this session. In fact, years later I couldn't really be sure which group I saw because other accounts indicated that SLY played a different time. But I do remember the band trying to get the people to sing along. Many of the people had crashed or were trying to sleep. But the songs were too compelling and I joined in with relish. Of course, all I had to do was repeat a chant.  "Higher".  Hard to tell where images in the mind come from but I'm sure it was SLY.  Don't let anyone tell you that they played in the afternoon.  It must have been midnight.  We were so relieved to have gotten a place to lie down in such a large crowd.  And so excited when the music started, since we thought we were too late.
 

• THE WHO

 

 
 
 

 There was such a long period of relative quiet that we were sure the concert had ended for the night. But there was no mistaking who was next once they started playing. I couldn't get over how remarkable it was that I was listening to the Tommy album for the first time earlier that day without ever imagining being where I was now. This was great. We weren't close enough to make out Roger Daltry's face but we could clearly watch the tassels on his jacket jump. The WHO played a long time. Seems like they did all of Tommy and then some.
 

• JEFFERSON AIRPLANE

 

 
 
 

 The sun came up and it was incredible. Now we could really see the mass of humanity. From our perspective the sun rise was from behind the stage. I like to tell people to remember how Grace Slick was saying it was time for morning maniac music, and yelling "Good Morning People" just as the sun was coming up. That would have been poetic and I like to remember it that way even if the sun had been up for an hour by then.
 

 

Sunday afternoon and leaving Woodstock

With the long breaks between the groups we had seen, we didn't know what to expect next. We took turns going through the long lines at the port-a-potty. We had to work to keep from being separated from each other. The sun became really hot, baking the mud. We waited and waited for another band. It didn't happen for us. We figured that we got a lot more than we bargained for. Becoming AWOL was a distinct possibility, given the traffic situation. So we left.
 
 
 

Reflections from 30 years

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Although I told my story a few times, I really didn't think about it much until the fervor for the 20th anniversary. So I've long since forgotten many of the details. I've got two kids that are older now than I was when I attended the festival. I get a charge out of hinting now, "Did I ever tell you about the time I went to Woodstock?"

Certainly, I was fortunate to have been there and note it as one of the major events in my life. We were incredibly lucky to make a spontaneous trip turn into a such a milestone in our lives. At the time, I didn't even want to write and tell my Mother that I had been there. Too much of the press was about the drugs. But it wasn't about drugs. For me it was about freedom. There were a lot of drugs at Woodstock. People that had it were using it openly, freely. I was about to lose my freedom to political captivity in a war zone. And it was weighing on me.