1
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000
Downloaded from
YTS.MX

2
00:00:02,203 --> 00:00:04,972
(logo whooshing)

3
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000
Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

4
00:00:38,038 --> 00:00:40,241
- What happened at
White Lake this weekend

5
00:00:40,241 --> 00:00:42,810
may have been more than
an uncontrolled outpouring

6
00:00:42,810 --> 00:00:46,380
of hip young people struggling,
as they did, to survive,

7
00:00:46,380 --> 00:00:50,184
first the 20-mile traffic
jams and five-mile hikes,

8
00:00:50,184 --> 00:00:52,586
then the intense
heat and sudden rain,

9
00:00:52,586 --> 00:00:56,056
the thirst and hunger from the
shortage of water and food,

10
00:00:56,056 --> 00:00:59,293
just for the opportunity to
spend a few days in the country

11
00:00:59,293 --> 00:01:02,763
getting stoned on their drugs
and grooving on the music.

12
00:01:02,763 --> 00:01:05,866
(helicopter humming)

13
00:01:07,968 --> 00:01:12,506
- [Richie] 100 million
songs gonna be sung tonight.

14
00:01:12,506 --> 00:01:16,009
All of them are gonna be
singing about the same thing,

15
00:01:16,009 --> 00:01:19,813
but I hope everybody who
came came to hear, really,

16
00:01:21,182 --> 00:01:25,085
and it's all about
you, actually, and me,

17
00:01:25,085 --> 00:01:27,388
and everybody around the stage,

18
00:01:27,388 --> 00:01:29,623
and everybody that
hasn't gotten here,

19
00:01:29,623 --> 00:01:32,260
and the people who are gonna
read about you tomorrow.

20
00:01:33,327 --> 00:01:36,697
Yes,
(audience applauding)

21
00:01:36,697 --> 00:01:38,466
and how really groovy you were.

22
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:40,468
- So there we are.

23
00:01:40,468 --> 00:01:41,969
We have a stage.

24
00:01:41,969 --> 00:01:43,036
We have microphones.

25
00:01:43,036 --> 00:01:44,305
We have a sound system.

26
00:01:44,305 --> 00:01:45,873
But we don't have
any performers.

27
00:01:48,075 --> 00:01:50,944
Every now and then
we'd spot one, (laughs)

28
00:01:50,944 --> 00:01:53,147
and someone would go off
and round this guy up,

29
00:01:53,147 --> 00:01:54,114
and he'd come up on.

30
00:01:54,114 --> 00:01:55,082
That's how Richie showed.

31
00:01:55,082 --> 00:01:56,350
That's how Richie played.

32
00:01:56,350 --> 00:01:58,319
Richie was supposed to
play in the evening.

33
00:01:58,319 --> 00:02:00,154
- I knew for a
fact, immediately,

34
00:02:00,154 --> 00:02:03,157
Tim Hardin wasn't
going on first, period,

35
00:02:03,157 --> 00:02:06,727
and I was supposed to
be fifth on the bill.

36
00:02:06,727 --> 00:02:08,229
It dawned on me

37
00:02:08,229 --> 00:02:13,033
that there wasn't anybody
else there to go on but me,

38
00:02:14,168 --> 00:02:15,836
and they started
to come at me like,

39
00:02:15,836 --> 00:02:17,671
"Richie, would you go on?"

40
00:02:17,671 --> 00:02:22,310
I'm saying to myself, "Oh no,

41
00:02:22,310 --> 00:02:24,878
"this thing is about two
hours and 15 minutes late,

42
00:02:24,878 --> 00:02:27,114
"and people are gonna
throw beer cans at me,"

43
00:02:27,114 --> 00:02:29,317
and I'm freaking out. (laughs)

44
00:02:29,317 --> 00:02:32,353
So, all of a sudden
Michael's there,

45
00:02:32,353 --> 00:02:34,922
"Please, Richie, please,"

46
00:02:34,922 --> 00:02:36,790
so I went up on the stage,

47
00:02:36,790 --> 00:02:40,194
and the minute I got up
there I knew that it was okay

48
00:02:40,194 --> 00:02:42,763
because they wanted
something to happen, period,

49
00:02:42,763 --> 00:02:44,265
you know what I mean,

50
00:02:44,265 --> 00:02:46,900
and it was wonderful to
start off and do the set,

51
00:02:46,900 --> 00:02:48,469
and two hours and
something later

52
00:02:48,469 --> 00:02:50,638
I start walking off the stage,

53
00:02:50,638 --> 00:02:53,474
and they go, "Go back,
there's nobody here yet,"

54
00:02:53,474 --> 00:02:54,975
and I'm going, "Oh no,"

55
00:02:54,975 --> 00:02:57,245
and I go back on the
stage, six times I think,

56
00:02:58,646 --> 00:03:01,582
and I'm saying to myself,
"Oh, come on, guys."

57
00:03:01,582 --> 00:03:04,785
What am I gonna sing the
next time I go (laughs)

58
00:03:04,785 --> 00:03:07,255
I don't even know
what I'm gonna do.

59
00:03:07,255 --> 00:03:09,089
So, I started
strumming the guitar,

60
00:03:09,089 --> 00:03:10,824
and I started tuning
it at the same time

61
00:03:10,824 --> 00:03:12,560
because it was out of tune,

62
00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:14,262
so once I started strumming it

63
00:03:14,262 --> 00:03:16,397
I really didn't know
what I was gonna sing.

64
00:03:17,898 --> 00:03:19,467
I was fishing. (laughs)

65
00:03:19,467 --> 00:03:20,701
I really was.

66
00:03:20,701 --> 00:03:22,703
I was fishing for some
song to come to me,

67
00:03:23,904 --> 00:03:25,406
and I just started
singing "Freedom"

68
00:03:25,406 --> 00:03:27,741
because that was what was
running through my mind

69
00:03:27,741 --> 00:03:28,942
at the time.

70
00:03:28,942 --> 00:03:30,544
I just started
singing "Freedom."

71
00:03:30,544 --> 00:03:33,781
* Freedom, freedom

72
00:03:33,781 --> 00:03:36,917
* Freedom, freedom

73
00:03:36,917 --> 00:03:39,119
- Richie was the first act
'cause Richie was there,

74
00:03:39,119 --> 00:03:42,956
and Richie, of course, played
his whole set and came off,

75
00:03:42,956 --> 00:03:45,326
and I said, "Great,
great, wonderful, man.

76
00:03:45,326 --> 00:03:47,361
"Play an encore," 'cause we
still didn't have anybody.

77
00:03:47,361 --> 00:03:49,563
I think he played three encores,

78
00:03:49,563 --> 00:03:52,232
and that's how the
"Freedom" song got invented.

79
00:03:52,232 --> 00:03:55,869
I mean, he literally had
nothing more that he could play.

80
00:03:55,869 --> 00:03:57,338
He didn't know anything more.

81
00:03:59,039 --> 00:04:01,475
- It was comical because
you figured he's done,

82
00:04:01,475 --> 00:04:04,612
let's see who's next, and
Richie came out again.

83
00:04:04,612 --> 00:04:07,715
Well, then he'd go off and
it was like let's see again.

84
00:04:07,715 --> 00:04:10,183
No, here's comes Richie
Havens again, yeah, yeah,

85
00:04:10,183 --> 00:04:13,921
and there weren't announcements
indicating that it was just,

86
00:04:13,921 --> 00:04:15,289
we waited, and he came back,

87
00:04:15,289 --> 00:04:17,458
and he came back,
and he came back,

88
00:04:17,458 --> 00:04:19,760
but I remember when
he finally went off,

89
00:04:20,928 --> 00:04:23,564
that the entire outfit
that he was wearing

90
00:04:23,564 --> 00:04:25,566
was just drenched in sweat.

91
00:04:25,566 --> 00:04:27,901
("Freedom")

92
00:04:29,403 --> 00:04:31,004
(audience cheering)

93
00:04:31,004 --> 00:04:32,606
- [Announcer] Mr. Richie Havens.

94
00:04:36,944 --> 00:04:38,045
What better way to start

95
00:04:38,045 --> 00:04:40,180
than with the beautiful
Richie Havens.

96
00:04:43,083 --> 00:04:44,885
- It got to the point
where people just showed up

97
00:04:44,885 --> 00:04:47,020
and we didn't know
they were there.

98
00:04:47,020 --> 00:04:48,689
People just arrived.

99
00:04:48,689 --> 00:04:51,024
They had been told where to go,

100
00:04:51,024 --> 00:04:54,061
Holiday Inn, Best
West, whatever it was,

101
00:04:54,061 --> 00:04:56,163
the hotels in the
surrounding area.

102
00:04:56,163 --> 00:04:57,097
We told them where they were,

103
00:04:57,097 --> 00:04:58,632
and they showed up there.

104
00:04:58,632 --> 00:05:00,534
Everybody would show
up at the Holiday Inn.

105
00:05:00,534 --> 00:05:02,836
The people who had been
working in this office

106
00:05:02,836 --> 00:05:04,338
were at these places

107
00:05:04,338 --> 00:05:07,307
to make sure that there were
enough rooms and enough keys.

108
00:05:07,307 --> 00:05:09,209
Well, obviously,

109
00:05:09,209 --> 00:05:12,713
twice as many people
showed up as were going to.

110
00:05:12,713 --> 00:05:14,214
- We suddenly realized

111
00:05:14,214 --> 00:05:16,584
that we did not have any
way to get any artists in,

112
00:05:16,584 --> 00:05:19,587
that they were in the hotels,
that they'd checked in,

113
00:05:19,587 --> 00:05:21,288
but the roads were
totally jammed,

114
00:05:21,288 --> 00:05:22,790
and I literally turned
around to Annie,

115
00:05:22,790 --> 00:05:24,925
my then-wife, and
still good friend,

116
00:05:24,925 --> 00:05:27,828
and said, "Look up helicopter
in the Yellow Pages

117
00:05:27,828 --> 00:05:29,096
"and hire every
single goddamn one

118
00:05:29,096 --> 00:05:31,098
"you can lay your hands on."

119
00:05:31,098 --> 00:05:32,533
We had, in the end, I think,

120
00:05:32,533 --> 00:05:35,969
counting some of the
others, the military ones,

121
00:05:35,969 --> 00:05:39,440
we ended up with something
like 23 or 24 of them.

122
00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:40,908
- Et cetera, et cetera,

123
00:05:40,908 --> 00:05:43,343
but we can't get through
that way for the time being,

124
00:05:43,343 --> 00:05:46,814
so what they're gonna do is
they're try and raise the gate,

125
00:05:46,814 --> 00:05:48,849
and get the helicopters to
come over here to this field

126
00:05:50,117 --> 00:05:52,520
and pick us up, and hop
us over to the gate,

127
00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:54,822
and we'll leave the
cars, essentially, here.

128
00:05:54,822 --> 00:05:58,992
- So, what we had
was this empty stage,

129
00:05:58,992 --> 00:06:01,161
and we couldn't find anybody,

130
00:06:01,161 --> 00:06:03,764
and this is before cell phones.

131
00:06:03,764 --> 00:06:05,599
This is you go to the trailer,

132
00:06:05,599 --> 00:06:07,568
you call the hotel on the phone,

133
00:06:07,568 --> 00:06:10,971
somebody yells out the window
a piece of information,

134
00:06:10,971 --> 00:06:13,607
which is, "I can't
find anybody,"

135
00:06:13,607 --> 00:06:15,776
or "They can't get through,"

136
00:06:15,776 --> 00:06:18,712
or, "We don't have anybody,"

137
00:06:18,712 --> 00:06:20,748
so, who we got?

138
00:06:20,748 --> 00:06:22,249
- My manager came up
to me and he said,

139
00:06:22,249 --> 00:06:24,652
"Leslie, whatever you do,
don't stay all together,

140
00:06:24,652 --> 00:06:26,820
"'cause they need
groups to go on,

141
00:06:26,820 --> 00:06:28,522
"and if they see all
you guys together,

142
00:06:28,522 --> 00:06:30,891
"they're gonna get you on."

143
00:06:30,891 --> 00:06:33,561
I don't wanna go on at
four in the afternoon,

144
00:06:33,561 --> 00:06:38,566
so I stayed in one area,
and Felix was in another,

145
00:06:39,299 --> 00:06:40,468
and it worked out.

146
00:06:40,468 --> 00:06:42,436
- Joe McDonald had
gotten in there somehow.

147
00:06:42,436 --> 00:06:44,905
He just drove in with somebody,

148
00:06:44,905 --> 00:06:49,376
and John says to me,
"Can he play by himself?"

149
00:06:49,376 --> 00:06:50,478
"I don't know.

150
00:06:50,478 --> 00:06:51,812
"Hasn't done it in a while.

151
00:06:51,812 --> 00:06:53,213
"Ask him."

152
00:06:53,213 --> 00:06:54,615
- And I said,

153
00:06:54,615 --> 00:06:56,083
"Remember we were in Amsterdam
a couple of months ago

154
00:06:56,083 --> 00:06:58,318
"and we were talking about
doing it on your own.

155
00:06:58,318 --> 00:07:00,488
"Now, please."

156
00:07:00,488 --> 00:07:01,755
- Joe finally agrees to play,

157
00:07:01,755 --> 00:07:03,557
but he says, "Well, I
don't have a guitar."

158
00:07:03,557 --> 00:07:04,792
We found a guitar.

159
00:07:04,792 --> 00:07:06,627
We push him out there
and he turns to me,

160
00:07:06,627 --> 00:07:08,295
said, "What do I play?

161
00:07:09,797 --> 00:07:10,931
"Do I do the cheer?

162
00:07:10,931 --> 00:07:12,600
"Should I do
'Fixing to Die Rag'?

163
00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:15,102
"I was gonna do it on Sunday."

164
00:07:15,102 --> 00:07:16,670
I said, "Go ahead and do it."

165
00:07:16,670 --> 00:07:18,438
Said, "Ah, shit,"
turns around, yells,

166
00:07:18,438 --> 00:07:20,140
"Give me an F!"
- Give me an F!

167
00:07:20,140 --> 00:07:21,441
- [Audience] F!

168
00:07:21,441 --> 00:07:22,943
- It was loud.

169
00:07:22,943 --> 00:07:23,811
"Give me a U!"
- Give me a U!

170
00:07:23,811 --> 00:07:25,078
It gets louder.

171
00:07:25,078 --> 00:07:27,481
By the time he says,
"What's that spell?"

172
00:07:27,481 --> 00:07:29,249
It's really a kind of
a interesting thing

173
00:07:29,249 --> 00:07:30,851
to be out there in
the middle of nowhere

174
00:07:30,851 --> 00:07:33,020
and here fuck being
yelled back at you

175
00:07:33,020 --> 00:07:35,989
by all these people
for the first time,

176
00:07:37,390 --> 00:07:40,794
and from that point on we had
to keep putting people on.

177
00:07:40,794 --> 00:07:44,364
We pushed John Sebastian
on because he was there.

178
00:07:44,364 --> 00:07:46,900
He wasn't even, we didn't
even know he was there.

179
00:07:46,900 --> 00:07:49,603
Somebody said, "Oh, I
saw John Sebastian."

180
00:07:49,603 --> 00:07:52,573
- Felix got up there and he
introduced me to John Sebastian.

181
00:07:52,573 --> 00:07:54,274
Was tie-dying
everything in sight.

182
00:07:55,709 --> 00:07:56,877
Somebody walked by and they
got, (imitates whooshing)

183
00:07:56,877 --> 00:07:58,378
ripped into their tent,

184
00:07:58,378 --> 00:08:00,113
and they came out with all
kinds of colors on them.

185
00:08:01,715 --> 00:08:03,517
I think he was
tripping his nut off.

186
00:08:04,952 --> 00:08:08,288
That I know for sure, and
he was enjoying himself.

187
00:08:08,288 --> 00:08:09,623
- [Announcer] John Sebastian.

188
00:08:11,859 --> 00:08:15,295
- The press can
only say bad things

189
00:08:15,295 --> 00:08:17,631
unless there ain't no fuckups,

190
00:08:17,631 --> 00:08:20,701
and it's looking like there
ain't gonna be no fuckups.

191
00:08:20,701 --> 00:08:22,502
This is gonna work.

192
00:08:22,502 --> 00:08:26,173
("Coming Into Los Angeles")

193
00:08:29,710 --> 00:08:33,113
* Coming in from London,
from over the pole *

194
00:08:33,113 --> 00:08:35,816
- There was a bunch
of state cops on the

195
00:08:37,050 --> 00:08:38,351
the helicopter with us,

196
00:08:39,820 --> 00:08:42,089
and they were just talking to
each other and talking to us,

197
00:08:42,089 --> 00:08:44,592
and we were just sitting there
wondering what's going on

198
00:08:44,592 --> 00:08:47,094
and how come we
gotta fly in here?

199
00:08:47,094 --> 00:08:50,497
And then I remember
just looking out

200
00:08:50,497 --> 00:08:51,999
'cause the door was open
or something like that,

201
00:08:51,999 --> 00:08:54,367
and you could just
look right out there,

202
00:08:54,367 --> 00:08:57,638
and it was an amazing thing.

203
00:08:58,772 --> 00:09:01,408
You know, when you look
at all the pictures,

204
00:09:01,408 --> 00:09:05,145
all the aerial
shots of Woodstock,

205
00:09:05,145 --> 00:09:08,015
you see the fields completely
filled with people,

206
00:09:08,015 --> 00:09:13,020
but that was a tiny, tiny
part of where the people were.

207
00:09:14,454 --> 00:09:17,490
There was people for a long
time that we were flying,

208
00:09:17,490 --> 00:09:21,762
there was people underneath
every leaf of every tree

209
00:09:21,762 --> 00:09:24,798
and every rock that
we was flying over,

210
00:09:25,966 --> 00:09:28,669
and I was supposed to
play at some point,

211
00:09:28,669 --> 00:09:30,938
some time later
than I actually did,

212
00:09:32,105 --> 00:09:34,307
and because I was
just hanging out

213
00:09:34,307 --> 00:09:38,411
I felt free to indulge
in some substance abuse.

214
00:09:40,714 --> 00:09:42,582
I mean, nothing
big, but, you know,

215
00:09:42,582 --> 00:09:44,417
and so I was standing around

216
00:09:44,417 --> 00:09:49,422
just admiring the colors
and all the people,

217
00:09:50,157 --> 00:09:51,625
and all of a sudden

218
00:09:51,625 --> 00:09:54,027
this guy comes up to me
and says, "You gotta play."

219
00:09:54,027 --> 00:09:56,029
I said, "What?"

220
00:09:56,029 --> 00:09:57,497
"Yeah, you gotta play, man.

221
00:09:57,497 --> 00:09:58,331
"You gotta play now."

222
00:09:58,331 --> 00:10:00,267
I'm going, "Now?

223
00:10:00,267 --> 00:10:02,002
"Now I gotta play?

224
00:10:02,002 --> 00:10:03,837
"I'm not ready to play now, man.

225
00:10:03,837 --> 00:10:05,372
"I can't play now.

226
00:10:05,372 --> 00:10:07,607
"I can't walk now,"

227
00:10:07,607 --> 00:10:09,977
and it was like I
couldn't believe it,

228
00:10:09,977 --> 00:10:12,880
and so there was this
sort of tinge of, like,

229
00:10:14,147 --> 00:10:16,083
uh-oh (chuckles)

230
00:10:16,083 --> 00:10:19,753
that I really didn't wanna
deal with this at the moment.

231
00:10:19,753 --> 00:10:21,488
- [Narrator] But while
Arlo was having a good time

232
00:10:21,488 --> 00:10:23,824
and it seemed like the crowd
was having a good time,

233
00:10:23,824 --> 00:10:26,727
the producers were on the
phone with Rockefeller's office

234
00:10:26,727 --> 00:10:28,461
trying to convince the governor

235
00:10:28,461 --> 00:10:31,098
not to send in the
National Guard.

236
00:10:31,098 --> 00:10:35,769
- Rockefeller's office wanted
to send in the National Guard

237
00:10:36,670 --> 00:10:38,005
to stop the festival,

238
00:10:39,206 --> 00:10:43,176
and all conversations
with those people were,

239
00:10:44,211 --> 00:10:45,779
"This is impossible.

240
00:10:45,779 --> 00:10:48,749
"You'd really have a riot
if you tried to do this."

241
00:10:48,749 --> 00:10:52,986
I'd come back to my office and
start fielding phone calls.

242
00:10:52,986 --> 00:10:56,023
They were incredible phone
calls that would be coming in

243
00:10:56,023 --> 00:10:59,626
from everybody from state
government to police.

244
00:10:59,626 --> 00:11:02,629
They would say, "Can you
give us some information

245
00:11:02,629 --> 00:11:03,931
"about this disaster?"

246
00:11:03,931 --> 00:11:06,166
and I'd say, "What disaster?

247
00:11:06,166 --> 00:11:08,068
"Everything is great here.

248
00:11:08,068 --> 00:11:09,569
"We're getting along fine.

249
00:11:09,569 --> 00:11:10,904
"We don't need anything.

250
00:11:10,904 --> 00:11:12,672
"Everything's fine.

251
00:11:12,672 --> 00:11:13,841
"It's great.

252
00:11:13,841 --> 00:11:15,976
"Everybody's having
a great time,"

253
00:11:15,976 --> 00:11:18,979
and I would just keep
putting that out,

254
00:11:18,979 --> 00:11:22,850
and to tell you the truth, on
my walks everything was fine.

255
00:11:23,751 --> 00:11:25,886
Everything was holding.

256
00:11:25,886 --> 00:11:27,620
- [Narrator]
Everything had held,

257
00:11:27,620 --> 00:11:31,391
and so from Richie,
Tim Hardin, Arlo,

258
00:11:31,391 --> 00:11:33,493
and finishing with Joan Baez,

259
00:11:33,493 --> 00:11:36,296
the first of three
days of peace and music

260
00:11:36,296 --> 00:11:37,564
came quietly to a close.

261
00:11:37,564 --> 00:11:39,332
* Home

262
00:11:39,332 --> 00:11:40,167
- Amen.

263
00:11:41,301 --> 00:11:42,936
(energetic rock music)

264
00:11:42,936 --> 00:11:44,204
- [Narrator] John Roberts,

265
00:11:44,204 --> 00:11:45,906
heir to the Polident
denture cream fortune,

266
00:11:45,906 --> 00:11:47,440
and Joel Rosenman,

267
00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:50,177
an ex-lounge singer and
ambivalent Yale Law grad,

268
00:11:50,177 --> 00:11:52,780
were looking to write a
pilot for a television show.

269
00:11:53,881 --> 00:11:56,917
- 1967, it seemed likelier

270
00:11:56,917 --> 00:12:01,454
that I would be a TV
screenwriter than a lawyer,

271
00:12:01,454 --> 00:12:05,192
and John was intrigued by
this profession as well,

272
00:12:05,192 --> 00:12:07,360
so we concocted a TV show,

273
00:12:07,360 --> 00:12:08,796
a sitcom about two guys

274
00:12:08,796 --> 00:12:11,799
who get into nutty business
ventures every week,

275
00:12:13,233 --> 00:12:16,603
and in order to find plot
material for our TV show

276
00:12:16,603 --> 00:12:19,139
we took out an ad in
the Wall Street Journal.

277
00:12:19,139 --> 00:12:20,941
The ad read something like,

278
00:12:20,941 --> 00:12:22,709
"Young men with
unlimited capital

279
00:12:22,709 --> 00:12:26,679
"seek interesting and legitimate
business propositions,"

280
00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:29,682
which went fine for quite
a while for our TV show,

281
00:12:29,682 --> 00:12:33,420
until one idea that came
in seemed reasonable to us,

282
00:12:33,420 --> 00:12:35,188
in fact attractive.

283
00:12:36,623 --> 00:12:37,891
We looked at it

284
00:12:37,891 --> 00:12:39,159
the same way we had some
other business ventures,

285
00:12:39,159 --> 00:12:41,428
only this one, with
some modifications,

286
00:12:41,428 --> 00:12:42,695
seemed like a good idea.

287
00:12:42,695 --> 00:12:45,198
We called it Mediasound.

288
00:12:45,198 --> 00:12:47,634
We started building it in '68,

289
00:12:47,634 --> 00:12:49,569
and built what came to be

290
00:12:49,569 --> 00:12:54,541
the place to record on the
East Coast for over a decade.

291
00:12:56,009 --> 00:12:57,644
- Joel and I were building a
recording studio in Manhattan

292
00:12:57,644 --> 00:12:59,980
in the summer of 1968,

293
00:12:59,980 --> 00:13:03,616
and we met a lawyer at that
time named Miles Lurie,

294
00:13:03,616 --> 00:13:07,687
and Miles called us up, I
guess, maybe February of 1969,

295
00:13:08,889 --> 00:13:11,158
and said that he had
a couple of clients

296
00:13:11,158 --> 00:13:12,926
that were interested in
building a recording studio

297
00:13:12,926 --> 00:13:14,761
in Woodstock, New York,

298
00:13:14,761 --> 00:13:18,798
and he wondered if we would
sit and talk with them

299
00:13:18,798 --> 00:13:19,967
about their project

300
00:13:21,068 --> 00:13:24,104
and share with
them our experience

301
00:13:24,104 --> 00:13:27,374
in doing such a project
here in the city,

302
00:13:27,374 --> 00:13:28,708
and we said, "Sure,"

303
00:13:28,708 --> 00:13:30,944
and so Mike Lang
and Artie Kornfeld

304
00:13:30,944 --> 00:13:33,480
showed up one
morning in February

305
00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:36,416
to talk about building a
recording studio in Woodstock.

306
00:13:36,416 --> 00:13:38,852
- [Narrator] Michael Lang grew
up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

307
00:13:38,852 --> 00:13:41,454
After dropping out of
NYU, he headed to Miami

308
00:13:41,454 --> 00:13:43,857
and opened one of the
area's first head shops.

309
00:13:43,857 --> 00:13:46,259
Artie Kornfeld, also
from Bensonhurst,

310
00:13:46,259 --> 00:13:49,196
was already a successful
songwriter and record producer,

311
00:13:49,196 --> 00:13:52,532
and the first vice president
of rock at Capitol Records.

312
00:13:52,532 --> 00:13:54,601
One day Michael
Lang came calling,

313
00:13:54,601 --> 00:13:56,904
looking for a record deal
for a group he was managing

314
00:13:56,904 --> 00:13:58,972
called the Train.

315
00:13:58,972 --> 00:14:01,708
- First meeting with Michael
is I was standing on my desk

316
00:14:04,244 --> 00:14:06,079
smoking a little hash.

317
00:14:07,847 --> 00:14:08,848
Okay I said that?

318
00:14:08,848 --> 00:14:10,083
- [Interviewer] Yeah.

319
00:14:10,083 --> 00:14:11,084
- Well, it's over
seven years ago,

320
00:14:12,752 --> 00:14:14,354
and my secretary said,

321
00:14:14,354 --> 00:14:18,025
"There's someone out here to
see you named Michael Lang,"

322
00:14:18,025 --> 00:14:19,626
and he said, "You
don't know him,

323
00:14:19,626 --> 00:14:21,728
"but he's from the
neighborhood, Bensonhurst,

324
00:14:21,728 --> 00:14:23,964
"and he'd like just a
minute of your time."

325
00:14:24,998 --> 00:14:26,666
So, I said, "Send him in."

326
00:14:28,601 --> 00:14:32,539
He had just lost his
head shop in Miami.

327
00:14:32,539 --> 00:14:34,807
I think he lost the
battle with the police

328
00:14:34,807 --> 00:14:37,945
and they closed it 'cause
that's what Michael was:

329
00:14:37,945 --> 00:14:40,680
he was a head shop
owner in Miami.

330
00:14:41,614 --> 00:14:43,516
- (laughs) Yeah,
my recollection,

331
00:14:43,516 --> 00:14:45,118
although it's probably
embellished over the years

332
00:14:45,118 --> 00:14:48,221
is of Artie perched
on the end of his desk

333
00:14:48,221 --> 00:14:49,756
about to fly off into the room.

334
00:14:52,159 --> 00:14:56,463
He was a very delightful
character, as I recall, Artie.

335
00:14:56,463 --> 00:15:00,167
At our first meeting we sort
of became friends instantly.

336
00:15:00,167 --> 00:15:02,869
He was from the same
neighborhood I was in Brooklyn,

337
00:15:02,869 --> 00:15:05,472
and it was sort of
like a kindred spirit.

338
00:15:05,472 --> 00:15:07,740
(energetic rock music)

339
00:15:07,740 --> 00:15:10,243
- We were given a proposal
for a recording studio.

340
00:15:11,544 --> 00:15:16,183
30 of 31 pages dealt
with finding the site,

341
00:15:16,183 --> 00:15:18,885
they already had a site, in
fact they had it under option.

342
00:15:20,020 --> 00:15:21,654
They had plans for
the recording studio.

343
00:15:21,654 --> 00:15:22,922
They had rough sketches.

344
00:15:22,922 --> 00:15:24,557
They had a budget for
the recording studio.

345
00:15:24,557 --> 00:15:27,494
They had the recording
studio project.

346
00:15:27,494 --> 00:15:31,264
They had solved the
problem of anonymity

347
00:15:32,799 --> 00:15:35,535
by suggesting in the last
page of this proposal

348
00:15:35,535 --> 00:15:38,771
that on opening day of
the recording studio

349
00:15:38,771 --> 00:15:40,873
we have a big press party.

350
00:15:40,873 --> 00:15:43,143
There's even a chance,
this proposal read,

351
00:15:43,143 --> 00:15:46,213
that we can get some of the
local talent to perform,

352
00:15:46,213 --> 00:15:49,749
and the local talent was Bob
Dylan, and maybe Janis Joplin,

353
00:15:49,749 --> 00:15:51,551
and Tim Hardin,
and John Sebastian.

354
00:15:51,551 --> 00:15:54,254
I thought, "Wow, once they
hear that Dylan is performing

355
00:15:54,254 --> 00:15:55,722
"we'll get people from all over.

356
00:15:55,722 --> 00:15:59,226
"We don't have to bus
recording studio execs up.

357
00:15:59,226 --> 00:16:01,394
"We can just sell tickets,"

358
00:16:01,394 --> 00:16:03,963
and so we came back
to Michael and Artie

359
00:16:03,963 --> 00:16:05,565
with that suggestion.

360
00:16:05,565 --> 00:16:08,335
We don't like this
recording studio project

361
00:16:08,335 --> 00:16:09,769
because we're in the dark

362
00:16:09,769 --> 00:16:11,271
about our own
project in Manhattan.

363
00:16:11,271 --> 00:16:13,373
We don't know how well
that's going to do.

364
00:16:13,373 --> 00:16:16,309
We're hoping, but it seems
that the one up in the woods

365
00:16:16,309 --> 00:16:20,147
has some built-in drawbacks,

366
00:16:20,147 --> 00:16:21,981
but we think this
is very exciting

367
00:16:21,981 --> 00:16:24,984
if we turn it into
a festival idea,

368
00:16:24,984 --> 00:16:26,553
and we actually had
to go round and round.

369
00:16:26,553 --> 00:16:29,689
We drew the line at
doing another studio,

370
00:16:29,689 --> 00:16:31,158
they drew the line
at doing a festival,

371
00:16:31,158 --> 00:16:35,228
and eventually we suggested,
"How 'bout if we do a festival,

372
00:16:35,228 --> 00:16:39,532
"and then with the profits
from the rock 'n' roll festival

373
00:16:39,532 --> 00:16:41,401
"we'll finance the
recording studio,"

374
00:16:42,535 --> 00:16:44,337
and we struck a
deal on that basis.

375
00:16:44,337 --> 00:16:46,573
Was a compromise.

376
00:16:46,573 --> 00:16:48,241
(energetic rock music)

377
00:16:48,241 --> 00:16:49,442
- [Narrator] Shortly after,

378
00:16:49,442 --> 00:16:51,378
Michael turned his
attention to staffing.

379
00:16:51,378 --> 00:16:53,080
He contacted sound
engineer Stan Goldstein,

380
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:55,382
who he'd worked with in Miami.

381
00:16:55,382 --> 00:16:56,649
Goldstein agreed to help

382
00:16:56,649 --> 00:16:58,017
and suggested they
offer the position

383
00:16:58,017 --> 00:17:00,187
of director of operations
to Mel Lawrence,

384
00:17:00,187 --> 00:17:01,921
who had produced such
legendary festivals

385
00:17:01,921 --> 00:17:04,357
as Magic Mountain, Newport Pop,

386
00:17:04,357 --> 00:17:07,627
and Miami Pop, in
December of 1968.

387
00:17:07,627 --> 00:17:10,830
- As soon as we began
talking about staffing,

388
00:17:10,830 --> 00:17:15,368
it seemed to me that Mel was
an ideal guy to have involved,

389
00:17:15,368 --> 00:17:17,237
and so I chased him down.

390
00:17:17,237 --> 00:17:21,007
- And I get a call
from Stan Goldstein,

391
00:17:21,007 --> 00:17:24,977
and Stan said, "They're
planning to do a number in

392
00:17:24,977 --> 00:17:26,446
"in New York.

393
00:17:26,446 --> 00:17:27,514
"Are you interested?"

394
00:17:27,514 --> 00:17:29,516
and I said I was,

395
00:17:29,516 --> 00:17:32,952
and he said,

396
00:17:32,952 --> 00:17:35,054
"You've gotta do this

397
00:17:35,054 --> 00:17:38,024
"because this is gonna
be really a big one."

398
00:17:39,192 --> 00:17:40,693
- I'd left Fillmore East,

399
00:17:40,693 --> 00:17:43,396
and I'd worked on a
couple of small projects,

400
00:17:43,396 --> 00:17:47,734
and one day Chip, Bert Cohen,

401
00:17:47,734 --> 00:17:50,603
and a couple of other people
came and saw me in my house,

402
00:17:50,603 --> 00:17:52,805
and talking about the project
and what it was gonna be,

403
00:17:52,805 --> 00:17:55,275
and I was sitting there thinking
it was never gonna happen,

404
00:17:55,275 --> 00:17:56,809
(mumbles dismissively)

405
00:17:56,809 --> 00:18:00,247
and they came back within a week

406
00:18:00,247 --> 00:18:01,714
and said, "This is
what we're doing.

407
00:18:01,714 --> 00:18:03,183
"We're gonna go ahead
and do this big festival.

408
00:18:03,183 --> 00:18:05,952
"We're gonna try to do an East
Coast version of Monterey,

409
00:18:05,952 --> 00:18:07,454
"and it's gonna be three days.

410
00:18:07,454 --> 00:18:08,621
"It's gonna be in Woodstock.

411
00:18:08,621 --> 00:18:10,523
"It's gonna be
duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.

412
00:18:10,523 --> 00:18:11,358
"We need your help.

413
00:18:11,358 --> 00:18:12,892
"Do you wanna do it?"

414
00:18:12,892 --> 00:18:14,161
There was one answer,

415
00:18:14,161 --> 00:18:16,563
that was, "Yeah, sure,
please, let me, yeah."

416
00:18:17,830 --> 00:18:19,899
- Long story short, what
actually happened is

417
00:18:19,899 --> 00:18:23,270
I called Anne Weldon, who
was Anne Morris at that time,

418
00:18:23,270 --> 00:18:24,704
John Morris's wife,

419
00:18:26,072 --> 00:18:29,142
who became a principal
figure in Woodstock,

420
00:18:29,142 --> 00:18:32,044
and I said, "My I share
your Liberty prints, please,

421
00:18:32,044 --> 00:18:34,347
"and a bit of your wine so
I can bring Michael here

422
00:18:34,347 --> 00:18:36,549
"because I think we've
got something going,"

423
00:18:37,684 --> 00:18:41,388
and Michael and I
seemed to hit it off,

424
00:18:41,388 --> 00:18:44,491
and John decided he was
going to be co-producer,

425
00:18:44,491 --> 00:18:46,659
which was the only error
of the evening, (chuckles)

426
00:18:46,659 --> 00:18:48,828
but beyond that
everything was perfect.

427
00:18:50,430 --> 00:18:51,664
- The idea was that

428
00:18:51,664 --> 00:18:56,303
the first day would be
a folkie-like-type day,

429
00:18:56,303 --> 00:18:58,205
that the second day would be

430
00:18:58,205 --> 00:19:00,540
more of an English,
stronger-type thing,

431
00:19:00,540 --> 00:19:04,911
and that the third day would
be the American strength,

432
00:19:04,911 --> 00:19:06,413
I mean, because don't forget,

433
00:19:06,413 --> 00:19:09,148
you had the English acts were
major factor at that point,

434
00:19:09,148 --> 00:19:10,483
and then there were
the California,

435
00:19:10,483 --> 00:19:13,220
San Francisco, and
rest of the Bay Area.

436
00:19:13,220 --> 00:19:15,322
- "Michael, have you
signed any groups yet?"

437
00:19:15,322 --> 00:19:17,357
"Oh yeah, it's together,"

438
00:19:17,357 --> 00:19:20,260
or, no, he wouldn't say yes
'cause he wasn't lying about it,

439
00:19:20,260 --> 00:19:21,894
he'd just say, "Oh,
it's all together.

440
00:19:21,894 --> 00:19:22,829
"It's together.

441
00:19:22,829 --> 00:19:24,297
"Don't worry, it's together."

442
00:19:24,297 --> 00:19:27,099
Not one group had been signed
(laughs) at that point.

443
00:19:28,067 --> 00:19:29,702
- I had agonized

444
00:19:29,702 --> 00:19:31,771
over whether we would
ask the Rolling Stones

445
00:19:31,771 --> 00:19:34,774
to be part of the talent roster,

446
00:19:34,774 --> 00:19:38,010
and their hit at the time
was "Street Fighting Man,"

447
00:19:38,010 --> 00:19:42,114
and while there was, to have
the Stones on your talent,

448
00:19:42,114 --> 00:19:44,751
in your talent package would
have been very powerful,

449
00:19:46,185 --> 00:19:49,556
it contradicted one of
our basic principles

450
00:19:49,556 --> 00:19:52,925
of trying to keep this
festival peaceful.

451
00:19:52,925 --> 00:19:54,861
We just didn't want anything
that would stir up the crowd

452
00:19:54,861 --> 00:19:56,363
to that kind of anger.

453
00:19:56,363 --> 00:19:58,731
- There's, "No, I don't know
we should have the Doors.

454
00:19:59,932 --> 00:20:01,968
"Yeah, I think Sly's dangerous

455
00:20:01,968 --> 00:20:05,137
"'cause there's been riots
everywhere he's played

456
00:20:05,137 --> 00:20:06,773
"in the last 10 years."

457
00:20:07,874 --> 00:20:10,109
That's why certain
groups were not invited.

458
00:20:11,511 --> 00:20:14,013
At that point it was just
inviting them and they'd come,

459
00:20:14,013 --> 00:20:15,715
just for expenses to get there.

460
00:20:17,484 --> 00:20:20,219
- Ian Anderson and I had
a real long conversation

461
00:20:20,219 --> 00:20:22,789
about how he never
got over the fact,

462
00:20:22,789 --> 00:20:24,291
and just never could understand

463
00:20:24,291 --> 00:20:27,159
why Country Joe and the
Fish were at Woodstock

464
00:20:27,159 --> 00:20:28,828
and they weren't.

465
00:20:28,828 --> 00:20:29,996
He never forgot that.

466
00:20:29,996 --> 00:20:31,464
I mean, he was really
pissed about it.

467
00:20:33,032 --> 00:20:35,602
That summer I had
worked for the Doors.

468
00:20:35,602 --> 00:20:38,871
I did some dates in
Mexico with the Doors,

469
00:20:38,871 --> 00:20:41,173
and Jim Morrison
would not appear

470
00:20:41,173 --> 00:20:44,176
because he was afraid he
would be assassinated.

471
00:20:44,176 --> 00:20:45,612
I mean, that was his line.

472
00:20:45,612 --> 00:20:48,047
I mean, he thought
he would be killed.

473
00:20:48,047 --> 00:20:49,882
- Yeah, Joni Mitchell.

474
00:20:49,882 --> 00:20:51,451
She was begging to come,

475
00:20:52,652 --> 00:20:54,621
but she wanted to come
and Michael said no.

476
00:20:55,855 --> 00:20:58,291
He even asked me at the
time, "What about Joni?

477
00:20:58,291 --> 00:20:59,859
"What do you think
about? (mumbles)"

478
00:21:02,462 --> 00:21:05,965
I feel really bad
about that. (laughs)

479
00:21:05,965 --> 00:21:06,966
Feel guilty.

480
00:21:08,668 --> 00:21:11,538
- Bill Laudner from the
Jefferson Airplane called me

481
00:21:11,538 --> 00:21:16,543
and said, "Bill, those
rooms are really small, man.

482
00:21:17,710 --> 00:21:20,947
"I mean, like, how
we gonna get there?"

483
00:21:20,947 --> 00:21:22,014
Said, "Well, you
just get to Liberty

484
00:21:22,014 --> 00:21:23,483
"and we'll take it from there."

485
00:21:23,483 --> 00:21:26,919
- Actually, Michael says
that it is his fault

486
00:21:26,919 --> 00:21:28,455
that Dylan didn't come.

487
00:21:29,956 --> 00:21:32,425
They evidently didn't
lock in some way.

488
00:21:32,425 --> 00:21:33,526
Something happened.

489
00:21:33,526 --> 00:21:35,194
- The Who had turned us down.

490
00:21:35,194 --> 00:21:36,429
We kept after them
and after them after,

491
00:21:36,429 --> 00:21:38,064
and they turned us down,

492
00:21:38,064 --> 00:21:41,434
and Frank Barsalona,
who runs Premier Talent,

493
00:21:41,434 --> 00:21:43,470
finally said, "Okay, there's
only one way to do this,"

494
00:21:43,470 --> 00:21:47,740
and we had Pete Townshend to
dinner at Frank's apartment,

495
00:21:47,740 --> 00:21:49,008
and we got Peter up there.

496
00:21:49,008 --> 00:21:50,543
We fed him a spaghetti dinner.

497
00:21:50,543 --> 00:21:51,378
We chatted.

498
00:21:51,378 --> 00:21:52,345
We talked.

499
00:21:52,345 --> 00:21:53,580
We started pouring wine in him,

500
00:21:53,580 --> 00:21:55,648
and pouring wine in ourselves,

501
00:21:55,648 --> 00:21:58,651
and Peter just kept saying,
"No, no, we don't wanna do it.

502
00:21:58,651 --> 00:22:00,453
"We wanna do Tanglewood
and go home,"

503
00:22:00,453 --> 00:22:02,655
and at about five
o'clock in the morning

504
00:22:02,655 --> 00:22:04,156
Peter is sitting
down in the corner

505
00:22:04,156 --> 00:22:05,625
all scrunched up like this

506
00:22:05,625 --> 00:22:07,894
saying, "All right, all
right, I'll play the thing.

507
00:22:07,894 --> 00:22:09,829
"Can I go to sleep, please?"

508
00:22:09,829 --> 00:22:11,998
We wore him down and
tricked him into it.

509
00:22:11,998 --> 00:22:13,232
Not tricked, well, we tricked,

510
00:22:13,232 --> 00:22:15,301
yeah, he would say we
tricked him into it.

511
00:22:15,301 --> 00:22:18,237
They published on the
Live at Leeds album,

512
00:22:18,237 --> 00:22:19,506
if you look on the album,

513
00:22:19,506 --> 00:22:20,973
the contract from
Woodstock's on it.

514
00:22:23,075 --> 00:22:25,412
- The phone rang in
this production office,

515
00:22:25,412 --> 00:22:29,849
and someone hands me the phone
and says it's Stephen Stills.

516
00:22:29,849 --> 00:22:32,118
They really didn't
wanna do this show

517
00:22:32,118 --> 00:22:33,620
because there were gonna
be too many people,

518
00:22:33,620 --> 00:22:34,787
nobody's gonna
know who they were,

519
00:22:34,787 --> 00:22:36,255
they were really
unsure of themselves,

520
00:22:36,255 --> 00:22:40,427
and right about that time,
for some weird reason,

521
00:22:40,427 --> 00:22:42,562
Hanley was testing
the sound system,

522
00:22:42,562 --> 00:22:45,798
and one of the very
popular records

523
00:22:45,798 --> 00:22:48,601
that everybody was
playing that summer

524
00:22:48,601 --> 00:22:52,238
was the Crosby, Stills
& Nash first album,

525
00:22:52,238 --> 00:22:54,841
and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes."

526
00:22:54,841 --> 00:22:56,776
It's blaring over
the sound system.

527
00:22:56,776 --> 00:22:58,310
I stick the phone out the window

528
00:22:58,310 --> 00:22:59,746
and I told Stephen,
"Okay, Stephen,

529
00:22:59,746 --> 00:23:00,847
"they're playing the song.

530
00:23:00,847 --> 00:23:01,714
"Everybody knows it.

531
00:23:01,714 --> 00:23:03,115
"You should come,"

532
00:23:03,115 --> 00:23:04,383
so he yells at Crosby,

533
00:23:04,383 --> 00:23:07,019
"Crosby, they're playing
'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes'"

534
00:23:07,019 --> 00:23:09,121
and he said, "We'll be there,"

535
00:23:09,121 --> 00:23:13,493
and so they were gonna show up,

536
00:23:13,493 --> 00:23:16,796
but there was this
sort of apprehension.

537
00:23:16,796 --> 00:23:18,831
I mean, there's lots of people
who really won't cop to it,

538
00:23:18,831 --> 00:23:22,301
but it is true that I
think there reached a point

539
00:23:22,301 --> 00:23:23,536
in the late summer

540
00:23:23,536 --> 00:23:25,204
where everybody who
wasn't on the bill

541
00:23:25,204 --> 00:23:27,774
really wanted to be on the bill.

542
00:23:27,774 --> 00:23:32,779
(anxious music)
(birds chirping)

543
00:23:33,513 --> 00:23:34,781
- Our first choice

544
00:23:34,781 --> 00:23:36,816
was a piece of land in
Saugerties, New York,

545
00:23:38,551 --> 00:23:43,422
700 acres right off the
Exit 18 of the Thruway,

546
00:23:45,157 --> 00:23:48,227
absolutely beautiful,
gently sloping land.

547
00:23:48,227 --> 00:23:51,230
- We met with the owner,
a fellow named Schaller,

548
00:23:51,230 --> 00:23:55,101
shortly after that to start
hammering out a lease,

549
00:23:56,302 --> 00:23:59,839
and we didn't even get
to hammer any little

550
00:23:59,839 --> 00:24:02,274
one bit of that lease
before Mr. Schaller told us

551
00:24:02,274 --> 00:24:04,977
that he had no interest
in renting to longhairs.

552
00:24:06,145 --> 00:24:07,880
Not that John and I
looked like longhairs,

553
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:09,716
but he had already seen Michael,

554
00:24:09,716 --> 00:24:11,984
and for an elderly guy

555
00:24:11,984 --> 00:24:14,587
he really had his ear
to the ground. (laughs)

556
00:24:14,587 --> 00:24:15,788
There was no
question in his mind

557
00:24:15,788 --> 00:24:17,690
what we were gonna
use the property for,

558
00:24:17,690 --> 00:24:19,091
and he just would
have none of it.

559
00:24:19,091 --> 00:24:21,628
It was his farm and he loved it.

560
00:24:22,962 --> 00:24:24,130
So I think we were
getting a little desperate

561
00:24:24,130 --> 00:24:26,465
about real estate, John and I,

562
00:24:26,465 --> 00:24:29,802
and at a certain point
we jumped in our car

563
00:24:29,802 --> 00:24:32,905
and just started roaming around.

564
00:24:32,905 --> 00:24:35,441
I think we got off the Quickway

565
00:24:35,441 --> 00:24:38,645
and saw a sign
saying, "Property,"

566
00:24:38,645 --> 00:24:40,713
and "Real estate for rent,"

567
00:24:40,713 --> 00:24:42,414
or "sale," or
whatever, "inquire,"

568
00:24:42,414 --> 00:24:44,050
and we inquired.

569
00:24:44,050 --> 00:24:45,417
- And the Mills property

570
00:24:45,417 --> 00:24:48,254
was the second or
third place we came to,

571
00:24:48,254 --> 00:24:51,457
and it was appropriate.

572
00:24:51,457 --> 00:24:54,360
Wasn't great, but
it had the virtue

573
00:24:54,360 --> 00:24:57,463
of being owned by someone who
was willing to rent it to us.

574
00:24:57,463 --> 00:25:01,100
- I'm sitting in my
office with my accountant,

575
00:25:02,268 --> 00:25:05,271
and three gentlemen
walked into my office

576
00:25:06,639 --> 00:25:10,042
and said that they wanted
to rent the property

577
00:25:10,042 --> 00:25:14,681
for a small concert, maybe
5,000 to 15,000 people,

578
00:25:14,681 --> 00:25:18,084
similar to what they
have up in Massachusetts,

579
00:25:18,084 --> 00:25:21,220
and would I be interested
in renting it to them?

580
00:25:22,354 --> 00:25:25,892
Well, at the time I
could see no harm in it,

581
00:25:25,892 --> 00:25:28,595
so I made an agreement
with them, and they left,

582
00:25:30,062 --> 00:25:32,298
and as they left, my
accountant's out there and says,

583
00:25:32,298 --> 00:25:34,667
"Where are they gonna
find 5,000 damn fools

584
00:25:34,667 --> 00:25:37,369
"to sit in the grass
and listen to music?"

585
00:25:37,369 --> 00:25:42,374
- The Mills property was a
move of desperation. (laughs)

586
00:25:43,475 --> 00:25:45,011
It was nothing
like what I wanted.

587
00:25:45,011 --> 00:25:48,480
I wanted someplace that felt
natural, and open, and free,

588
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:50,182
and the Mills property

589
00:25:50,182 --> 00:25:54,621
was land that had been misused,

590
00:25:54,621 --> 00:25:55,454
chopped up,

591
00:25:56,623 --> 00:25:59,792
and Mills' job was to
make it right again.

592
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:03,029
It probably would have
looked pretty good, I think,

593
00:26:03,029 --> 00:26:04,230
by the time that we
finished with it.

594
00:26:04,230 --> 00:26:05,464
Mel got a pretty
good crew together,

595
00:26:05,464 --> 00:26:07,266
and did a lot of work,

596
00:26:07,266 --> 00:26:09,602
and laid it out pretty well,

597
00:26:09,602 --> 00:26:11,370
and I think it would have
been green and pleasant

598
00:26:11,370 --> 00:26:13,205
by the time August
rolled around,

599
00:26:14,607 --> 00:26:17,977
but it was not the ideal by
any stretch of the imagination.

600
00:26:17,977 --> 00:26:21,080
(rustic blues music)

601
00:26:26,018 --> 00:26:28,154
- [Narrator] Having to settle
for a less-than-perfect site

602
00:26:28,154 --> 00:26:30,990
wasn't the only problem
facing the producers.

603
00:26:30,990 --> 00:26:32,825
Wallkill officials
were told the concert

604
00:26:32,825 --> 00:26:35,594
would feature folk music
and arts and crafts,

605
00:26:35,594 --> 00:26:38,064
but some of the townspeople
weren't buying it.

606
00:26:40,532 --> 00:26:43,670
- Well, we were having
political problems in Wallkill.

607
00:26:43,670 --> 00:26:47,406
The town, which had
initially welcomed us

608
00:26:47,406 --> 00:26:50,777
and given us the various
permits we needed

609
00:26:50,777 --> 00:26:53,713
became concerned as the summer,

610
00:26:53,713 --> 00:26:56,916
the spring and summer
of 1969 wore on,

611
00:26:56,916 --> 00:27:00,586
that this was going to
be a major disruption,

612
00:27:00,586 --> 00:27:03,089
and my sense was that

613
00:27:03,089 --> 00:27:06,525
these were not people
you could reason with.

614
00:27:07,694 --> 00:27:09,395
I can remember going to
one town meeting there

615
00:27:09,395 --> 00:27:12,164
where Michael Lang, who had
very long hair in those days,

616
00:27:12,164 --> 00:27:15,567
stood up to talk and
there were catcalls

617
00:27:15,567 --> 00:27:16,368
'cause he had long hair,

618
00:27:16,368 --> 00:27:17,569
and some guy would say,

619
00:27:17,569 --> 00:27:19,338
"Is that Miss Lang
or is that Mr. Lang?"

620
00:27:19,338 --> 00:27:20,807
That sort of thing,

621
00:27:20,807 --> 00:27:24,711
and there was a sense that they
didn't like us generically.

622
00:27:25,912 --> 00:27:30,116
- We attended many, many
kinds of meetings where,

623
00:27:31,718 --> 00:27:36,255
since I was the
straightest-looking
member of the group,

624
00:27:36,255 --> 00:27:38,424
I would do a lot of talking

625
00:27:39,391 --> 00:27:42,194
to these town meetings

626
00:27:42,194 --> 00:27:45,998
about what we planned.

627
00:27:45,998 --> 00:27:49,468
I guess it was convincing enough

628
00:27:49,468 --> 00:27:51,537
because a lot of
those meetings ended

629
00:27:51,537 --> 00:27:53,472
with a lot of
shaking the hand and,

630
00:27:53,472 --> 00:27:56,843
"Gee, we didn't know you knew
about this kind of stuff,"

631
00:27:56,843 --> 00:27:58,110
but then, when they'd go back,

632
00:27:58,110 --> 00:27:59,746
they'd say like, "Wait a second.

633
00:28:00,579 --> 00:28:02,048
"Wait a second.

634
00:28:02,048 --> 00:28:04,350
"This is all too nice,"

635
00:28:04,350 --> 00:28:07,453
and I think they went
to bed that night

636
00:28:07,453 --> 00:28:10,522
and said to their wife, "I
don't know about that guy,"

637
00:28:10,522 --> 00:28:13,459
or, "I don't know
about those guys,

638
00:28:13,459 --> 00:28:16,695
"no matter what
they say." (laughs)

639
00:28:19,098 --> 00:28:21,333
- The issue of whether or not

640
00:28:21,333 --> 00:28:24,971
there should be a music festival
in the town of Wallkill,

641
00:28:24,971 --> 00:28:26,138
our only experience

642
00:28:26,138 --> 00:28:29,008
had been what had
happened in California,

643
00:28:29,008 --> 00:28:30,476
and there was some violence,

644
00:28:30,476 --> 00:28:31,443
and there were some drugs,

645
00:28:31,443 --> 00:28:32,912
and so on and so forth,

646
00:28:32,912 --> 00:28:37,283
and I think that we didn't feel
that Wallkill was the place.

647
00:28:37,283 --> 00:28:38,818
Even at that time

648
00:28:38,818 --> 00:28:41,120
I think they were talking
about 25 or 30,000 people

649
00:28:42,521 --> 00:28:44,123
in the middle of this
residential neighborhood.

650
00:28:44,123 --> 00:28:45,391
It made no sense to us.

651
00:28:46,458 --> 00:28:48,094
- At that point,

652
00:28:48,094 --> 00:28:50,997
Dennis Cosgrove and
several other individuals,

653
00:28:50,997 --> 00:28:53,165
some state police
officers in the area,

654
00:28:53,165 --> 00:28:55,301
were quite concerned
with the project.

655
00:28:57,036 --> 00:29:00,172
They retained me and
asked what they could do

656
00:29:00,172 --> 00:29:02,842
to stop the project
at that point.

657
00:29:02,842 --> 00:29:05,477
- My secretary calls me, says,
"The governor's on the phone.

658
00:29:05,477 --> 00:29:06,879
"He don't sound happy,"

659
00:29:08,180 --> 00:29:09,615
and I picked up the phone.

660
00:29:09,615 --> 00:29:11,483
He says, "Nelson here.

661
00:29:11,483 --> 00:29:13,485
"Howard, I don't know what the
hell you're doing down there,

662
00:29:13,485 --> 00:29:14,720
"but get rid of it."

663
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,256
That was the end of
that conversation.

664
00:29:18,457 --> 00:29:19,758
- At some magic moment

665
00:29:21,828 --> 00:29:24,096
when Jack Schlosser,
the town supervisor,

666
00:29:25,564 --> 00:29:29,535
suddenly began to take sides

667
00:29:29,535 --> 00:29:33,272
and said something
about Richard Daley

668
00:29:33,272 --> 00:29:36,642
having known how to deal
with crowds of hippies,

669
00:29:36,642 --> 00:29:39,045
I lost my temper

670
00:29:39,045 --> 00:29:40,679
and there was a certain
amount of shouting

671
00:29:40,679 --> 00:29:42,181
going on back and forth,

672
00:29:42,181 --> 00:29:45,451
and the meeting came
rapidly to a close.

673
00:29:47,019 --> 00:29:48,720
- Right after he
gave that speech

674
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,457
I think is when he
sat down next to me,

675
00:29:51,457 --> 00:29:55,527
and the people behind us
made that comment about,

676
00:29:55,527 --> 00:29:58,397
"If any one of those
kids comes on my land

677
00:29:58,397 --> 00:29:59,365
"I'm gonna shoot 'em,

678
00:29:59,365 --> 00:30:01,067
"and I have the gun to do it."

679
00:30:01,067 --> 00:30:04,370
- The middle of the night,
my wife gets a call,

680
00:30:04,370 --> 00:30:06,205
"They're gonna burn
your house down,"

681
00:30:07,373 --> 00:30:11,210
and later on that night,

682
00:30:11,210 --> 00:30:13,612
about three o'clock
in the morning,

683
00:30:13,612 --> 00:30:18,617
a friend of mine who
I grew up with said

684
00:30:20,086 --> 00:30:22,989
called me and said, "I have
to meet you on a back road,

685
00:30:22,989 --> 00:30:24,823
"and I don't wanna
be seen with you."

686
00:30:25,691 --> 00:30:26,926
I'd known him all my life

687
00:30:26,926 --> 00:30:28,760
and I couldn't figure
out the hell's going on.

688
00:30:29,761 --> 00:30:31,330
So, I drove up there

689
00:30:31,330 --> 00:30:35,101
and he told me that he'd
been sitting at a bar

690
00:30:35,101 --> 00:30:37,269
and overheard conversations

691
00:30:37,269 --> 00:30:39,972
where they were forming
a vigilante committee

692
00:30:39,972 --> 00:30:41,607
to do away with me.

693
00:30:43,075 --> 00:30:46,778
- They passed a law that we
felt was fairly definitive

694
00:30:46,778 --> 00:30:50,516
in terms of foreclosing our
ability to use that town.

695
00:30:51,717 --> 00:30:53,652
Well, we felt about
the only organization

696
00:30:53,652 --> 00:30:56,322
that could comply with these
laws would be a monastery

697
00:30:56,322 --> 00:30:58,857
whose members had
taken a vow of silence.

698
00:30:58,857 --> 00:31:01,660
This law was designed
not very artfully,

699
00:31:01,660 --> 00:31:02,861
but very effectively,

700
00:31:04,196 --> 00:31:06,698
to preclude us having
a festival there.

701
00:31:06,698 --> 00:31:11,403
If you have a law that
says no noise can emanate

702
00:31:11,403 --> 00:31:13,472
more than 10 feet from
the property line,

703
00:31:15,474 --> 00:31:16,976
you pretty much have foreclosed

704
00:31:16,976 --> 00:31:18,911
children playing in the
backyard or anything else,

705
00:31:18,911 --> 00:31:21,647
let alone amplified
rock concerts,

706
00:31:21,647 --> 00:31:24,583
so we knew, when that law was
passed, that we were dead.

707
00:31:24,583 --> 00:31:27,619
- I thought, in fact, that
we had reasonable grounds

708
00:31:27,619 --> 00:31:31,423
and ought to try to stay there
rather than just abandon it.

709
00:31:32,824 --> 00:31:35,727
However, that wasn't part
of anyone else's idea

710
00:31:35,727 --> 00:31:36,996
of the right thing to do.

711
00:31:39,031 --> 00:31:41,633
So, folks scattered
looking for sites.

712
00:31:41,633 --> 00:31:43,135
- And the night
we lost Wallkill,

713
00:31:43,135 --> 00:31:46,238
Michael came over and we
sat there giggling about it,

714
00:31:46,238 --> 00:31:47,473
see, 'cause to Michael,

715
00:31:47,473 --> 00:31:49,075
even at that point
when we lost the site

716
00:31:49,075 --> 00:31:50,709
it was still like
we laughed about it

717
00:31:50,709 --> 00:31:53,145
'cause we knew it was
gonna come off anyway,

718
00:31:53,145 --> 00:31:56,282
and that's what was supposed
to happen: lose Wallkill.

719
00:31:56,282 --> 00:31:58,350
- And when we lost
the Wallkill site,

720
00:31:59,485 --> 00:32:00,919
we realized we had lost it,

721
00:32:02,154 --> 00:32:05,657
although there was a
great deal of panic

722
00:32:07,093 --> 00:32:09,028
and disappointment
for a few days,

723
00:32:10,229 --> 00:32:13,299
it was always there's
a better one out there

724
00:32:13,299 --> 00:32:15,134
and we're gonna find it,

725
00:32:15,134 --> 00:32:15,968
and we did.

726
00:32:21,673 --> 00:32:23,142
- [Narrator] With
time running out

727
00:32:23,142 --> 00:32:25,211
and no legitimate prospects
for finding a new site,

728
00:32:25,211 --> 00:32:27,679
a call from an unlikely
ally would steer the guys

729
00:32:27,679 --> 00:32:29,881
to Sullivan County and
the town of Bethel,

730
00:32:29,881 --> 00:32:32,118
just 50 miles west of Wallkill.

731
00:32:33,752 --> 00:32:37,756
- We got a call from Elliot
Tiber the weekend after we,

732
00:32:37,756 --> 00:32:42,061
that weekend, during the
weekend of our discovery

733
00:32:42,061 --> 00:32:44,130
that we were no longer
gonna be in Wallkill.

734
00:32:44,130 --> 00:32:45,531
- He said, "I have the permits

735
00:32:45,531 --> 00:32:47,966
"and I have the perfect place."

736
00:32:47,966 --> 00:32:51,603
- And Elliot said that
he had read about this,

737
00:32:51,603 --> 00:32:52,838
what happened to Wallkill,

738
00:32:52,838 --> 00:32:54,973
and he said, "I
have a big property.

739
00:32:54,973 --> 00:32:56,508
"Come and see it."

740
00:32:56,508 --> 00:32:58,710
Goldstein and I shot up there.

741
00:33:00,512 --> 00:33:02,714
- The site that he had to offer

742
00:33:02,714 --> 00:33:06,285
was connected to a motel

743
00:33:06,285 --> 00:33:08,354
that was owned by
the Tiber family,

744
00:33:10,989 --> 00:33:14,826
and Mel and I went up to
take a look at the site,

745
00:33:14,826 --> 00:33:17,063
which turned out to be a swamp.

746
00:33:17,063 --> 00:33:19,398
We wound up in mud
up to our knees,

747
00:33:19,398 --> 00:33:21,400
and just covered with shit.

748
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,170
- And it was like
this giant bowl

749
00:33:24,170 --> 00:33:25,871
with all these trees around it,

750
00:33:25,871 --> 00:33:28,974
and Stan and I are looking at it

751
00:33:28,974 --> 00:33:31,743
and saying there's
a lot of trees,

752
00:33:31,743 --> 00:33:33,845
we'd have to cut
down all these trees,

753
00:33:35,214 --> 00:33:37,549
but let's go down to the bottom
and see what's happening.

754
00:33:37,549 --> 00:33:41,553
We went down, it's a swamp,
a total swamp down there,

755
00:33:41,553 --> 00:33:42,721
and we said, "This
is impossible,"

756
00:33:42,721 --> 00:33:44,556
and we said to this guy Elliot,

757
00:33:44,556 --> 00:33:48,594
"What did you expect us
to do a show in a swamp?

758
00:33:48,594 --> 00:33:49,961
"Put up a stage and everything?"

759
00:33:49,961 --> 00:33:51,263
and all these trees,

760
00:33:51,263 --> 00:33:53,765
and we were sort of
pissed off at the guy,

761
00:33:53,765 --> 00:33:55,334
and we left.

762
00:33:55,334 --> 00:33:59,138
- Well, but then there was
another call that came in,

763
00:33:59,138 --> 00:34:01,373
and Mel and I went up together,

764
00:34:01,373 --> 00:34:03,375
and we went to see Elliot.

765
00:34:03,375 --> 00:34:04,876
We were meeting him
and a real estate agent

766
00:34:04,876 --> 00:34:09,815
at his motel.

767
00:34:09,815 --> 00:34:11,350
- And we met Yasgur,

768
00:34:11,350 --> 00:34:13,185
and then he jumped in the car,

769
00:34:13,185 --> 00:34:14,386
and it was the middleman,

770
00:34:14,386 --> 00:34:16,555
and Yasgur, and
Michael, and myself,

771
00:34:16,555 --> 00:34:18,824
and we went driving
around Yasgur's farm,

772
00:34:18,824 --> 00:34:23,829
and the piece that
he showed first

773
00:34:25,030 --> 00:34:28,300
was this huge field,
but flat as a board.

774
00:34:29,668 --> 00:34:31,270
I look at Michael
and I say, "Wow,"

775
00:34:31,270 --> 00:34:34,406
and 100,000 people, they're
not gonna see anything,

776
00:34:34,406 --> 00:34:36,208
and then Max said
something like,

777
00:34:36,208 --> 00:34:40,446
"Well, do you want something
with a little contour to it?"

778
00:34:40,446 --> 00:34:42,314
and we said, "Yeah."

779
00:34:42,314 --> 00:34:44,450
- And we came down Hurd Road,

780
00:34:44,450 --> 00:34:45,384
and came up over the crest,

781
00:34:45,384 --> 00:34:47,219
and there was the bowl,

782
00:34:48,654 --> 00:34:52,358
and we knew immediately this
was our new home, somehow.

783
00:34:52,358 --> 00:34:53,892
- The two of them stand there

784
00:34:53,892 --> 00:34:56,528
without any assistance from
the Realtor or anybody else,

785
00:34:56,528 --> 00:34:58,230
and all of a sudden
Michael says,

786
00:34:58,230 --> 00:34:59,731
"This is where we have to be.

787
00:35:01,967 --> 00:35:04,102
"What's the deal next?"

788
00:35:05,504 --> 00:35:07,806
"Well, you'll have to
clean up after yourself."

789
00:35:07,806 --> 00:35:08,974
"We certainly will."

790
00:35:10,842 --> 00:35:13,479
My cables are still buried
four foot underground.

791
00:35:13,479 --> 00:35:16,582
We couldn't get them out
with a bulldozer. (laughs)

792
00:35:16,582 --> 00:35:18,717
Anyway, there's power there
for anything that you want.

793
00:35:18,717 --> 00:35:19,651
Just let me know.

794
00:35:19,651 --> 00:35:21,787
I'll tell you where it is.

795
00:35:21,787 --> 00:35:24,356
- Yeah, Max actually found us.

796
00:35:24,356 --> 00:35:26,458
Max was 50 miles away.

797
00:35:26,458 --> 00:35:29,628
He'd been following the accounts
of our battles in Wallkill,

798
00:35:29,628 --> 00:35:33,399
and when we were thrown
out he called us,

799
00:35:33,399 --> 00:35:37,303
and Mel and Michael

800
00:35:38,204 --> 00:35:39,305
went up to see him,

801
00:35:39,305 --> 00:35:40,406
and looked at the land,

802
00:35:40,406 --> 00:35:41,907
and called me, and said,

803
00:35:41,907 --> 00:35:43,209
"You've gotta get up here
and take a look at this

804
00:35:43,209 --> 00:35:45,677
"and make a deal
with this farmer,"

805
00:35:45,677 --> 00:35:48,580
and I hopped on my motorbike

806
00:35:48,580 --> 00:35:50,182
and got up there as
quickly as I could,

807
00:35:50,182 --> 00:35:54,820
and I made a deal with Max,
and we hit it off very well.

808
00:35:54,820 --> 00:35:57,356
He was a delightful,
charming guy.

809
00:35:57,356 --> 00:35:59,591
- I'm sure that went
through his mind was,

810
00:35:59,591 --> 00:36:02,027
"Hey, I don't have
these prejudices.

811
00:36:02,027 --> 00:36:03,895
"I don't mind kids
on my property.

812
00:36:03,895 --> 00:36:06,765
"I don't mind a rock
'n' roll festival.

813
00:36:06,765 --> 00:36:07,966
"I think that'd be fun."

814
00:36:09,868 --> 00:36:13,305
- The Yasgurs were decent,

815
00:36:13,305 --> 00:36:16,375
gentle, caring people.

816
00:36:16,375 --> 00:36:17,609
They came to our rescue.

817
00:36:17,609 --> 00:36:18,544
There would have
been no Woodstock

818
00:36:18,544 --> 00:36:20,312
without Max and Miriam Yasgur.

819
00:36:20,312 --> 00:36:23,114
(crowd chattering)

820
00:36:23,114 --> 00:36:24,816
- [Announcer] We have
a gentleman with us.

821
00:36:26,252 --> 00:36:29,788
He's the gentleman upon whose
farm we are, Mr. Max Yasgur.

822
00:36:29,788 --> 00:36:32,558
(crowd applauding)

823
00:36:32,558 --> 00:36:35,394
- This is the largest
group of people

824
00:36:35,394 --> 00:36:38,096
ever assembled in one place,

825
00:36:40,165 --> 00:36:43,068
(crowd applauding)

826
00:36:45,271 --> 00:36:46,772
but above that,

827
00:36:46,772 --> 00:36:50,008
the important thing that
you're proving to the world

828
00:36:50,008 --> 00:36:53,945
is that a half a million
young people can get together

829
00:36:53,945 --> 00:36:56,948
and have three days
of fun and music,

830
00:36:56,948 --> 00:36:59,285
and have nothing
but fun and music,

831
00:36:59,285 --> 00:37:01,019
and I God bless you for it.

832
00:37:02,388 --> 00:37:04,956
(energetic rock music)

833
00:37:04,956 --> 00:37:06,325
- [Narrator] But some of
the people in White Lake

834
00:37:06,325 --> 00:37:08,059
didn't share Max's vision,

835
00:37:08,059 --> 00:37:10,829
and opposition to the festival
being held in their community

836
00:37:10,829 --> 00:37:13,465
began to mount, just
like in Wallkill.

837
00:37:13,465 --> 00:37:16,768
- Max was a pretty important
person in that county,

838
00:37:16,768 --> 00:37:20,672
and he had a lot of
good contacts there,

839
00:37:20,672 --> 00:37:22,308
and we sort of felt

840
00:37:22,308 --> 00:37:24,376
we were going to
generate some opposition

841
00:37:24,376 --> 00:37:26,945
once people realized
what was going on there,

842
00:37:26,945 --> 00:37:30,382
but that if we moved forward

843
00:37:30,382 --> 00:37:33,485
with a sort of surge
of inevitability,

844
00:37:33,485 --> 00:37:35,387
that we might just
squeak through

845
00:37:35,387 --> 00:37:39,425
before the opposition could
marshal its forces and stop us,

846
00:37:39,425 --> 00:37:40,926
and that's in essence
what happened.

847
00:37:40,926 --> 00:37:44,029
I mean, as I say, Max had some
good friends who helped us,

848
00:37:44,029 --> 00:37:47,699
and the opposition
never really developed

849
00:37:47,699 --> 00:37:49,801
quite enough power to stop us.

850
00:37:49,801 --> 00:37:50,636
They came close.

851
00:37:53,004 --> 00:37:54,473
We had one huge problem.

852
00:37:54,473 --> 00:37:56,041
We had sold about a million
dollars worth of tickets

853
00:37:56,041 --> 00:37:57,343
for Wallkill,

854
00:37:57,343 --> 00:37:59,611
so we had to make sure
that everybody knew

855
00:37:59,611 --> 00:38:01,513
that anyone who had bought
tickets for Wallkill,

856
00:38:01,513 --> 00:38:04,049
those tickets would be
honored in White Lake.

857
00:38:04,049 --> 00:38:05,551
The press had been
carrying accounts

858
00:38:05,551 --> 00:38:07,553
of how the festival was dead
and there wouldn't be one,

859
00:38:07,553 --> 00:38:09,355
so we had to counteract that.

860
00:38:09,355 --> 00:38:11,357
We had to continue to work
with our ticket outlets

861
00:38:11,357 --> 00:38:13,792
to make sure they
continued to sell tickets,

862
00:38:13,792 --> 00:38:15,727
so it was a nightmarish problem

863
00:38:15,727 --> 00:38:18,063
for that roughly 30-day period

864
00:38:18,063 --> 00:38:20,466
to make sure that ticket
sales went forward,

865
00:38:20,466 --> 00:38:22,067
and that people
who were confused

866
00:38:22,067 --> 00:38:24,670
about where this
festival was going to be

867
00:38:24,670 --> 00:38:26,838
knew where it was going to be.

868
00:38:26,838 --> 00:38:29,508
- Well, it's two guys

869
00:38:29,508 --> 00:38:32,344
in a straw hat and overalls

870
00:38:33,845 --> 00:38:35,280
with blunderbusses

871
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:39,184
saying, "Stay out of town."

872
00:38:40,486 --> 00:38:43,254
We didn't consider
ourselves to be that at all.

873
00:38:45,256 --> 00:38:46,725
We're a pretty rural area here,

874
00:38:46,725 --> 00:38:49,361
but we didn't consider ourselves
to be country bumpkins,

875
00:38:49,361 --> 00:38:51,162
but they certainly
painted us to be.

876
00:38:52,631 --> 00:38:54,600
- I thought it was exactly
what we were dealing with

877
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:58,470
in that town, and
I was all for it.

878
00:38:58,470 --> 00:38:59,605
- I didn't like the ad.

879
00:39:02,474 --> 00:39:04,443
It just struck me that an ad

880
00:39:04,443 --> 00:39:07,646
featuring two obvious rednecks

881
00:39:07,646 --> 00:39:11,983
with blunderbusses, I guess
it looked like, is that right?

882
00:39:11,983 --> 00:39:15,086
I seem to remember these
sort of caricature shotguns.

883
00:39:15,086 --> 00:39:17,288
It went over the line for me

884
00:39:17,288 --> 00:39:21,593
in terms of the anger and the
confrontation element in it.

885
00:39:22,794 --> 00:39:23,729
I just didn't want
anything like that

886
00:39:23,729 --> 00:39:25,296
associated with the festival.

887
00:39:25,296 --> 00:39:26,131
I was outvoted.

888
00:39:29,635 --> 00:39:32,671
- We got to White Lake July 15th

889
00:39:32,671 --> 00:39:34,973
and the festival
was August 15th,

890
00:39:34,973 --> 00:39:39,210
so it just moved forward
like a enormous tidal wave,

891
00:39:39,210 --> 00:39:42,548
and we, by the time
that festival started

892
00:39:42,548 --> 00:39:44,916
we had 1,000 people
hammering, and building,

893
00:39:44,916 --> 00:39:47,218
and constructing, and
what have you, and it was

894
00:39:47,218 --> 00:39:50,489
it had a sort of
inevitability about it.

895
00:39:50,489 --> 00:39:52,658
- I felt that if we were
gonna do a project like this,

896
00:39:52,658 --> 00:39:55,761
that we needed a technical
director like Langhart,

897
00:39:55,761 --> 00:39:57,596
and to work with
Chris for 15 minutes

898
00:39:57,596 --> 00:39:59,465
was to figure out this
was the greatest genius.

899
00:39:59,465 --> 00:40:02,834
This was this strange,
Ichabod Crane-looking guy

900
00:40:02,834 --> 00:40:06,505
who just understood what
everything was made of,

901
00:40:06,505 --> 00:40:10,108
so I campaigned very, very
heavily to bring Chris in,

902
00:40:10,108 --> 00:40:11,076
and I was right.

903
00:40:12,511 --> 00:40:16,915
- We're standing on West Shore
Road looking towards Bethel

904
00:40:16,915 --> 00:40:20,051
at about where the
bridge was overhead,

905
00:40:20,051 --> 00:40:22,888
and over this way was
Phillipini's Pond,

906
00:40:24,623 --> 00:40:27,225
and coming back
through this way then

907
00:40:27,225 --> 00:40:28,860
you come to the heliport,

908
00:40:28,860 --> 00:40:30,929
and then further
down in that low spot

909
00:40:30,929 --> 00:40:33,331
where the office trailers
were, my office was,

910
00:40:33,331 --> 00:40:35,266
and the payroll office

911
00:40:35,266 --> 00:40:36,735
where the people
gathered in the morning

912
00:40:36,735 --> 00:40:39,905
to discern which tasks
they were gonna have,

913
00:40:39,905 --> 00:40:42,073
and then coming
across here we had,

914
00:40:42,073 --> 00:40:45,010
mostly this road was blocked
up with people walking,

915
00:40:45,010 --> 00:40:46,244
and overhead was the bridge.

916
00:40:46,244 --> 00:40:47,445
We had a couple phone poles here

917
00:40:47,445 --> 00:40:49,080
and a couple phone poles there,

918
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:52,350
and we had some, I don't know,
12 by nines or something,

919
00:40:52,350 --> 00:40:53,519
whatever could be found locally,

920
00:40:53,519 --> 00:40:54,953
to span the road

921
00:40:54,953 --> 00:40:56,488
because I felt
that the performers

922
00:40:56,488 --> 00:40:59,257
on the way from the heliport
to the stage would get mobbed

923
00:40:59,257 --> 00:41:01,259
if there was all this
walking road business.

924
00:41:01,259 --> 00:41:02,661
We had to have some way

925
00:41:02,661 --> 00:41:04,262
to keep the performer pavilion,
which was on that side,

926
00:41:04,262 --> 00:41:06,765
from the stage, which
was on this side.

927
00:41:06,765 --> 00:41:08,166
Over here is the stage.

928
00:41:09,334 --> 00:41:11,069
There's this kind
of flat place here,

929
00:41:11,069 --> 00:41:13,404
and then the hill rises up,

930
00:41:13,404 --> 00:41:14,773
and then there's
a kind of a dip,

931
00:41:14,773 --> 00:41:16,975
and then it goes on again,

932
00:41:16,975 --> 00:41:21,212
and so the stage was quite high
compared to modern concerts

933
00:41:21,212 --> 00:41:24,850
because you have a situation
where if it wasn't,

934
00:41:24,850 --> 00:41:26,417
then everybody that
was caught in the dip

935
00:41:26,417 --> 00:41:27,886
wouldn't be able to
see the performers,

936
00:41:27,886 --> 00:41:32,057
so we had no option here except
to make the stage real high

937
00:41:32,057 --> 00:41:34,292
so that the people who were
down front were looking up

938
00:41:34,292 --> 00:41:36,227
and the people further
out were looking across,

939
00:41:36,227 --> 00:41:38,830
and the people from the
top were looking down.

940
00:41:38,830 --> 00:41:40,431
It also extended the field

941
00:41:40,431 --> 00:41:43,034
because you could then see,
from much further back,

942
00:41:43,034 --> 00:41:47,038
the stage as a result
of being high enough

943
00:41:47,038 --> 00:41:48,006
so you could see it.

944
00:41:49,875 --> 00:41:52,578
- A lot of people
were getting cold feet

945
00:41:52,578 --> 00:41:55,080
because they'd heard
that the festival site

946
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:56,381
had been shifted.

947
00:41:56,381 --> 00:41:58,550
They heard that
there were problems.

948
00:41:58,550 --> 00:42:00,118
There were rumblings
in the press

949
00:42:00,118 --> 00:42:03,254
that things weren't going well,

950
00:42:03,254 --> 00:42:08,126
that the construction on the
festival was lagging behind.

951
00:42:08,126 --> 00:42:09,227
It was all true,

952
00:42:10,428 --> 00:42:12,363
and nobody really knew
what was gonna happen.

953
00:42:13,264 --> 00:42:14,933
- Most of that month it rained,

954
00:42:16,267 --> 00:42:18,737
and that hampered our
ability to prepare the stage,

955
00:42:18,737 --> 00:42:20,839
and build the gates and
all the concession areas,

956
00:42:20,839 --> 00:42:23,975
and the roads, and the power.

957
00:42:23,975 --> 00:42:25,811
I mean, there was just
an enormous amount to do,

958
00:42:25,811 --> 00:42:29,648
and we were down to
literally 28 days to do it.

959
00:42:29,648 --> 00:42:33,218
(raunchy blues-rock music)

960
00:42:36,722 --> 00:42:40,091
- (laughs) It was an
enormous undertaking.

961
00:42:40,091 --> 00:42:43,328
The plots and plans
that had been made,

962
00:42:44,630 --> 00:42:47,565
and hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds

963
00:42:47,565 --> 00:42:48,767
of thousands of dollars,

964
00:42:48,767 --> 00:42:51,002
and hundreds of man-hours

965
00:42:51,002 --> 00:42:54,673
had been put into
the previous site.

966
00:42:54,673 --> 00:42:57,108
The Yasgur site
was just gorgeous.

967
00:42:59,010 --> 00:43:02,914
It was just head and shoulders

968
00:43:02,914 --> 00:43:04,783
for sheer beauty,

969
00:43:04,783 --> 00:43:07,352
so much better than
the Mills site.

970
00:43:07,352 --> 00:43:09,587
It was as though it had
been designed for the job

971
00:43:09,587 --> 00:43:12,190
except that there were no
roads, there was no water.

972
00:43:13,591 --> 00:43:14,525
We had to dig wells.

973
00:43:14,525 --> 00:43:15,761
We had to bring in power.

974
00:43:15,761 --> 00:43:17,696
Power had existed
at the other place.

975
00:43:17,696 --> 00:43:19,798
So, suddenly utilities

976
00:43:20,732 --> 00:43:22,734
became an enormous undertaking,

977
00:43:22,734 --> 00:43:24,235
whereas previously

978
00:43:24,235 --> 00:43:27,472
utilities had been a very
small, simple consideration.

979
00:43:28,606 --> 00:43:30,441
- There were 650,000
watts of lights

980
00:43:30,441 --> 00:43:32,310
sitting underneath
the stage rusting.

981
00:43:34,145 --> 00:43:35,580
Nowhere to hang it.

982
00:43:35,580 --> 00:43:39,317
There was another 20,000
watts on the Joshua Light Show

983
00:43:39,317 --> 00:43:41,987
at the backing or
the rear screen.

984
00:43:41,987 --> 00:43:44,122
The rear screen couldn't be hung

985
00:43:44,122 --> 00:43:48,960
because we couldn't find a
stable enough position for it

986
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,496
with those five trusses.

987
00:43:51,496 --> 00:43:53,364
The roof was never finished.

988
00:43:56,935 --> 00:44:01,472
- It was a complex stage
structure to support the lights,

989
00:44:02,941 --> 00:44:07,746
an exotic overhead structure
which, once it was in place,

990
00:44:07,746 --> 00:44:09,247
would have been
quite extraordinary.

991
00:44:09,247 --> 00:44:10,916
Unfortunately,
getting it in place

992
00:44:10,916 --> 00:44:14,886
required the choreography
of enormous quantities

993
00:44:14,886 --> 00:44:17,222
of people and heavy
equipment, a couple of cranes,

994
00:44:17,222 --> 00:44:19,357
and this and that,
and this and that.

995
00:44:19,357 --> 00:44:21,927
We had to lay roads,
enormous roads,

996
00:44:21,927 --> 00:44:23,995
prepare road beds and so forth,

997
00:44:23,995 --> 00:44:28,800
and all of that working
around Max's harvest schedule

998
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:30,201
and milking schedule.

999
00:44:31,569 --> 00:44:33,638
Electricity didn't get
there till the last moment.

1000
00:44:33,638 --> 00:44:36,341
Telephones didn't get there
till the very last moment.

1001
00:44:37,776 --> 00:44:41,646
And so it was a haul every
last minute of the time.

1002
00:44:43,248 --> 00:44:45,050
(energetic rock music)

1003
00:44:45,050 --> 00:44:49,187
- First of all, they pulled
enormous all-nighters for days

1004
00:44:49,187 --> 00:44:50,789
to try and finish this.

1005
00:44:50,789 --> 00:44:54,192
The Thursday before
the Friday of the show

1006
00:44:56,161 --> 00:45:00,365
they were just barely
getting the sound down.

1007
00:45:00,365 --> 00:45:03,168
I remember Hanley showing
up with all this stuff

1008
00:45:04,302 --> 00:45:07,672
and just rolling
his eyes and saying,

1009
00:45:07,672 --> 00:45:10,441
"Where am I gonna put
the sound system?"

1010
00:45:11,376 --> 00:45:12,610
- No, I didn't wonder.

1011
00:45:12,610 --> 00:45:15,113
I designed and laid
it out to begin with.

1012
00:45:15,113 --> 00:45:17,282
We stopped the car and
get out of the car,

1013
00:45:18,616 --> 00:45:21,152
and I went walking up,
looking the whole thing over,

1014
00:45:21,152 --> 00:45:23,454
and found these
dips in the land,

1015
00:45:23,454 --> 00:45:26,524
and so I laid the stage out

1016
00:45:26,524 --> 00:45:29,427
and designed the V
and the security thing

1017
00:45:29,427 --> 00:45:32,563
from all the festivals that
I had done and watched,

1018
00:45:32,563 --> 00:45:35,633
had learned from
those beforehand

1019
00:45:35,633 --> 00:45:39,938
because nobody was really
out to make the concert

1020
00:45:41,339 --> 00:45:44,876
more like what you might
hear in the recording studio

1021
00:45:44,876 --> 00:45:46,711
when you're doing a mixdown:

1022
00:45:46,711 --> 00:45:49,014
fidelity, full
frequency response

1023
00:45:49,014 --> 00:45:50,748
as best we could
at the the time,

1024
00:45:52,217 --> 00:45:53,618
and then mixing it together,

1025
00:45:53,618 --> 00:45:54,920
and we were trying to do that

1026
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,722
so that everybody could
hear and understand

1027
00:45:57,722 --> 00:46:00,826
what was being said to the
last seat in the house.

1028
00:46:00,826 --> 00:46:03,494
(raunchy blues-rock music)

1029
00:46:03,494 --> 00:46:07,565
- We didn't obtain
an actual permit

1030
00:46:08,967 --> 00:46:13,371
to do the show in White Lake

1031
00:46:13,371 --> 00:46:16,774
until, probably,
hours before the show.

1032
00:46:16,774 --> 00:46:17,742
In the meantime,

1033
00:46:22,413 --> 00:46:24,382
the local building inspector

1034
00:46:25,383 --> 00:46:27,052
was very conscious of the fact

1035
00:46:27,052 --> 00:46:31,222
that if we didn't proceed

1036
00:46:31,222 --> 00:46:32,723
with our work

1037
00:46:32,723 --> 00:46:35,760
that in fact we were not
gonna be in a position

1038
00:46:38,263 --> 00:46:39,497
to accommodate the crowds

1039
00:46:39,497 --> 00:46:42,267
and/or some other bad
things would happen:

1040
00:46:42,267 --> 00:46:44,903
the stage construction
would be even further behind

1041
00:46:44,903 --> 00:46:46,371
than it was.

1042
00:46:46,371 --> 00:46:50,775
And so we simply made a
little backdoor arrangement

1043
00:46:50,775 --> 00:46:54,112
that when we were
enjoined from working

1044
00:46:54,112 --> 00:46:55,613
while waiting for our permits,

1045
00:46:55,613 --> 00:46:57,282
while making our final appeals

1046
00:46:57,282 --> 00:46:58,884
on this and that and so forth,

1047
00:47:00,085 --> 00:47:03,889
and stop-work
orders were issued,

1048
00:47:03,889 --> 00:47:07,392
he would come by, wake me
up, I would go get my car,

1049
00:47:08,826 --> 00:47:10,828
and then he would start a
journey around the site,

1050
00:47:10,828 --> 00:47:12,397
posting stop-work notices,

1051
00:47:12,397 --> 00:47:14,832
and I would follow
along behind him

1052
00:47:14,832 --> 00:47:17,468
and remove the
stop-work notices.

1053
00:47:17,468 --> 00:47:19,404
I was not one of
the four partners,

1054
00:47:20,805 --> 00:47:23,942
so I was the most easily
sacrificed of the big names,

1055
00:47:25,510 --> 00:47:26,744
and so I,

1056
00:47:26,744 --> 00:47:28,113
what are you laughing at, Duke?

1057
00:47:28,113 --> 00:47:29,514
It's true, it's true.

1058
00:47:30,781 --> 00:47:32,617
Subject of midnight meetings:

1059
00:47:32,617 --> 00:47:36,087
Who gets arrested on
this one? (laughs)

1060
00:47:38,356 --> 00:47:39,457
- I had the checkbook,

1061
00:47:40,391 --> 00:47:44,262
and there were people

1062
00:47:44,262 --> 00:47:47,032
who signed John's
name who were not John

1063
00:47:47,966 --> 00:47:50,301
to those checks,

1064
00:47:50,301 --> 00:47:53,204
and suddenly we were paying

1065
00:47:54,305 --> 00:47:57,242
what amounted to ransom,
sky-high ransoms,

1066
00:47:57,242 --> 00:48:00,711
to get these things done
at the very last minute.

1067
00:48:04,149 --> 00:48:05,383
- [Announcer] Can you dig that?

1068
00:48:05,383 --> 00:48:08,954
New York State Thruway's
closed, man. (laughs)

1069
00:48:08,954 --> 00:48:12,523
- Well, there's really a hard
any way to explain how it was.

1070
00:48:12,523 --> 00:48:15,526
There was no firehouse
over there at that time,

1071
00:48:15,526 --> 00:48:17,762
with just a little grass
and some bungalows,

1072
00:48:17,762 --> 00:48:19,597
and we went to bed
on Thursday night.

1073
00:48:20,565 --> 00:48:21,866
There was no noise.

1074
00:48:21,866 --> 00:48:23,068
We got up Friday morning,

1075
00:48:23,068 --> 00:48:25,003
and this whole road
that you see vacant now,

1076
00:48:25,003 --> 00:48:27,672
all the way up through,
cars, people, jammed,

1077
00:48:27,672 --> 00:48:30,075
just one lane going all
the way up to the site.

1078
00:48:31,376 --> 00:48:34,379
- We had, oh, I think
it was over 500 acres,

1079
00:48:34,379 --> 00:48:37,182
might have been 600
acres, for parking alone,

1080
00:48:37,182 --> 00:48:39,184
and we had people
on that property

1081
00:48:39,184 --> 00:48:42,487
who could guide people in
and get them off the road,

1082
00:48:42,487 --> 00:48:45,556
but the state police
didn't get there,

1083
00:48:45,556 --> 00:48:47,458
didn't deploy their people

1084
00:48:47,458 --> 00:48:49,494
until hours after
they said they would,

1085
00:48:49,494 --> 00:48:52,797
and by the time they did,
17B was a parking lot.

1086
00:48:54,365 --> 00:48:56,401
- Well, the state police
didn't do anything wrong.

1087
00:48:56,401 --> 00:48:58,103
What happened, really, was

1088
00:48:58,103 --> 00:49:02,173
if we'd had the 100,000
people we were expecting,

1089
00:49:02,173 --> 00:49:05,376
that would have been
20,000 to 30,000 cars.

1090
00:49:06,978 --> 00:49:09,347
We probably could have handled
that without too much trouble

1091
00:49:09,347 --> 00:49:11,516
'cause we had hundreds
of acres of parking lots.

1092
00:49:11,516 --> 00:49:12,950
But two things happened:

1093
00:49:12,950 --> 00:49:15,186
One, we had four to five
times as many people show up,

1094
00:49:15,186 --> 00:49:17,322
so you had four to five
times as many cars.

1095
00:49:19,124 --> 00:49:20,391
Two, it rained,

1096
00:49:20,391 --> 00:49:23,528
so many of the parking
lots were a sea of mud.

1097
00:49:24,662 --> 00:49:26,631
- Obviously, we
knew then and there

1098
00:49:26,631 --> 00:49:28,433
that we couldn't put
people in parking lots,

1099
00:49:28,433 --> 00:49:31,802
and so we began to just hope
to seal off perimeter areas

1100
00:49:31,802 --> 00:49:34,172
way far away, miles away,

1101
00:49:34,172 --> 00:49:36,607
stop the flow of traffic
into the festival,

1102
00:49:36,607 --> 00:49:39,777
try to keep one lane
open in most of the roads

1103
00:49:39,777 --> 00:49:43,648
for emergency services,
primarily medical.

1104
00:49:43,648 --> 00:49:45,616
- I stood out on the Thruway,

1105
00:49:47,552 --> 00:49:48,886
or on the access road
from the Thruway,

1106
00:49:48,886 --> 00:49:50,155
with the state police,

1107
00:49:50,155 --> 00:49:52,523
trying to get traffic to
turn around at the exit.

1108
00:49:53,658 --> 00:49:54,925
It was impossible to
get cars to turn around.

1109
00:49:54,925 --> 00:49:57,795
I mean, they were
strewn everywhere.

1110
00:49:57,795 --> 00:50:02,133
- By Friday afternoon, there
were cars on every road,

1111
00:50:02,133 --> 00:50:05,503
in every field, for miles
and miles and miles.

1112
00:50:05,503 --> 00:50:08,873
In fact, I don't even know if
everybody ever got their car.

1113
00:50:08,873 --> 00:50:10,341
I mean, it's the thing
I always wondered.

1114
00:50:10,341 --> 00:50:11,842
I said, "Well, okay,

1115
00:50:11,842 --> 00:50:14,912
"did anybody just give up
and abandon their car?"

1116
00:50:14,912 --> 00:50:19,016
I mean, there were
cars everywhere,
literally everywhere.

1117
00:50:19,016 --> 00:50:22,753
- Frankly, the traffic jams
and all of the baggage,

1118
00:50:22,753 --> 00:50:24,021
and the impedimenta,

1119
00:50:24,021 --> 00:50:25,690
and things that kept
people from coming,

1120
00:50:25,690 --> 00:50:30,095
had we had another 100,000 we
would have been in deep shit.

1121
00:50:30,095 --> 00:50:33,264
("Black Magic Woman")

1122
00:50:34,432 --> 00:50:37,435
- I mean, when you had
60,000 people in a field

1123
00:50:38,903 --> 00:50:40,238
a day and a half before
the show was gonna start,

1124
00:50:40,238 --> 00:50:42,140
we knew that we were
in for something.

1125
00:50:43,541 --> 00:50:45,176
There was no question about it.

1126
00:50:46,577 --> 00:50:48,646
- There were 500,000,
600,000 people in the field.

1127
00:50:48,646 --> 00:50:51,182
There's another million
and a half people

1128
00:50:51,182 --> 00:50:53,084
physically trying to get in.

1129
00:50:53,084 --> 00:50:55,120
We're jumping to
hiring helicopters.

1130
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:58,323
We're desperate to keep
water moving, the rest of it.

1131
00:50:58,323 --> 00:51:00,258
I mean, we had a
whole different thing

1132
00:51:00,258 --> 00:51:02,293
from this laid-back
concert festival

1133
00:51:02,293 --> 00:51:05,496
that we're just gonna have
and it'll all be gone,

1134
00:51:05,496 --> 00:51:08,666
and we're suddenly in the
city management business.

1135
00:51:08,666 --> 00:51:10,801
- We spent a great deal of time

1136
00:51:10,801 --> 00:51:13,804
conceptually thinking about
what we wanted to do here,

1137
00:51:13,804 --> 00:51:17,408
and the cornerstone
of our thinking

1138
00:51:17,408 --> 00:51:20,945
was this concept
of peace and music,

1139
00:51:20,945 --> 00:51:22,513
and peace was not intended

1140
00:51:22,513 --> 00:51:25,250
as some kind of code word
for "get out of Vietnam."

1141
00:51:25,250 --> 00:51:29,254
Peace was a shorthand
way of saying,

1142
00:51:29,254 --> 00:51:32,056
"A weekend of freedom from
whatever is bothering you.

1143
00:51:32,056 --> 00:51:35,025
"Just come to the country
and have a nice time."

1144
00:51:35,025 --> 00:51:36,427
And part of that, we felt,

1145
00:51:36,427 --> 00:51:40,231
was that the people
that came to Woodstock

1146
00:51:40,231 --> 00:51:43,934
should feel that they were in
a place that welcomed them,

1147
00:51:43,934 --> 00:51:48,906
that didn't fear
them, mistrust them,

1148
00:51:50,074 --> 00:51:51,008
suspect that they were
going to do wrong.

1149
00:51:52,410 --> 00:51:54,779
Part of the problem with
other festivals that we'd seen

1150
00:51:54,779 --> 00:51:57,948
was that there was sort
of a mutual antagonism

1151
00:51:57,948 --> 00:52:02,553
between festival-goers, say
people 18 to 22 or 23 years old,

1152
00:52:02,553 --> 00:52:06,123
and those charged with
keeping them calm,

1153
00:52:06,123 --> 00:52:08,159
and we felt this
didn't have to be,

1154
00:52:08,159 --> 00:52:11,896
so we designed the site,

1155
00:52:11,896 --> 00:52:15,633
we designed our security
procedures around the concept

1156
00:52:15,633 --> 00:52:19,970
of working with the people
coming to the festival,

1157
00:52:19,970 --> 00:52:21,872
making them feel
welcome and comfortable,

1158
00:52:21,872 --> 00:52:23,841
and Wes Pomeroy took a
lot of credit for that,

1159
00:52:23,841 --> 00:52:25,376
and properly so.

1160
00:52:25,376 --> 00:52:26,577
- There was a bottom line.

1161
00:52:26,577 --> 00:52:28,379
We said, "You can't
go any farther,

1162
00:52:28,379 --> 00:52:30,147
"and we're not gonna let you."

1163
00:52:31,582 --> 00:52:34,919
Well, we had never planned
to do that at Woodstock,

1164
00:52:34,919 --> 00:52:37,688
and unfortunately
never came to a test

1165
00:52:37,688 --> 00:52:38,623
because there was no gate.

1166
00:52:38,623 --> 00:52:40,124
There was nothing to defend,

1167
00:52:40,124 --> 00:52:42,727
but we had some very
specific strategies

1168
00:52:42,727 --> 00:52:44,128
on what to do about that,

1169
00:52:44,128 --> 00:52:46,063
and it had to do with

1170
00:52:46,063 --> 00:52:49,267
everything from having
Ken Kesey park his bus

1171
00:52:49,267 --> 00:52:51,936
right up next to the fence
and dig a hole underneath it,

1172
00:52:51,936 --> 00:52:56,073
so we let people just had to
fool us do it to my having,

1173
00:52:56,073 --> 00:52:59,344
planning to have a couple
thousand tickets in my pocket,

1174
00:52:59,344 --> 00:53:00,678
and becoming the focus

1175
00:53:00,678 --> 00:53:02,380
if we had any
confrontation at the gate,

1176
00:53:02,380 --> 00:53:05,082
and arguing, and negotiating,
and finally giving in,

1177
00:53:05,082 --> 00:53:07,017
and giving tickets, and saying,

1178
00:53:07,017 --> 00:53:08,486
"Well, I expect you
to help clean up,"

1179
00:53:08,486 --> 00:53:09,754
and that sort of thing,

1180
00:53:09,754 --> 00:53:11,222
knowing some would
and some wouldn't.

1181
00:53:11,222 --> 00:53:13,224
From the very beginning

1182
00:53:13,224 --> 00:53:15,360
it was not going to
be confrontational.

1183
00:53:16,227 --> 00:53:17,295
- It became clear to all of us,

1184
00:53:17,295 --> 00:53:20,265
just from watching newsreels,

1185
00:53:20,265 --> 00:53:23,133
that if the crowd wanted
to be unruly it would be.

1186
00:53:24,869 --> 00:53:27,705
This was quite worrisome to us,

1187
00:53:27,705 --> 00:53:30,174
so decisions that we
made about security,

1188
00:53:30,174 --> 00:53:31,876
about the National Guard,

1189
00:53:31,876 --> 00:53:34,945
about keeping the entertainment
going throughout the night,

1190
00:53:34,945 --> 00:53:39,650
about creating a
little baby animal zoo,

1191
00:53:39,650 --> 00:53:43,053
about naming our streets
Happy Way and Groovy Path,

1192
00:53:43,053 --> 00:53:47,124
and everything we put
out about this festival

1193
00:53:47,124 --> 00:53:50,395
had an element of
neighborliness,

1194
00:53:50,395 --> 00:53:52,830
and peace,

1195
00:53:52,830 --> 00:53:56,000
and respect for your fellow man,

1196
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:59,169
and responsibility
toward society,

1197
00:53:59,169 --> 00:54:02,440
toward your society,
your counterculture,

1198
00:54:03,741 --> 00:54:06,076
and I guess in a way

1199
00:54:07,645 --> 00:54:10,781
you'd have to credit,
mostly, the audience.

1200
00:54:14,985 --> 00:54:16,220
- It wasn't a plan.

1201
00:54:16,220 --> 00:54:19,223
It was an accident, and
some very good people.

1202
00:54:19,223 --> 00:54:22,360
Wavy, no teeth,

1203
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:24,094
that was Tom Mix's cowboy hat,

1204
00:54:24,094 --> 00:54:26,130
it really was, that
he was wearing,

1205
00:54:26,130 --> 00:54:29,467
you know, "We're gonna make
breakfast in bed for 600,000."

1206
00:54:31,469 --> 00:54:34,905
The accident of the
guru showing up,

1207
00:54:36,006 --> 00:54:36,974
and somebody coming
in the office

1208
00:54:36,974 --> 00:54:39,544
and saying that this Indian man

1209
00:54:39,544 --> 00:54:41,979
would like to speak
to the audience,

1210
00:54:41,979 --> 00:54:44,682
and thinking, "I haven't
got any acts: Why not?

1211
00:54:44,682 --> 00:54:45,950
"Let's put him on."

1212
00:54:46,784 --> 00:54:48,519
And putting him on

1213
00:54:48,519 --> 00:54:50,120
with all his followers
sitting around him,

1214
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:54,559
and he and that high squeaky
voice talking about peace,

1215
00:54:54,559 --> 00:54:56,594
you know, "All the people in
the world should be nice,"

1216
00:54:56,594 --> 00:55:01,065
and he was fabulous, and
he just leveled it out.

1217
00:55:01,065 --> 00:55:03,167
- [Satchidananda]
But the time has come

1218
00:55:03,167 --> 00:55:05,302
for America to help
the whole world.

1219
00:55:08,339 --> 00:55:09,540
- It's funny.

1220
00:55:09,540 --> 00:55:11,676
I mean, all of it went
down very quickly,

1221
00:55:11,676 --> 00:55:15,680
but I saw some kids really
getting hurt on the fence,

1222
00:55:16,514 --> 00:55:18,082
climbing over the fence,

1223
00:55:19,016 --> 00:55:22,587
and I felt

1224
00:55:22,587 --> 00:55:24,288
that if we kept these fences up

1225
00:55:24,288 --> 00:55:28,759
and tens of thousands of
people were starting to arrive,

1226
00:55:29,927 --> 00:55:33,130
that it would be
really dangerous,

1227
00:55:33,130 --> 00:55:36,434
and it would cause
the kind of bad vibes,

1228
00:55:36,434 --> 00:55:38,636
a really bad scene,

1229
00:55:38,636 --> 00:55:40,204
and I started,

1230
00:55:40,204 --> 00:55:43,173
I told my guys to start
taking down the fence.

1231
00:55:44,909 --> 00:55:46,176
- He had all these great plans.

1232
00:55:46,176 --> 00:55:47,512
Everything was gonna
work like clockwork,

1233
00:55:47,512 --> 00:55:49,614
and then everything's
gonna be fine,

1234
00:55:49,614 --> 00:55:51,749
but there were all these people,

1235
00:55:51,749 --> 00:55:54,585
and I mean, did anybody
collect their tickets?

1236
00:55:55,720 --> 00:55:57,822
- And there were discussions

1237
00:55:57,822 --> 00:55:59,724
about how we were gonna
get these people out,

1238
00:55:59,724 --> 00:56:02,960
and it was simple: We were
just gonna go in there

1239
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:07,965
and tell them to go outside
so we can take their tickets.

1240
00:56:08,833 --> 00:56:10,468
I really think at that time

1241
00:56:10,468 --> 00:56:11,902
we thought we could just

1242
00:56:14,338 --> 00:56:17,475
get them to leave and be
able to take their tickets,

1243
00:56:17,475 --> 00:56:19,510
or another thing
that was discussed

1244
00:56:19,510 --> 00:56:21,546
was to take their
tickets right in there,

1245
00:56:23,013 --> 00:56:24,882
but in any event, we were
going to take the ticket,

1246
00:56:24,882 --> 00:56:26,484
and those who didn't
have the ticket

1247
00:56:26,484 --> 00:56:29,219
were gonna have to
go out and get one.

1248
00:56:29,219 --> 00:56:32,557
- The question was, do
we call it a free show?

1249
00:56:32,557 --> 00:56:34,592
Do we cancel the show?

1250
00:56:34,592 --> 00:56:37,462
Or do we throw everybody
out and collect the tickets?

1251
00:56:38,529 --> 00:56:39,930
- There was this conference

1252
00:56:39,930 --> 00:56:43,367
immediately in the
morning on the early day,

1253
00:56:43,367 --> 00:56:45,202
and it was like,
"What do we do?"

1254
00:56:45,202 --> 00:56:48,072
And Artie made the suggestion,

1255
00:56:48,072 --> 00:56:50,207
which I have never figured out,

1256
00:56:51,676 --> 00:56:53,377
"Why don't we do like they
do in the Catholic Church,

1257
00:56:53,377 --> 00:56:55,379
"and get girls in
diaphanous gowns

1258
00:56:55,379 --> 00:56:57,114
"and give them
collection baskets,

1259
00:56:57,114 --> 00:56:58,683
"and we'll send them
out in the audience,

1260
00:56:58,683 --> 00:57:00,184
"and they can get the money,

1261
00:57:00,184 --> 00:57:02,019
"'cause otherwise we're
not gonna get any money."

1262
00:57:02,019 --> 00:57:04,088
- I thought it was a good idea.

1263
00:57:04,088 --> 00:57:05,590
I was a little
spaced at the time.

1264
00:57:05,590 --> 00:57:08,292
I was hanging with Garcia and
Hart for about seven hours,

1265
00:57:08,292 --> 00:57:12,362
and I wasn't quite
my normal self.

1266
00:57:12,362 --> 00:57:14,765
I said, "Eh, let's pass a hat."

1267
00:57:14,765 --> 00:57:17,768
- And actually, the hat got
passed a couple of times.

1268
00:57:17,768 --> 00:57:19,436
The bucket got passed,

1269
00:57:19,436 --> 00:57:22,139
and people actually
threw money in it.

1270
00:57:22,139 --> 00:57:23,608
I don't remember
how, I used to know.

1271
00:57:23,608 --> 00:57:25,442
I used to remember how
much money got collected,

1272
00:57:25,442 --> 00:57:28,045
but I don't remember, but
money did get collected.

1273
00:57:28,045 --> 00:57:30,247
- I can tell you made
it a free festival.

1274
00:57:30,247 --> 00:57:32,583
The audience made it a free
festival by being there.

1275
00:57:32,583 --> 00:57:34,485
I mean, there was no way
we were getting that crowd

1276
00:57:34,485 --> 00:57:35,886
out of that field and
bring them back in

1277
00:57:35,886 --> 00:57:37,354
through gates that didn't exist.

1278
00:57:37,354 --> 00:57:39,023
It just was.

1279
00:57:39,023 --> 00:57:40,290
They came early.

1280
00:57:40,290 --> 00:57:41,358
They came before we had a chance

1281
00:57:41,358 --> 00:57:42,827
to get the ticket booths up.

1282
00:57:42,827 --> 00:57:45,029
They came looking for
places to buy tickets,

1283
00:57:46,564 --> 00:57:48,999
and they just weren't
there when they arrived,

1284
00:57:48,999 --> 00:57:50,334
and so the crowd came in,

1285
00:57:50,334 --> 00:57:52,169
and there was no feasible way

1286
00:57:52,169 --> 00:57:55,405
to collect money for tickets,

1287
00:57:56,607 --> 00:57:58,976
and so it was really
stating the obvious.

1288
00:57:58,976 --> 00:58:01,311
- So, we knew going in

1289
00:58:01,311 --> 00:58:04,148
that if people came
without tickets

1290
00:58:04,148 --> 00:58:05,916
we weren't gonna be
able to stop them,

1291
00:58:05,916 --> 00:58:10,320
and it was part of the
philosophy of the festival.

1292
00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:12,289
There wouldn't be armed
people there saying,

1293
00:58:12,289 --> 00:58:14,158
"You can't come in,"

1294
00:58:14,158 --> 00:58:17,227
and so Friday morning
when we woke up

1295
00:58:17,227 --> 00:58:20,565
there were 50,000 people
sitting in the performance area,

1296
00:58:20,565 --> 00:58:23,267
and it was a fact of life

1297
00:58:23,267 --> 00:58:25,836
that we weren't gonna be
able to collect tickets.

1298
00:58:25,836 --> 00:58:28,105
- What then happened was
I went to the office,

1299
00:58:28,105 --> 00:58:30,340
sat down, picked up the phone,

1300
00:58:30,340 --> 00:58:32,176
called John and Joel in
the White Lake office,

1301
00:58:32,176 --> 00:58:35,546
and said, "Look, I mean,

1302
00:58:35,546 --> 00:58:36,947
"the obvious is the obvious.

1303
00:58:36,947 --> 00:58:40,384
"There are vast numbers
of people in that field.

1304
00:58:40,384 --> 00:58:41,619
"There is no way

1305
00:58:41,619 --> 00:58:44,288
"we are going to move
them out of that field.

1306
00:58:44,288 --> 00:58:45,522
"It's a free concert,

1307
00:58:45,522 --> 00:58:47,658
"and I think that
we would set a tone

1308
00:58:47,658 --> 00:58:51,528
"by going up on stage and
announcing the obvious."

1309
00:58:51,528 --> 00:58:55,532
John and Joel said, "Go for
it," so I walked on stage

1310
00:58:55,532 --> 00:58:58,268
and told everybody
what they already knew.

1311
00:58:58,268 --> 00:59:00,871
This is one thing that
I was gonna wait a while

1312
00:59:00,871 --> 00:59:02,406
before we talked about,

1313
00:59:02,406 --> 00:59:05,810
but maybe we'll talk about it
now so you can think about it.

1314
00:59:05,810 --> 00:59:08,045
It's a free concert from now on.

1315
00:59:08,045 --> 00:59:11,215
(audience applauding)

1316
00:59:14,351 --> 00:59:16,887
That doesn't mean
that anything goes.

1317
00:59:16,887 --> 00:59:18,322
What that means is

1318
00:59:18,322 --> 00:59:21,692
we're gonna put the
music up here for free.

1319
00:59:21,692 --> 00:59:22,526
What it means is that the people
who are backing this thing,

1320
00:59:24,028 --> 00:59:25,495
who put up the money for it,

1321
00:59:25,495 --> 00:59:29,133
are gonna take a bit
of a bath, a big bath.

1322
00:59:29,133 --> 00:59:30,635
That's no hype, that's true.

1323
00:59:30,635 --> 00:59:32,536
They're gonna get hurt,

1324
00:59:32,536 --> 00:59:36,040
but what it means is that these
people have in their heads

1325
00:59:37,441 --> 00:59:40,510
that your welfare is a hell
of a lot more important,

1326
00:59:40,510 --> 00:59:43,013
and the music is, than a dollar.

1327
00:59:43,013 --> 00:59:45,683
Now, let's face the situation.

1328
00:59:45,683 --> 00:59:49,219
We've had thousands
and thousands of
people come here today.

1329
00:59:49,219 --> 00:59:50,688
Many, many more than we knew

1330
00:59:50,688 --> 00:59:53,423
or even dreamt or thought
would be possible.

1331
00:59:53,423 --> 00:59:54,659
We're gonna need each other

1332
00:59:54,659 --> 00:59:56,126
to help each other
to work this out

1333
00:59:56,126 --> 00:59:59,029
because we're taxing the
systems that we have set up.

1334
01:00:00,097 --> 01:00:02,066
We're gonna be
bringing the food in,

1335
01:00:02,066 --> 01:00:04,201
but the one major thing you
have to remember tonight

1336
01:00:04,201 --> 01:00:06,671
when you go back up into
the woods to go to sleep,

1337
01:00:06,671 --> 01:00:08,005
or if you stay here,

1338
01:00:09,506 --> 01:00:12,476
is that the man next
to you is your brother,

1339
01:00:12,476 --> 01:00:14,378
and you damn well better
treat each other that way

1340
01:00:14,378 --> 01:00:16,714
because if they don't then
we blow the whole thing,

1341
01:00:16,714 --> 01:00:18,115
but we've got it right there.

1342
01:00:18,115 --> 01:00:20,751
(audience cheering)

1343
01:00:20,751 --> 01:00:23,187
- There was no sense that
this was a free festival.

1344
01:00:23,187 --> 01:00:25,589
We were sparing no
expense, really, to make it

1345
01:00:27,457 --> 01:00:31,796
to make it perfect, to make
it just as we had advertised,

1346
01:00:31,796 --> 01:00:34,832
so it's kind of amusing to hear
that it was a free festival

1347
01:00:34,832 --> 01:00:36,433
any more than it would be free

1348
01:00:36,433 --> 01:00:39,369
if I gave your camera
to somebody, (laughs)

1349
01:00:39,369 --> 01:00:41,772
or your TV camera.

1350
01:00:41,772 --> 01:00:44,241
It's free to them, but it
sure wasn't free to you.

1351
01:00:45,442 --> 01:00:48,679
(energetic rock music)

1352
01:00:52,116 --> 01:00:53,083
- Free stage?

1353
01:00:53,083 --> 01:00:54,351
There was only one stage.

1354
01:00:54,351 --> 01:00:55,953
It was like, "No,
there was two."

1355
01:00:57,154 --> 01:00:59,623
We were just tucked
over to the side.

1356
01:00:59,623 --> 01:01:01,792
We were hired on to
play for the overflow,

1357
01:01:02,659 --> 01:01:03,828
and who'd have thought

1358
01:01:03,828 --> 01:01:05,863
the overflow was
gonna be like 100,000,

1359
01:01:07,297 --> 01:01:11,335
and so we did our thing day
and night, day and night.

1360
01:01:11,335 --> 01:01:13,003
- We knew that some people were
gonna come without tickets.

1361
01:01:13,003 --> 01:01:16,206
I mean, '69, because it was
sort of part of the culture,

1362
01:01:18,408 --> 01:01:19,576
and we prepared
for those people.

1363
01:01:19,576 --> 01:01:20,745
We prepared free kitchens,

1364
01:01:20,745 --> 01:01:22,612
and free campgrounds,
and free stages,

1365
01:01:22,612 --> 01:01:25,682
and put a sound system
from the main stage

1366
01:01:25,682 --> 01:01:26,984
in the free campground.

1367
01:01:26,984 --> 01:01:29,887
- They decided to
set up the free stage

1368
01:01:29,887 --> 01:01:31,922
at the bottom of
that little hill

1369
01:01:31,922 --> 01:01:33,523
and make it better

1370
01:01:33,523 --> 01:01:36,026
with a little wooden
stage and everything,

1371
01:01:37,194 --> 01:01:40,530
and until the festival

1372
01:01:40,530 --> 01:01:41,899
really started cooking

1373
01:01:41,899 --> 01:01:45,535
with all the big-name
attractions arriving,

1374
01:01:45,535 --> 01:01:47,237
we were basically it.

1375
01:01:48,739 --> 01:01:52,743
There was one particular
afternoon, early afternoon,

1376
01:01:52,743 --> 01:01:55,780
our wonderful friend, Joan Baez,

1377
01:01:55,780 --> 01:01:57,982
showed up at the
free stage area,

1378
01:01:57,982 --> 01:02:02,519
and she wanted to take part
in the entertainment there,

1379
01:02:02,519 --> 01:02:04,021
and she sat there,

1380
01:02:04,021 --> 01:02:07,691
I would think for at least
a couple hours, maybe more.

1381
01:02:08,859 --> 01:02:10,828
- We didn't have any idea

1382
01:02:10,828 --> 01:02:13,931
of the historical event that
it was gonna turn out to be,

1383
01:02:13,931 --> 01:02:16,500
and so now, 43 years later,

1384
01:02:18,068 --> 01:02:20,570
I'm saying, "Jeez, I was
glad to be part of it."

1385
01:02:20,570 --> 01:02:24,374
Every time I'd catch a glimpse
of the "Woodstock" movie

1386
01:02:24,374 --> 01:02:25,542
I just feel good.

1387
01:02:31,315 --> 01:02:34,584
- There's a really
funny story that

1388
01:02:38,155 --> 01:02:40,124
that not many people know about.

1389
01:02:41,425 --> 01:02:42,927
I forget the name of the guy,

1390
01:02:42,927 --> 01:02:45,362
but there was a gentleman

1391
01:02:45,362 --> 01:02:47,331
from the New York
State Health Department

1392
01:02:47,331 --> 01:02:50,234
who was supposed to come

1393
01:02:50,234 --> 01:02:53,871
and inspect the health
facilities on Friday,

1394
01:02:53,871 --> 01:02:56,673
and this guy came
directly to my office,

1395
01:02:56,673 --> 01:03:00,710
and I was to send one of the
people that worked for me

1396
01:03:00,710 --> 01:03:04,982
around with him to
show him the johns,

1397
01:03:04,982 --> 01:03:08,418
the hospital setup,
the water treatment,

1398
01:03:08,418 --> 01:03:10,087
all the kinds of things that,

1399
01:03:10,087 --> 01:03:12,823
all the things that they
were concerned about.

1400
01:03:12,823 --> 01:03:17,828
He came with his daughter,
who was about 15 years old,

1401
01:03:18,929 --> 01:03:22,132
and while we were
talking in the trailer,

1402
01:03:22,132 --> 01:03:24,268
my office,

1403
01:03:24,268 --> 01:03:27,171
his daughter went
outside and disappeared.

1404
01:03:28,305 --> 01:03:30,207
Why, I'll never know,

1405
01:03:30,207 --> 01:03:33,010
but that guy spent
the next three days

1406
01:03:33,010 --> 01:03:34,378
looking for his daughter.

1407
01:03:35,946 --> 01:03:38,916
He never inspected
the health facilities,

1408
01:03:38,916 --> 01:03:41,418
which he could
have shut us down,

1409
01:03:41,418 --> 01:03:44,554
and I don't know what
happened to the daughter,

1410
01:03:44,554 --> 01:03:48,558
but she may have saved the
whole festival. (laughs)

1411
01:03:51,028 --> 01:03:52,362
- The first words, in fact,

1412
01:03:52,362 --> 01:03:57,034
said at Woodstock
publicly over the PA

1413
01:03:57,034 --> 01:03:58,668
were, "holy shit."

1414
01:03:58,668 --> 01:04:01,238
Chris Langhart and
I were standing on
stage with Bill Hanley

1415
01:04:01,238 --> 01:04:03,740
praying that the sound
system was gonna be finished.

1416
01:04:03,740 --> 01:04:06,610
I turned around and the sun
was starting to come up,

1417
01:04:06,610 --> 01:04:07,811
and I looked out,

1418
01:04:07,811 --> 01:04:09,980
and the whole damn field
was full of people,

1419
01:04:09,980 --> 01:04:11,415
and without thinking

1420
01:04:11,415 --> 01:04:12,983
I broke the vow I'd
always made to my mother,

1421
01:04:12,983 --> 01:04:14,118
never swear on stage.

1422
01:04:14,118 --> 01:04:16,586
I just said, "Holy shit."

1423
01:04:16,586 --> 01:04:17,821
- [Announcer] Wheat Germ,

1424
01:04:17,821 --> 01:04:19,689
Holly has your bag
with your medicine.

1425
01:04:19,689 --> 01:04:21,225
Please meet at the
information booth

1426
01:04:21,225 --> 01:04:23,027
as soon as you can, please.

1427
01:04:23,027 --> 01:04:25,029
Helen Savage, please
call your father

1428
01:04:25,029 --> 01:04:27,965
at the Motel Glory in Woodridge.

1429
01:04:27,965 --> 01:04:30,434
Helen Savage, please
call your father--

1430
01:04:30,434 --> 01:04:31,801
- Early on,

1431
01:04:31,801 --> 01:04:35,505
it became evident to me

1432
01:04:35,505 --> 01:04:39,843
that we could not provide the PA

1433
01:04:40,877 --> 01:04:43,113
to give all these messages.

1434
01:04:43,113 --> 01:04:44,848
At first we tried,

1435
01:04:44,848 --> 01:04:46,650
but then there were
just too many of them,

1436
01:04:46,650 --> 01:04:49,419
so we set up a message board,

1437
01:04:49,419 --> 01:04:53,290
and that was between people
who were at the festival.

1438
01:04:53,290 --> 01:04:54,791
- The warning that
I've received,

1439
01:04:54,791 --> 01:04:58,028
you may take it with however
many grains of salt you wish,

1440
01:04:58,028 --> 01:05:01,231
that the brown acid that
is circulating around us

1441
01:05:01,231 --> 01:05:03,633
is not specifically too good.

1442
01:05:03,633 --> 01:05:06,770
- I thought those announcements
were fairly important

1443
01:05:06,770 --> 01:05:10,107
for the individuals who made
them or who asked for them.

1444
01:05:10,107 --> 01:05:11,708
- [Announcer] Please be advised
that there is a warning--

1445
01:05:11,708 --> 01:05:13,910
- And it also gave us
something to fill with.

1446
01:05:13,910 --> 01:05:17,247
It was a far more
personal attribute

1447
01:05:17,247 --> 01:05:19,716
than it was to just play music.

1448
01:05:21,118 --> 01:05:23,553
"Joel and Jody, would you
please meet each other

1449
01:05:23,553 --> 01:05:27,791
"at tower number four because
she has your insulin."

1450
01:05:27,791 --> 01:05:30,460
Right, he wants to get
high, Jody's got the dope,

1451
01:05:30,460 --> 01:05:32,929
and frickin' you know
what they're doing,

1452
01:05:32,929 --> 01:05:35,899
but it's just, right,
what do you say?

1453
01:05:36,900 --> 01:05:38,502
It just has to be read,

1454
01:05:38,502 --> 01:05:42,106
so they became stars
in their own right.

1455
01:05:42,106 --> 01:05:45,609
("Raga Puriya-Dhanashri/Gat
in Sawarital")

1456
01:05:45,609 --> 01:05:47,077
- At some time,

1457
01:05:47,077 --> 01:05:49,079
maybe it was around one in
the morning on Friday morning,

1458
01:05:51,215 --> 01:05:52,549
Joel and I decided
to take a ride

1459
01:05:52,549 --> 01:05:54,818
to visit the parking areas,

1460
01:05:54,818 --> 01:05:58,088
which had been fairly muddy
that day from the rains,

1461
01:05:58,088 --> 01:06:00,824
but at some point
we crested a hill,

1462
01:06:00,824 --> 01:06:04,028
must have been a mile from the
actual site of the festival,

1463
01:06:05,062 --> 01:06:06,563
and we stopped our bikes,

1464
01:06:06,563 --> 01:06:08,865
and I can remember just
looking out over the hills

1465
01:06:08,865 --> 01:06:10,367
towards where the
festival site was,

1466
01:06:10,367 --> 01:06:13,703
and all you could see were
campfires at that hour,

1467
01:06:13,703 --> 01:06:15,705
and I had the sense

1468
01:06:15,705 --> 01:06:20,644
of this sort of massive
army before the battle,

1469
01:06:21,845 --> 01:06:26,616
waiting there, and I
don't know, it just

1470
01:06:27,751 --> 01:06:30,554
it reminded me of Henry
V, for some reason,

1471
01:06:31,455 --> 01:06:33,390
before Agincourt,

1472
01:06:33,390 --> 01:06:35,259
and of an army

1473
01:06:37,027 --> 01:06:38,595
waiting to go into
battle the next morning,

1474
01:06:38,595 --> 01:06:43,333
and it was a very still,
almost misty evening,

1475
01:06:45,335 --> 01:06:48,772
and Joel and I just sort of
looked at each other with this,

1476
01:06:48,772 --> 01:06:49,939
there's this look,

1477
01:06:49,939 --> 01:06:52,542
that great expression
that Keats has:

1478
01:06:52,542 --> 01:06:55,979
"With a look of wild
surmise." (chuckles)

1479
01:06:55,979 --> 01:06:57,381
What does all this mean for us,

1480
01:06:57,381 --> 01:06:59,583
and what will the morrow bring?

1481
01:06:59,583 --> 01:07:03,553
And then we went back to
the rest of our lives,

1482
01:07:03,553 --> 01:07:06,423
but it was really a
wonderful, still moment there,

1483
01:07:06,423 --> 01:07:07,757
which I'll always remember.

1484
01:07:11,128 --> 01:07:12,396
- When dawn hit,

1485
01:07:13,563 --> 01:07:16,366
I, after catching a
couple hours of sleep

1486
01:07:16,366 --> 01:07:18,802
in my office on the floor,

1487
01:07:18,802 --> 01:07:20,404
I went for another walk,

1488
01:07:20,404 --> 01:07:21,638
and I walked around,

1489
01:07:21,638 --> 01:07:23,473
and everybody was
sleeping, everybody:

1490
01:07:23,473 --> 01:07:26,976
the crew, the security,
the hospital people,

1491
01:07:26,976 --> 01:07:30,447
all the people who
had come to the show,

1492
01:07:30,447 --> 01:07:31,715
everybody was sleeping.

1493
01:07:31,715 --> 01:07:34,384
It seemed like I was
the only one awake.

1494
01:07:34,384 --> 01:07:35,885
I also knew

1495
01:07:35,885 --> 01:07:39,289
that elsewhere in the United
States and New York State,

1496
01:07:39,289 --> 01:07:42,292
they thought that we were in

1497
01:07:42,292 --> 01:07:45,529
this area of devastation,

1498
01:07:45,529 --> 01:07:48,165
and when the sun started baking,

1499
01:07:49,299 --> 01:07:50,700
and I forget what time it was.

1500
01:07:50,700 --> 01:07:53,603
It could have been
8:30, nine o'clock,

1501
01:07:53,603 --> 01:07:57,541
I found one of the
people from Hanley Sound.

1502
01:07:59,143 --> 01:08:03,147
I forget who it was, but I
said, "Could you turn on the PA,

1503
01:08:03,147 --> 01:08:05,215
"'cause I wanna talk
to these people."

1504
01:08:05,215 --> 01:08:08,218
I said, "I do wanna
say good morning to you

1505
01:08:08,218 --> 01:08:10,887
"and say wasn't that an
incredible night last night,

1506
01:08:10,887 --> 01:08:12,889
"and everybody, 'yeah!'

1507
01:08:12,889 --> 01:08:14,358
"and I just wanna tell you

1508
01:08:14,358 --> 01:08:17,060
"that today is gonna be
even more incredible,"

1509
01:08:17,060 --> 01:08:20,564
and I read off the list of
talent that there would be,

1510
01:08:20,564 --> 01:08:22,632
and then I said, "We
got a couple of hours

1511
01:08:22,632 --> 01:08:24,168
"before the show starts,"

1512
01:08:24,168 --> 01:08:25,702
and it was sort of this,

1513
01:08:25,702 --> 01:08:27,571
"Everything is okay.

1514
01:08:27,571 --> 01:08:29,038
"Don't worry about a thing.

1515
01:08:30,140 --> 01:08:31,541
"The show is gonna go on.

1516
01:08:31,541 --> 01:08:34,211
"We're not gonna
stop this thing,

1517
01:08:34,211 --> 01:08:35,912
"and everything's secure."

1518
01:08:37,314 --> 01:08:41,651
- What we have in mind is
breakfast in bed for 400,000.

1519
01:08:41,651 --> 01:08:45,522
(audience applauding)

1520
01:08:45,522 --> 01:08:48,958
Now, it's not gonna be
steak and eggs or anything,

1521
01:08:49,993 --> 01:08:51,495
but it's gonna be good food,

1522
01:08:51,495 --> 01:08:53,797
and we're gonna get it to you.

1523
01:08:53,797 --> 01:08:58,735
- I asked for $3,000 from
the festival to buy the food,

1524
01:08:58,735 --> 01:08:59,936
and when I went to town,

1525
01:08:59,936 --> 01:09:02,939
within a day and a
half I'd spent 3,000.

1526
01:09:02,939 --> 01:09:05,975
I went into the
office in New York

1527
01:09:05,975 --> 01:09:09,112
and got another
3,000 just like that,

1528
01:09:09,112 --> 01:09:11,715
and we bought all these giant
cleavers from Chinatown,

1529
01:09:11,715 --> 01:09:12,682
these big cutters,

1530
01:09:12,682 --> 01:09:16,853
and we bought 35 garbage pails

1531
01:09:16,853 --> 01:09:18,388
to put all the food in

1532
01:09:18,388 --> 01:09:19,789
so we could serve it,

1533
01:09:19,789 --> 01:09:22,659
and we had giant
stainless steel pots,

1534
01:09:22,659 --> 01:09:27,096
and five different stoves
were cooking at once,

1535
01:09:27,096 --> 01:09:29,065
and the booths were five booths

1536
01:09:29,065 --> 01:09:31,835
with 10 serving sides to them,

1537
01:09:31,835 --> 01:09:36,706
and they were always had
lines, real long lines to them.

1538
01:09:36,706 --> 01:09:39,409
I ended up buying
160,000 paper plates,

1539
01:09:39,409 --> 01:09:44,414
forks, knives, and spoons,
and about 30,000 paper cups,

1540
01:09:45,282 --> 01:09:46,816
and it's a good thing I did

1541
01:09:46,816 --> 01:09:49,453
because they all
went, everything went,

1542
01:09:49,453 --> 01:09:50,887
so that's how I figured

1543
01:09:50,887 --> 01:09:55,225
that we fed between
160,000 to 190,000 people

1544
01:09:55,225 --> 01:09:57,261
at the Hog Farm free kitchen.

1545
01:09:57,261 --> 01:09:59,496
- There were bagels backstage,

1546
01:09:59,496 --> 01:10:00,730
and by the time I heard

1547
01:10:00,730 --> 01:10:01,765
that there were some
bagels backstage,

1548
01:10:01,765 --> 01:10:02,699
they were all gone,

1549
01:10:03,567 --> 01:10:04,834
but my manager,

1550
01:10:04,834 --> 01:10:06,703
this guy they asked
for too much money,

1551
01:10:06,703 --> 01:10:11,308
somehow his wife put half
a dozen fried chickens

1552
01:10:11,308 --> 01:10:12,642
in the helicopter,

1553
01:10:12,642 --> 01:10:14,411
and at midnight he
whipped them out.

1554
01:10:14,411 --> 01:10:15,645
Nobody had any food there.

1555
01:10:15,645 --> 01:10:17,714
There was nothing
left backstage,

1556
01:10:17,714 --> 01:10:19,215
and all of a sudden
I turn around

1557
01:10:19,215 --> 01:10:20,884
and I see all the guys in
my group eating chicken.

1558
01:10:21,751 --> 01:10:23,152
I said, "Will you look at this,"

1559
01:10:23,152 --> 01:10:26,723
and there people like
drooling over these chickens,

1560
01:10:26,723 --> 01:10:28,191
and it wasn't too appetizing,

1561
01:10:28,191 --> 01:10:29,526
I was too nervous to eat,

1562
01:10:29,526 --> 01:10:33,162
but I couldn't believe
that all of a sudden

1563
01:10:33,162 --> 01:10:34,631
there was a barbecue back there

1564
01:10:34,631 --> 01:10:36,666
that we brought from the city,

1565
01:10:36,666 --> 01:10:37,901
and there were people,

1566
01:10:37,901 --> 01:10:40,537
it looked like people
starving up there.

1567
01:10:40,537 --> 01:10:43,807
- The clear recollection
of the difference

1568
01:10:43,807 --> 01:10:46,142
between how the performers
were being treated

1569
01:10:46,142 --> 01:10:49,178
versus what we were
hearing, or I was hearing

1570
01:10:49,178 --> 01:10:52,482
about what was going
on in the audience was,

1571
01:10:52,482 --> 01:10:57,454
it was a very lavish performers
tent if I seem to recall.

1572
01:10:58,622 --> 01:11:00,290
It was a big open
area made out of poles

1573
01:11:00,290 --> 01:11:01,791
with a big tenting over it,

1574
01:11:01,791 --> 01:11:05,662
and it was a large, a large
area with rows of tables,

1575
01:11:05,662 --> 01:11:07,297
and seated at this one table

1576
01:11:07,297 --> 01:11:10,367
was Grace Slick
and Janis Joplin,

1577
01:11:10,367 --> 01:11:12,068
both kind of like turning
around to each other

1578
01:11:12,068 --> 01:11:13,503
and picking at this food,

1579
01:11:13,503 --> 01:11:16,039
saying that the strawberries
were already melting,

1580
01:11:16,039 --> 01:11:17,741
and somebody should
take the helicopter

1581
01:11:17,741 --> 01:11:19,843
and go get more
frozen strawberries,

1582
01:11:21,044 --> 01:11:24,448
and I just thought that
was just a bit bizarre.

1583
01:11:24,448 --> 01:11:26,750
- I mean, people have always
wondered what Bill Graham

1584
01:11:26,750 --> 01:11:29,419
what Bill Graham had
to do with any of this.

1585
01:11:29,419 --> 01:11:31,455
Well, Bill didn't have
anything to do with it, really,

1586
01:11:31,455 --> 01:11:34,090
but he kept his finger in,

1587
01:11:34,090 --> 01:11:37,093
just as a presence.

1588
01:11:37,093 --> 01:11:40,263
He happened to be at
Grossinger's that weekend.

1589
01:11:41,331 --> 01:11:43,333
He happened to be there,

1590
01:11:43,333 --> 01:11:47,070
and he had convinced his
sister, who was from New York,

1591
01:11:47,070 --> 01:11:52,041
to bring this freezer
full of steaks

1592
01:11:52,942 --> 01:11:54,644
so that he could have a barbecue

1593
01:11:54,644 --> 01:11:57,313
out there on the lawn,

1594
01:11:58,615 --> 01:12:00,584
and he created this
enormous barbecue,

1595
01:12:00,584 --> 01:12:04,988
and I remember some
guys in the Band

1596
01:12:04,988 --> 01:12:08,658
and the guys in Creedence
at this barbecue,

1597
01:12:09,826 --> 01:12:12,496
and on one hand you've
got thousands of people,

1598
01:12:13,897 --> 01:12:16,833
and on the other hand you've
got this guy barbecuing.

1599
01:12:16,833 --> 01:12:20,336
It was very, very,
very portentous

1600
01:12:20,336 --> 01:12:21,905
of things to come in the future,

1601
01:12:21,905 --> 01:12:26,510
the division between the
bands and the audience.

1602
01:12:26,510 --> 01:12:29,012
("Evil Ways")

1603
01:12:30,447 --> 01:12:33,216
- We knew we had to go
with some new talent.

1604
01:12:33,216 --> 01:12:34,751
Santana was there

1605
01:12:34,751 --> 01:12:38,822
because I had seen them in
San Francisco with Graham,

1606
01:12:38,822 --> 01:12:41,257
and I just was staggered.

1607
01:12:41,257 --> 01:12:42,726
They were fabulous.

1608
01:12:42,726 --> 01:12:45,361
I mean, they didn't have a
record contract at that point,

1609
01:12:45,361 --> 01:12:47,931
but Graham was the power,

1610
01:12:47,931 --> 01:12:49,232
one of the major
powers, certainly,

1611
01:12:49,232 --> 01:12:50,934
as a promoter in the country.

1612
01:12:50,934 --> 01:12:53,069
He was very against festivals.

1613
01:12:54,471 --> 01:12:56,239
Graham obviously
wanted them there.

1614
01:12:56,239 --> 01:12:57,907
We wanted Graham's friendship,

1615
01:12:57,907 --> 01:13:00,544
and booking Santana, who
he was very close to,

1616
01:13:00,544 --> 01:13:03,780
was a way of quieting him down,

1617
01:13:03,780 --> 01:13:06,716
so they were booked because
they were a great band.

1618
01:13:06,716 --> 01:13:09,352
They were booked 'cause there
was political advantage.

1619
01:13:09,352 --> 01:13:13,890
("Dreams of Milk and Honey")

1620
01:13:13,890 --> 01:13:16,159
- For nobody knowing
who in the hell we were

1621
01:13:16,159 --> 01:13:17,393
we really got a good spot.

1622
01:13:17,393 --> 01:13:19,328
I think we went
on Saturday night

1623
01:13:19,328 --> 01:13:21,998
just before the
lights took effect.

1624
01:13:25,502 --> 01:13:27,737
And we used Sun amplifiers,

1625
01:13:29,138 --> 01:13:33,643
and Felix used four stacks
with four 12s in each,

1626
01:13:33,643 --> 01:13:35,912
and I used four stacks,

1627
01:13:35,912 --> 01:13:38,214
but when I did my solo,

1628
01:13:38,214 --> 01:13:42,018
all of a sudden I heard
the whole stage turn on.

1629
01:13:42,018 --> 01:13:45,489
My road manager hooked
me into his stacks,

1630
01:13:45,489 --> 01:13:50,093
and all of a sudden I had
eight stacks of these Suns,

1631
01:13:50,093 --> 01:13:51,327
and it scared me.

1632
01:13:54,430 --> 01:13:57,934
The sound is just
the movement of air,

1633
01:13:57,934 --> 01:13:59,368
and these speakers were pumping,

1634
01:13:59,368 --> 01:14:02,506
and I felt a gust
of wind push me.

1635
01:14:02,506 --> 01:14:05,975
I turned around, I said,
"Wow, he turned them all on,"

1636
01:14:05,975 --> 01:14:07,844
and then I was off then.

1637
01:14:09,212 --> 01:14:10,714
You could hear me.

1638
01:14:37,741 --> 01:14:39,075
I thought we could
have been much bigger

1639
01:14:39,075 --> 01:14:42,145
if we were in that movie.

1640
01:14:42,145 --> 01:14:44,147
I still haven't
gotten over that.

1641
01:14:44,147 --> 01:14:45,181
- [Interviewer] No,
and I don't know why

1642
01:14:45,181 --> 01:14:46,816
Mountain wasn't contracted.

1643
01:14:46,816 --> 01:14:49,252
It was just that at this point

1644
01:14:49,252 --> 01:14:51,154
things were not very
well coordinated.

1645
01:14:51,154 --> 01:14:52,055
We were just rushing

1646
01:14:52,055 --> 01:14:53,222
to do what we could,

1647
01:14:53,222 --> 01:14:55,525
and I would imagine
that our focus

1648
01:14:55,525 --> 01:14:58,528
was on getting the biggest
names we could to release.

1649
01:14:58,528 --> 01:15:00,229
- [Man] We got down to the wire

1650
01:15:00,229 --> 01:15:02,165
with no camera
crews at Woodstock,

1651
01:15:02,165 --> 01:15:05,802
with the exception of the
crews that Michael hired.

1652
01:15:05,802 --> 01:15:07,537
- We had a call
Wadleigh was in town.

1653
01:15:07,537 --> 01:15:09,606
I had to get Wadleigh
to come in right away,

1654
01:15:09,606 --> 01:15:10,974
to have him come over to sign

1655
01:15:10,974 --> 01:15:13,442
that he was gonna
direct it, okay?

1656
01:15:13,442 --> 01:15:14,611
And I just said to them,

1657
01:15:14,611 --> 01:15:18,181
"Hey guys, we've
spent $2 1/2 million.

1658
01:15:19,382 --> 01:15:21,250
"Why don't you shoot
craps with 100 grand

1659
01:15:21,250 --> 01:15:22,518
"so we could buy film?"

1660
01:15:24,954 --> 01:15:26,222
So they said, "Okay."

1661
01:15:27,390 --> 01:15:30,894
- The reticence on the
part of some artists

1662
01:15:30,894 --> 01:15:33,096
was not even so
much about money.

1663
01:15:33,096 --> 01:15:34,330
It was about, "Well,

1664
01:15:34,330 --> 01:15:36,265
"I wanna see what my
performance looks like

1665
01:15:36,265 --> 01:15:39,302
"and what it sounds like
before I release it,"

1666
01:15:39,302 --> 01:15:41,270
and that I could understand,

1667
01:15:41,270 --> 01:15:43,940
so I felt some of them would
like to be in the film,

1668
01:15:43,940 --> 01:15:45,575
but they wouldn't be in it

1669
01:15:45,575 --> 01:15:48,812
until they'd seen
their performance and
how it was recorded,

1670
01:15:49,946 --> 01:15:51,948
and then some of them
it was just money.

1671
01:15:53,149 --> 01:15:54,651
- Michael said, "Artie,

1672
01:15:54,651 --> 01:15:56,786
"you're the only one that
could convince these people

1673
01:15:56,786 --> 01:15:58,622
"'cause of your name
in the business.

1674
01:15:58,622 --> 01:16:00,123
"You gotta meet them
at the helicopter

1675
01:16:00,123 --> 01:16:02,959
"and get them to sign
that consent to be shot

1676
01:16:02,959 --> 01:16:04,594
"without us giving
them the money,

1677
01:16:04,594 --> 01:16:07,130
"'cause we don't even have
the money to pay for the show.

1678
01:16:07,130 --> 01:16:08,397
"You're gonna have
to convince them

1679
01:16:08,397 --> 01:16:09,933
"that they're not
gonna get 50% more

1680
01:16:09,933 --> 01:16:11,500
"to be shot for a movie."

1681
01:16:12,702 --> 01:16:14,570
Do you think it was easy
convincing these groups,

1682
01:16:14,570 --> 01:16:18,141
to convince Janis Joplin to
sign a paper to do a movie

1683
01:16:18,141 --> 01:16:19,375
when she was drunk?

1684
01:16:19,375 --> 01:16:20,910
To go to the Who

1685
01:16:20,910 --> 01:16:24,080
and convince them to sign a
paper without getting paid?

1686
01:16:24,080 --> 01:16:26,582
- Having the movie was
of great value to us,

1687
01:16:26,582 --> 01:16:30,519
even though John and I had
a small piece of that movie,

1688
01:16:32,989 --> 01:16:36,192
it brought us back to even
some time in 1980, I guess,

1689
01:16:37,593 --> 01:16:41,464
so it was lucky for us
that there was a film.

1690
01:16:43,099 --> 01:16:45,568
- The only two acts that
didn't play Woodstock

1691
01:16:46,736 --> 01:16:49,505
were Jeff Beck and
Iron Butterfly.

1692
01:16:49,505 --> 01:16:52,508
Beck canceled well
before the festival.

1693
01:16:52,508 --> 01:16:54,443
We knew he wasn't
coming, that was it,

1694
01:16:54,443 --> 01:16:55,979
but if you go down the list

1695
01:16:55,979 --> 01:16:59,348
those are the only two that
are listed that didn't play.

1696
01:16:59,348 --> 01:17:01,751
Iron Butterfly, whose
manager I think I forgot

1697
01:17:01,751 --> 01:17:04,287
the minute I ever talked to him,

1698
01:17:05,454 --> 01:17:06,956
sent me a telegram,

1699
01:17:06,956 --> 01:17:09,325
and then called and informed me

1700
01:17:09,325 --> 01:17:12,461
that their plane would arrive
in LaGuardia at X hour,

1701
01:17:13,830 --> 01:17:17,266
and that at that hour a
helicopter would meet the band

1702
01:17:17,266 --> 01:17:19,803
and would fly them
directly to the site,

1703
01:17:19,803 --> 01:17:22,105
whence they would go
straight to the stage,

1704
01:17:22,105 --> 01:17:23,873
they would perform their set,

1705
01:17:23,873 --> 01:17:26,743
and they would be then loaded
back into the helicopters,

1706
01:17:26,743 --> 01:17:28,912
and they would be
flown from the site

1707
01:17:28,912 --> 01:17:30,313
back to LaGuardia Airport

1708
01:17:30,313 --> 01:17:32,581
so that they could continue
on with their lives.

1709
01:17:35,184 --> 01:17:37,586
Yeah, sure. (laughs)

1710
01:17:37,586 --> 01:17:41,991
So, I called Western Union,

1711
01:17:41,991 --> 01:17:44,260
and I got this
operator on the phone,

1712
01:17:44,260 --> 01:17:49,265
and I said, "Look, I know
it is illegal in a telegram

1713
01:17:49,999 --> 01:17:52,001
"to say profanities,"

1714
01:17:52,001 --> 01:17:56,439
and this lady and I
developed a way to write

1715
01:17:56,439 --> 01:17:59,943
"For reasons, Unto,

1716
01:18:00,877 --> 01:18:04,613
"Clarification, Know,"

1717
01:18:04,613 --> 01:18:08,651
and we managed to send them
a telegram which basically,

1718
01:18:08,651 --> 01:18:12,655
as you read it and
it was printed, had
no swear words in it,

1719
01:18:12,655 --> 01:18:13,589
but going down

1720
01:18:13,589 --> 01:18:18,127
said "F-U-C-K, space, Y-O-U,"

1721
01:18:19,295 --> 01:18:22,398
and we devised it,
and we sent it,

1722
01:18:22,398 --> 01:18:26,202
and I have never, and it is,
what, 24, 25 years later,

1723
01:18:26,202 --> 01:18:28,872
heard another word
(laughs) from that band,

1724
01:18:28,872 --> 01:18:30,774
and it gave me the greatest
pleasure in the world.

1725
01:18:30,774 --> 01:18:34,844
* I want to take you higher

1726
01:18:34,844 --> 01:18:37,080
* Gonna take you higher

1727
01:18:37,080 --> 01:18:38,314
- Bill came to me and said,

1728
01:18:38,314 --> 01:18:39,883
"Sly's not ready
to go on yet, man.

1729
01:18:39,883 --> 01:18:41,550
"He doesn't feel the vibes."

1730
01:18:41,550 --> 01:18:44,921
Well, by this point I didn't
feel the vibes either,

1731
01:18:44,921 --> 01:18:49,358
and so I went to the trailer
and got by Sly's manager,

1732
01:18:49,358 --> 01:18:52,829
and asked Sly to come
down to his tour bus

1733
01:18:52,829 --> 01:18:54,397
down the steps to the tour bus,

1734
01:18:54,397 --> 01:18:55,664
and he came down
to this tour bus,

1735
01:18:55,664 --> 01:18:56,900
and I reached up,
and I grabbed him,

1736
01:18:56,900 --> 01:18:58,201
and I slammed him up
against the thing,

1737
01:18:58,201 --> 01:18:59,803
and I lifted him up in the air,

1738
01:18:59,803 --> 01:19:02,638
and I said, "You low-life
(grumbles gibberish).

1739
01:19:02,638 --> 01:19:04,240
"If you're not on the
stage in three minutes

1740
01:19:04,240 --> 01:19:06,009
"I'm gonna take your head
off your goddamn shoulders

1741
01:19:06,009 --> 01:19:08,211
"(grumbles gibberish),"
and dropped him,

1742
01:19:09,478 --> 01:19:10,713
and he just looked at me,

1743
01:19:11,881 --> 01:19:14,350
and his eyes were the
size of basketballs,

1744
01:19:14,350 --> 01:19:15,518
and he walked to the trailer,

1745
01:19:15,518 --> 01:19:17,553
and he said, "We're
on," (laughs)

1746
01:19:17,553 --> 01:19:19,889
and they went on, and
they did a fabulous show.

1747
01:19:19,889 --> 01:19:21,657
* Tried to raise me better

1748
01:19:21,657 --> 01:19:23,592
* But her pleading I denied

1749
01:19:23,592 --> 01:19:26,362
- [Narrator] But Sly wasn't
the only band causing trouble.

1750
01:19:26,362 --> 01:19:27,931
The Grateful Dead
wanted a do-over.

1751
01:19:27,931 --> 01:19:29,966
- For some reason I
remember them coming off

1752
01:19:29,966 --> 01:19:32,168
complaining about something,

1753
01:19:32,168 --> 01:19:35,204
and they wanted to go back on,

1754
01:19:35,204 --> 01:19:36,940
and this is all new to me.

1755
01:19:36,940 --> 01:19:38,507
I didn't know if you
were allowed to do that.

1756
01:19:38,507 --> 01:19:39,976
- [Narrator] And the
Who refused to play

1757
01:19:39,976 --> 01:19:41,911
until they got paid in cash.

1758
01:19:41,911 --> 01:19:45,014
("Summertime Blues")

1759
01:19:47,750 --> 01:19:49,085
- The artists all
wanted to be there.

1760
01:19:49,085 --> 01:19:52,221
I mean, no one left
and refused to perform.

1761
01:19:52,221 --> 01:19:54,090
Okay, the Who.

1762
01:19:54,090 --> 01:19:57,827
- If the Who don't get paid,
the Who aren't going on.

1763
01:19:57,827 --> 01:19:59,695
- The business side of it

1764
01:19:59,695 --> 01:20:02,165
was of great concern
to John and me.

1765
01:20:02,165 --> 01:20:03,466
Sometimes it preoccupied us

1766
01:20:03,466 --> 01:20:07,203
because it seemed like a
life-or-death situation

1767
01:20:07,203 --> 01:20:09,305
for the festival at that moment.

1768
01:20:09,305 --> 01:20:10,706
An example would be

1769
01:20:10,706 --> 01:20:14,110
that Saturday night incident
that you heard about

1770
01:20:16,079 --> 01:20:19,148
with a couple of bands
that refused to play

1771
01:20:19,148 --> 01:20:20,884
unless they were paid in cash,

1772
01:20:22,852 --> 01:20:25,021
and there we had a
wonderful relationship

1773
01:20:25,021 --> 01:20:27,223
with Charlie Prince
that came to the rescue.

1774
01:20:27,223 --> 01:20:30,226
Charlie Prince was our
banker in Sullivan County.

1775
01:20:30,226 --> 01:20:33,362
That night Charlie got into
a helicopter in his pajamas,

1776
01:20:33,362 --> 01:20:35,865
and was flown to his
bank at midnight,

1777
01:20:36,900 --> 01:20:38,134
and rummaged around,

1778
01:20:38,134 --> 01:20:39,835
and found me some
cashier's checks

1779
01:20:41,304 --> 01:20:43,973
that had by accident not been
locked up in the time vault

1780
01:20:43,973 --> 01:20:48,011
so that I could bike
to the festival site

1781
01:20:48,011 --> 01:20:50,279
from the command center

1782
01:20:50,279 --> 01:20:53,082
and pay business
managers or groups

1783
01:20:53,082 --> 01:20:54,817
who refused to let their

1784
01:20:56,252 --> 01:20:58,154
their musicians go on stage.

1785
01:20:58,154 --> 01:21:02,125
* There ain't no cure for
the summertime blues *

1786
01:21:02,125 --> 01:21:04,493
- Have this vision
of Pete Townshend

1787
01:21:04,493 --> 01:21:07,463
sitting on these
Who amplifier cases

1788
01:21:07,463 --> 01:21:09,865
swinging his legs back and
forth, holding his guitar,

1789
01:21:09,865 --> 01:21:14,203
waiting for Wolff to tell
him it was okay to play

1790
01:21:14,203 --> 01:21:16,105
'cause he'd gotten
all the money.

1791
01:21:16,105 --> 01:21:17,740
- That's why I do
not like the Who

1792
01:21:17,740 --> 01:21:19,442
because I was at that meeting.

1793
01:21:21,077 --> 01:21:23,512
How could you not wanna play?

1794
01:21:23,512 --> 01:21:26,882
How could you risk a riot
because you won't go on?

1795
01:21:28,617 --> 01:21:29,718
When these are the people

1796
01:21:29,718 --> 01:21:31,720
that gave you everything
that you have.

1797
01:21:33,056 --> 01:21:35,524
They love you, and
you're gonna hold them up

1798
01:21:35,524 --> 01:21:37,193
for a couple of bucks.

1799
01:21:37,193 --> 01:21:39,728
- Hendrix was the only act
that was booked to play twice,

1800
01:21:39,728 --> 01:21:41,130
and he was the most expensive.

1801
01:21:41,130 --> 01:21:46,102
He was the highest-paid
act: $35,000. (laughs)

1802
01:21:46,102 --> 01:21:49,838
Hendrix circled the
festival for two days.

1803
01:21:49,838 --> 01:21:51,707
We were unable to get him in.

1804
01:21:51,707 --> 01:21:54,310
- What I remember is
being in the trailer

1805
01:21:56,179 --> 01:21:57,380
and getting a phone call

1806
01:21:57,380 --> 01:22:00,016
from one of the local
little airports,

1807
01:22:00,916 --> 01:22:03,052
and it was from Hendrix,

1808
01:22:04,653 --> 01:22:06,789
and he was at the airport,

1809
01:22:07,957 --> 01:22:10,026
and he wanted to know
if we could pick him up,

1810
01:22:11,260 --> 01:22:12,595
and I tried to explain to him

1811
01:22:12,595 --> 01:22:14,097
that it was really complicated,

1812
01:22:14,097 --> 01:22:16,832
and I said, "There's just
no way I can do that."

1813
01:22:16,832 --> 01:22:21,270
"Is there anything
you can do?" he said,

1814
01:22:21,270 --> 01:22:23,306
"I really wanna get there,"

1815
01:22:23,306 --> 01:22:26,909
and I said, "Well, is
there anybody around

1816
01:22:26,909 --> 01:22:31,247
"that you might be able to talk
into driving you out here?"

1817
01:22:32,848 --> 01:22:34,883
And he said he saw, there
was a station wagon,

1818
01:22:34,883 --> 01:22:37,386
hang on, clunk, and
then he came back,

1819
01:22:37,386 --> 01:22:39,888
"Yeah, I think I
got that covered,"

1820
01:22:39,888 --> 01:22:44,127
and, "I'll be
there soon," click,

1821
01:22:44,127 --> 01:22:46,562
and two hours later or
something like that,

1822
01:22:46,562 --> 01:22:48,464
down the little road
behind the stage,

1823
01:22:48,464 --> 01:22:52,301
there's a Ford Falcon
and a station wagon,

1824
01:22:52,301 --> 01:22:55,271
light blue Ford Falcon, stops,

1825
01:22:55,271 --> 01:22:57,906
and Jimi Hendrix in
full Jimi-Hendrix-ism

1826
01:22:59,008 --> 01:23:00,276
emerges from the car,

1827
01:23:01,344 --> 01:23:03,546
and they unload his stuff,

1828
01:23:03,546 --> 01:23:04,680
and that's how he got there.

1829
01:23:04,680 --> 01:23:06,315
He flew in in a private plane.

1830
01:23:06,315 --> 01:23:08,684
He flew in in some
kind of small plane,

1831
01:23:11,054 --> 01:23:15,124
and he paid some kids to
drive him to the show,

1832
01:23:17,093 --> 01:23:18,994
and I mean, I remember
that happening,

1833
01:23:18,994 --> 01:23:22,331
but so much stuff was going on

1834
01:23:23,666 --> 01:23:27,070
that it seemed really
difficult to relate to

1835
01:23:28,171 --> 01:23:29,738
at the time.

1836
01:23:29,738 --> 01:23:32,208
(crowd murmuring)

1837
01:23:32,208 --> 01:23:33,042
- [Announcer] Looks
like we're gonna get

1838
01:23:33,042 --> 01:23:33,876
a little bit of rain,

1839
01:23:33,876 --> 01:23:35,111
so you better cover up.

1840
01:23:35,111 --> 01:23:36,945
- Woodstock and rain,
Woodstock and rain,

1841
01:23:36,945 --> 01:23:38,181
Woodstock and rain,

1842
01:23:38,181 --> 01:23:39,782
I mean, they're all the
same thing in my mind.

1843
01:23:39,782 --> 01:23:40,749
(thunder roaring)

1844
01:23:40,749 --> 01:23:42,618
- The thunderstorm, tornado,

1845
01:23:42,618 --> 01:23:44,153
or whatever it was
that blew through

1846
01:23:44,153 --> 01:23:45,821
when Cocker was performing

1847
01:23:45,821 --> 01:23:47,290
scared the living
daylights out of us.

1848
01:23:47,290 --> 01:23:50,826
I mean, a whole bunch of
things happened at one time.

1849
01:23:50,826 --> 01:23:52,095
- Well, the winds
were whipping up,

1850
01:23:52,095 --> 01:23:53,596
and they were whipping
these canvas things

1851
01:23:53,596 --> 01:23:56,065
that they had tied up,

1852
01:23:56,065 --> 01:23:58,601
and so guys were, it
was kind of like a ship,

1853
01:23:58,601 --> 01:24:01,470
and suddenly a storm coming on,

1854
01:24:01,470 --> 01:24:04,707
and the guys quickly
furling the sails and stuff.

1855
01:24:04,707 --> 01:24:06,209
I mean, guys were
scrambling around

1856
01:24:06,209 --> 01:24:09,545
trying to cover amps
and take down things

1857
01:24:09,545 --> 01:24:12,381
that were in danger
of being blown away.

1858
01:24:14,183 --> 01:24:16,051
- It was getting
a little dangerous

1859
01:24:16,051 --> 01:24:19,522
in that John Morris had
jumped on the microphone,

1860
01:24:19,522 --> 01:24:21,890
and he was a big hero then

1861
01:24:21,890 --> 01:24:24,493
because he sort of
calmed people down.

1862
01:24:24,493 --> 01:24:28,397
- The towers, which
were scaffolding towers,

1863
01:24:28,397 --> 01:24:31,734
had four or six Super
Trouper follow spots,

1864
01:24:31,734 --> 01:24:35,504
which weigh somewhere
500, 600 pounds apiece,

1865
01:24:35,504 --> 01:24:36,405
on top of them,

1866
01:24:37,840 --> 01:24:40,443
and because of the wind the
damn things were swaying,

1867
01:24:40,443 --> 01:24:44,213
and those follow spots
were moving back and forth,

1868
01:24:44,213 --> 01:24:45,781
and they were not chained down,

1869
01:24:46,915 --> 01:24:49,352
and it's one of those
things we forgot.

1870
01:24:49,352 --> 01:24:50,553
The immediate concern

1871
01:24:50,553 --> 01:24:53,289
was to get people
away from the towers,

1872
01:24:53,289 --> 01:24:55,057
and all of a sudden
I've got this mic,

1873
01:24:55,057 --> 01:24:57,025
and I'm saying, "Move
away from the towers.

1874
01:24:57,025 --> 01:24:57,860
"It'll be okay.

1875
01:24:57,860 --> 01:24:59,495
"Everybody just hang on.

1876
01:24:59,495 --> 01:25:00,729
"We're gonna ride this through.

1877
01:25:00,729 --> 01:25:01,964
"We've been through
everything else."

1878
01:25:01,964 --> 01:25:04,533
Please come down off
those towers, gentlemen.

1879
01:25:04,533 --> 01:25:06,835
Hey, cut the power
off here, all right?

1880
01:25:06,835 --> 01:25:09,672
The real answer is I don't know
what else I could have done.

1881
01:25:09,672 --> 01:25:11,140
Somebody had to relay.

1882
01:25:11,140 --> 01:25:15,711
Somebody had to talk
to all of those people.

1883
01:25:17,246 --> 01:25:20,549
We had some kind of symbiotic
relationship at that point,

1884
01:25:21,584 --> 01:25:23,186
and you couldn't walk out on it.

1885
01:25:24,320 --> 01:25:27,590
(mournful blues music)

1886
01:25:38,401 --> 01:25:40,403
- And then I remember
the sun came out,

1887
01:25:40,403 --> 01:25:44,840
and there was this
incredible stench that came,

1888
01:25:44,840 --> 01:25:45,774
you remember that?

1889
01:25:45,774 --> 01:25:47,843
There was this stench,

1890
01:25:47,843 --> 01:25:52,415
and it was very
uncomfortable for people.

1891
01:25:52,415 --> 01:25:54,617
There was debris all
over and everything,

1892
01:25:54,617 --> 01:25:57,653
and people were sliding
around in this mud,

1893
01:25:57,653 --> 01:26:00,523
and sort of like caking
themselves up in mud,

1894
01:26:00,523 --> 01:26:04,660
and all of a sudden the
mud became an activity.

1895
01:26:04,660 --> 01:26:06,128
- The New York Times,

1896
01:26:06,128 --> 01:26:08,964
I mean, or the Daily News:
Hippies Mired in Mud.

1897
01:26:10,065 --> 01:26:12,601
I didn't see hippies
mired in mud.

1898
01:26:12,601 --> 01:26:14,470
I saw it rained, and
there was a lot of mud,

1899
01:26:14,470 --> 01:26:16,505
and people having a good time.

1900
01:26:16,505 --> 01:26:21,410
- And the light at that
point was down in the sky,

1901
01:26:21,410 --> 01:26:23,479
and the clouds were overhead,

1902
01:26:23,479 --> 01:26:27,082
and it was, everybody
was silhouetted,

1903
01:26:28,517 --> 01:26:31,220
so when you looked, you're
seeing people up close,

1904
01:26:31,220 --> 01:26:33,556
you're all kind of
backlighted and silhouetted.

1905
01:26:35,358 --> 01:26:38,294
- The rain created something

1906
01:26:38,294 --> 01:26:40,363
that nothing else
could have done,

1907
01:26:40,363 --> 01:26:45,334
and what it did was it equalized
everybody at that festival.

1908
01:26:45,334 --> 01:26:47,336
Everybody was full of mud.

1909
01:26:47,336 --> 01:26:49,171
Everybody was wet.

1910
01:26:49,171 --> 01:26:50,906
Everybody was cold.

1911
01:26:50,906 --> 01:26:52,508
Everybody was together.

1912
01:26:52,508 --> 01:26:56,912
Everybody experienced the
same thing at the same time

1913
01:26:56,912 --> 01:26:59,948
and had to make it work,

1914
01:26:59,948 --> 01:27:02,485
so I don't know how many
people have told you that,

1915
01:27:02,485 --> 01:27:04,953
but I thank the
Lord for that rain.

1916
01:27:06,722 --> 01:27:08,657
- Without a unifying
factor like that

1917
01:27:08,657 --> 01:27:10,693
it could have been
particularly difficult

1918
01:27:12,595 --> 01:27:15,498
to try and take a
small city of 400

1919
01:27:15,498 --> 01:27:18,767
and perhaps close
to 56,000 people

1920
01:27:18,767 --> 01:27:22,738
and allow them to coexist
for that period of time.

1921
01:27:23,772 --> 01:27:25,608
Music went continuously.

1922
01:27:27,042 --> 01:27:27,943
Where did you eat?

1923
01:27:27,943 --> 01:27:28,777
Where did you shit?

1924
01:27:28,777 --> 01:27:30,613
Where did you sleep?

1925
01:27:30,613 --> 01:27:32,481
It didn't seem to
bother anybody.

1926
01:27:33,982 --> 01:27:38,086
- John Morris called
the telephone building
in White Lake,

1927
01:27:38,086 --> 01:27:40,222
which was our headquarters,

1928
01:27:40,222 --> 01:27:42,591
and spoke to Joel,

1929
01:27:42,591 --> 01:27:46,362
and told Joel that
we had a rather nasty

1930
01:27:46,362 --> 01:27:48,464
and potentially
dangerous problem,

1931
01:27:49,898 --> 01:27:53,802
that the crowd was
scraping the dirt

1932
01:27:53,802 --> 01:27:56,805
off the power lines that had
been buried in the ground,

1933
01:27:56,805 --> 01:28:01,143
and the rain had washed
away some of that dirt,

1934
01:28:01,143 --> 01:28:04,146
and there was some concern

1935
01:28:04,146 --> 01:28:07,082
that unless we could
divert the power,

1936
01:28:07,082 --> 01:28:10,285
that there would be an accident.

1937
01:28:10,285 --> 01:28:15,290
- "What I have in mind," he
said, "is to work a bypass

1938
01:28:16,425 --> 01:28:18,260
"around the area that
I'm worried about,

1939
01:28:18,260 --> 01:28:20,028
"and that will
take me some time,"

1940
01:28:20,028 --> 01:28:22,465
but when I heard how much
time it would take him,

1941
01:28:22,465 --> 01:28:24,600
it didn't seem that dangerous.

1942
01:28:24,600 --> 01:28:26,068
I mean, he said he
could probably do it

1943
01:28:26,068 --> 01:28:27,102
in a matter of minutes.

1944
01:28:27,102 --> 01:28:28,704
This wasn't hours or days,

1945
01:28:30,005 --> 01:28:32,375
and we agreed that that
was the way to proceed.

1946
01:28:33,676 --> 01:28:35,210
- On the face of it,
one would have said,

1947
01:28:35,210 --> 01:28:37,145
"Well, let's stop everything
until we divert the power,"

1948
01:28:37,145 --> 01:28:38,647
which was our suggestion,

1949
01:28:38,647 --> 01:28:41,884
but John advised us that the
Who, or the Grateful Dead,

1950
01:28:41,884 --> 01:28:46,188
or one of the groups most
keenly awaited by the audience

1951
01:28:46,188 --> 01:28:49,825
was just coming on stage
after a rather lengthy wait,

1952
01:28:49,825 --> 01:28:51,394
and that the crowd was restive,

1953
01:28:51,394 --> 01:28:52,628
and they'd been rained on,

1954
01:28:52,628 --> 01:28:54,196
and they were angry,

1955
01:28:54,196 --> 01:28:57,733
and that another delay
of 45 minutes or an hour,

1956
01:28:57,733 --> 01:28:59,702
whatever it would take,

1957
01:28:59,702 --> 01:29:00,803
might lead to violence,

1958
01:29:02,070 --> 01:29:05,508
so we had a decision to make:

1959
01:29:05,508 --> 01:29:09,211
could we divert the power and
keep it on at the same time,

1960
01:29:09,211 --> 01:29:11,414
and run the risk in
the next 45 minutes

1961
01:29:11,414 --> 01:29:14,216
there might be some calamity,

1962
01:29:14,216 --> 01:29:17,185
or should we shut it down and
invite an immediate calamity?

1963
01:29:18,353 --> 01:29:23,025
So, we went for the
potential calamity

1964
01:29:23,025 --> 01:29:25,928
rather than the sure
calamity, (chuckles)

1965
01:29:25,928 --> 01:29:27,930
and so Joel and I conferred,

1966
01:29:27,930 --> 01:29:29,398
and we decided that
we would take the risk

1967
01:29:29,398 --> 01:29:31,434
of leaving it on
and diverting it,

1968
01:29:31,434 --> 01:29:33,569
and that worked, fortunately.

1969
01:29:34,670 --> 01:29:37,172
- They're like
massive little tiny

1970
01:29:38,273 --> 01:29:40,909
snapshots of events.

1971
01:29:40,909 --> 01:29:44,046
There's the "The
stage is sinking!

1972
01:29:44,046 --> 01:29:46,348
"The stage is sinking!"

1973
01:29:46,348 --> 01:29:49,452
See, everybody would get
up, wanna be on stage.

1974
01:29:49,452 --> 01:29:51,186
I mean, it was really cool,

1975
01:29:51,186 --> 01:29:52,988
so everybody wanted
to be up on stage.

1976
01:29:52,988 --> 01:29:55,658
There reached a
point after the rains

1977
01:29:55,658 --> 01:29:59,495
that the stage literally
started sliding down the hill,

1978
01:29:59,495 --> 01:30:01,096
so they'd throw
everybody off stage

1979
01:30:01,096 --> 01:30:02,097
so there'd be less
people on stage

1980
01:30:02,097 --> 01:30:05,133
and they could save the stage.

1981
01:30:05,133 --> 01:30:08,904
("The Star Spangled Banner")

1982
01:30:10,806 --> 01:30:15,377
- People started leaving
on Sunday evening.

1983
01:30:16,912 --> 01:30:20,415
It was supposed to be
over at midnight, tops,

1984
01:30:20,415 --> 01:30:22,384
maybe 11 o'clock or something,

1985
01:30:22,384 --> 01:30:26,121
but it went all night
long Sunday night.

1986
01:30:26,121 --> 01:30:30,526
Jimi Hendrix, for
whatever reason he had,

1987
01:30:30,526 --> 01:30:32,628
wanted to close the festival.

1988
01:30:33,996 --> 01:30:37,600
Being that it was at
night, and people leaving,

1989
01:30:37,600 --> 01:30:41,670
you had really no idea how
many people were gonna be left

1990
01:30:41,670 --> 01:30:42,938
when dawn came up,

1991
01:30:44,206 --> 01:30:47,209
and as that gray dawn came up,

1992
01:30:47,209 --> 01:30:48,844
there was Jimi Hendrix

1993
01:30:48,844 --> 01:30:53,549
in this resplendent white
outfit with fringes on it,

1994
01:30:54,783 --> 01:30:58,153
and being an incredible
Jimi Hendrix fan myself,

1995
01:30:58,153 --> 01:31:00,989
I wasn't gonna miss
that performance.

1996
01:31:00,989 --> 01:31:05,093
Just seeing the people
wandering off slowly in this

1997
01:31:06,128 --> 01:31:09,131
sort of surrealistic scene,

1998
01:31:10,232 --> 01:31:11,900
and hearing "The
Star-Spangled Banner"

1999
01:31:11,900 --> 01:31:13,769
played in the manner
that it was played,

2000
01:31:13,769 --> 01:31:16,004
that's the way the
festival ended for me,

2001
01:31:16,004 --> 01:31:19,374
but there was a lot of
work to do after that,

2002
01:31:19,374 --> 01:31:22,711
but I kind of forgot
about it at that moment.

2003
01:31:22,711 --> 01:31:25,047
I just took it in,
smoked a joint,

2004
01:31:25,047 --> 01:31:27,783
and relished in it,

2005
01:31:27,783 --> 01:31:29,451
and said, "We did it."

2006
01:31:35,891 --> 01:31:39,494
(raunchy blues-rock music)

2007
01:31:45,801 --> 01:31:48,737
- You'd see people
wandering around

2008
01:31:48,737 --> 01:31:52,975
amidst all these old
blankets, and paper,

2009
01:31:52,975 --> 01:31:56,912
and lumps of stuff
laying around,

2010
01:31:56,912 --> 01:31:59,715
and people walking around
picking through it,

2011
01:31:59,715 --> 01:32:02,517
and kind of
scavenging through it.

2012
01:32:02,517 --> 01:32:06,288
- It looked like a
Civil War battlefield,

2013
01:32:06,288 --> 01:32:10,192
in those old photographic
plates they took

2014
01:32:10,192 --> 01:32:11,426
right after the battle,

2015
01:32:11,426 --> 01:32:14,162
where you'd see dead
bodies laying around,

2016
01:32:14,162 --> 01:32:17,499
and all the equipment
that they left behind,

2017
01:32:18,901 --> 01:32:22,638
and the other amazing thing was
there was a tremendous smell

2018
01:32:24,006 --> 01:32:25,240
that, of course, you
can't get from the movies,

2019
01:32:25,240 --> 01:32:26,508
or the pictures, or anything.

2020
01:32:26,508 --> 01:32:29,344
It was a horrible, rancid odor

2021
01:32:29,344 --> 01:32:33,782
rising from all
this muddy debris

2022
01:32:33,782 --> 01:32:35,017
that had been left behind.

2023
01:32:35,017 --> 01:32:37,586
I mean, and it went on
for acres and acres.

2024
01:32:38,987 --> 01:32:40,455
- I remained behind,

2025
01:32:42,758 --> 01:32:45,527
and a lot of other
folks did, as well.

2026
01:32:45,527 --> 01:32:46,829
Some of them were hog farmers,

2027
01:32:46,829 --> 01:32:49,164
stayed for a couple
of days to clean up,

2028
01:32:49,164 --> 01:32:52,701
and so there were simply
folks who didn't wanna leave.

2029
01:32:52,701 --> 01:32:54,369
They wanted to
stay there forever.

2030
01:32:55,771 --> 01:32:57,005
They had put tents in the wood.

2031
01:32:57,005 --> 01:32:58,273
They had built households,

2032
01:32:59,574 --> 01:33:00,542
and of course had

2033
01:33:02,978 --> 01:33:06,514
had no means of
maintaining their lives:

2034
01:33:06,514 --> 01:33:09,818
no food, no water, no
nothing, no services.

2035
01:33:09,818 --> 01:33:13,221
We took damage claims
from the neighbors,

2036
01:33:13,221 --> 01:33:17,726
insurance claims,
releases, complaints,

2037
01:33:17,726 --> 01:33:19,494
and it just went
on and on and on

2038
01:33:19,494 --> 01:33:21,529
for weeks and weeks and weeks.

2039
01:33:21,529 --> 01:33:23,431
- A lot of the piping
just got buried,

2040
01:33:23,431 --> 01:33:24,933
and the electric got left,

2041
01:33:24,933 --> 01:33:26,902
and the phone company came,
took all the phones away,

2042
01:33:26,902 --> 01:33:29,471
and the poles got taken down
that they were mounted on,

2043
01:33:29,471 --> 01:33:31,006
and the boards,

2044
01:33:31,006 --> 01:33:33,108
and everything just kind of
went back to normal slowly.

2045
01:33:34,342 --> 01:33:36,511
- I knew that what
they had done to the,

2046
01:33:36,511 --> 01:33:38,613
what we had done to the ground

2047
01:33:38,613 --> 01:33:41,416
was nothing couldn't come back

2048
01:33:41,416 --> 01:33:44,419
'cause they stayed,
cleaned everything up,

2049
01:33:45,287 --> 01:33:46,822
and then replanted it,

2050
01:33:46,822 --> 01:33:51,226
which is an agreement they
had had with the Yasgurs.

2051
01:33:51,226 --> 01:33:53,428
- If you were
technically oriented,

2052
01:33:53,428 --> 01:33:56,398
and were used to a level deck,

2053
01:33:56,398 --> 01:33:59,201
and life as you
dreamed it might be,

2054
01:34:00,903 --> 01:34:03,371
if you went through
those three days

2055
01:34:03,371 --> 01:34:07,442
it would have totally destroyed
your concept of order.

2056
01:34:09,477 --> 01:34:11,680
- We knew we were in the
middle of a financial disaster.

2057
01:34:11,680 --> 01:34:14,382
We knew that some
things had gone on

2058
01:34:14,382 --> 01:34:16,284
that we could never make right,

2059
01:34:16,284 --> 01:34:18,386
and then we had begun to hear

2060
01:34:18,386 --> 01:34:21,456
what turned out to
be fabricated reports

2061
01:34:21,456 --> 01:34:26,461
of dead bodies in the woods
around the festival site.

2062
01:34:27,195 --> 01:34:28,663
- Jim Mitchell told me

2063
01:34:28,663 --> 01:34:32,000
that there were bodies all over
the site amongst the trash,

2064
01:34:32,000 --> 01:34:33,235
because that's what it was:

2065
01:34:33,235 --> 01:34:37,940
it was a gigantic dump
site at that point,

2066
01:34:38,673 --> 01:34:40,308
and we were charged

2067
01:34:40,308 --> 01:34:43,211
with finding the dead bodies.

2068
01:34:44,112 --> 01:34:47,482
- I was at the bank in New York

2069
01:34:47,482 --> 01:34:51,954
talking to a bunch of
panicked and angry bankers,

2070
01:34:51,954 --> 01:34:53,889
and Jim Mitchell,

2071
01:34:53,889 --> 01:34:56,391
who had been charged with
cleaning up the site,

2072
01:34:56,391 --> 01:34:59,427
called me at the bank and said,

2073
01:35:01,063 --> 01:35:02,330
"They're going
through the woods.

2074
01:35:02,330 --> 01:35:03,932
"My crew is going
through the woods,

2075
01:35:03,932 --> 01:35:05,801
"and they're finding bodies,"

2076
01:35:06,969 --> 01:35:10,372
and I said, "Find out
the details for me,"

2077
01:35:10,372 --> 01:35:12,074
and he called back
about an hour later

2078
01:35:12,074 --> 01:35:13,942
and said, "I was mistaken.

2079
01:35:13,942 --> 01:35:16,178
"There is one death."

2080
01:35:16,178 --> 01:35:17,445
They found one body,

2081
01:35:17,445 --> 01:35:19,714
and apparently he was
accidentally run over

2082
01:35:19,714 --> 01:35:23,385
by the machine that
was compacting and
gathering the trash,

2083
01:35:24,586 --> 01:35:27,689
and it was pretty emotional.

2084
01:35:28,857 --> 01:35:30,325
Joel and I were
both at the bank,

2085
01:35:30,325 --> 01:35:33,195
and it felt like our world
had sort of collapsed,

2086
01:35:33,195 --> 01:35:34,830
and then this information

2087
01:35:34,830 --> 01:35:39,201
that this boy had been killed
accidentally at the site

2088
01:35:40,502 --> 01:35:41,970
felt like the last straw,

2089
01:35:41,970 --> 01:35:46,008
and I remember feeling
pretty broken up about it.

2090
01:35:47,542 --> 01:35:50,913
- John had really gotten
way over his credit line,

2091
01:35:50,913 --> 01:35:54,716
and the manager of the local
bank was so distraught he was,

2092
01:35:54,716 --> 01:35:56,251
we were afraid he was
gonna commit suicide

2093
01:35:56,251 --> 01:35:58,954
'cause he extended
so much credit to us,

2094
01:35:58,954 --> 01:36:02,991
and we had people
coming in saying,

2095
01:36:02,991 --> 01:36:04,827
"I have 10 acres here,

2096
01:36:04,827 --> 01:36:06,228
"and people have been
tromping all over it

2097
01:36:06,228 --> 01:36:07,762
"and staying in it,"

2098
01:36:07,762 --> 01:36:10,132
and we'd say, "What kind
of crops did you have?"

2099
01:36:10,132 --> 01:36:11,666
By the time we got through

2100
01:36:11,666 --> 01:36:14,069
we knew how to estimate an
acre of alfalfa, or corn,

2101
01:36:14,069 --> 01:36:16,704
or something like that,
and we paid them off.

2102
01:36:16,704 --> 01:36:18,841
- I spent a good bit of time

2103
01:36:18,841 --> 01:36:22,044
for the next, oh,
number of weeks

2104
01:36:24,512 --> 01:36:27,983
coordinating what cleanup
activity was going on

2105
01:36:27,983 --> 01:36:28,884
at that time,

2106
01:36:30,018 --> 01:36:32,754
returning people's
lost property.

2107
01:36:32,754 --> 01:36:36,758
There were a lot of
wallets, purses, things,

2108
01:36:36,758 --> 01:36:39,527
and we had a lost and found,

2109
01:36:39,527 --> 01:36:42,530
and we sent stuff
back out in the mails.

2110
01:36:42,530 --> 01:36:45,968
We took damage claims
from the neighbors,

2111
01:36:45,968 --> 01:36:49,304
insurance claims,
releases, complaints,

2112
01:36:50,472 --> 01:36:52,240
and it just went
on and on and on

2113
01:36:52,240 --> 01:36:53,741
for weeks and weeks and weeks.

2114
01:36:54,843 --> 01:36:56,644
- John was in a situation

2115
01:36:56,644 --> 01:36:58,947
where he had gotten himself
into doing something

2116
01:36:58,947 --> 01:37:03,551
and behaved at all times
as an absolute gentleman.

2117
01:37:03,551 --> 01:37:06,354
Looked at his options,
knew he was done,

2118
01:37:06,354 --> 01:37:08,523
and said, "We're
gonna go through this.

2119
01:37:08,523 --> 01:37:10,058
"We're gonna take care of it,"

2120
01:37:10,058 --> 01:37:12,327
and after the festival the
same thing with the debts.

2121
01:37:12,327 --> 01:37:14,429
He could have gone
bankrupt, gone belly-up.

2122
01:37:14,429 --> 01:37:16,064
The whole thing
could have been over.

2123
01:37:16,064 --> 01:37:17,532
He could have
walked away from it.

2124
01:37:17,532 --> 01:37:20,468
He chose to make sure that
absolutely everybody got paid.

2125
01:37:20,468 --> 01:37:21,603
Lot of respect for him.

2126
01:37:22,570 --> 01:37:24,039
- I believe that.

2127
01:37:24,039 --> 01:37:26,374
I mean, that was something
my father felt strongly about

2128
01:37:26,374 --> 01:37:29,411
was that you can
regain lost monies,

2129
01:37:29,411 --> 01:37:31,446
but lost reputations
are forever.

2130
01:37:32,881 --> 01:37:35,450
- It cost us $3 million, and
it was particularly expensive

2131
01:37:35,450 --> 01:37:38,453
'cause we didn't have
$3 million at the time.

2132
01:37:38,453 --> 01:37:39,955
When it was over,

2133
01:37:39,955 --> 01:37:43,458
we were a million and a half
dollars in debt, or more,

2134
01:37:43,458 --> 01:37:46,394
and no real prospect
for repaying it.

2135
01:37:46,394 --> 01:37:48,130
It worked out that
we were able to,

2136
01:37:48,130 --> 01:37:50,398
but it took us
quite a long time.

2137
01:37:50,398 --> 01:37:53,335
- We'd spent well in
excess of a million dollars

2138
01:37:53,335 --> 01:37:55,237
over the receipts.

2139
01:37:55,237 --> 01:37:58,640
The newspaper accounts of
Woodstock the morning after

2140
01:37:58,640 --> 01:37:59,908
were not friendly.

2141
01:38:01,343 --> 01:38:03,946
The Times had headlined it
Nightmare in the Catskills.

2142
01:38:03,946 --> 01:38:07,415
We had bankers, and creditors,
and just about everybody

2143
01:38:07,415 --> 01:38:09,884
breathing down our
necks that morning,

2144
01:38:09,884 --> 01:38:11,419
and when the smoke
cleared Monday morning

2145
01:38:11,419 --> 01:38:13,255
the banks said, "My God,

2146
01:38:13,255 --> 01:38:17,625
"we've paid out well in
excess of a million dollars

2147
01:38:17,625 --> 01:38:20,295
"over the original $250,000,

2148
01:38:20,295 --> 01:38:23,265
"and we have no
documentation to support it."

2149
01:38:23,265 --> 01:38:26,301
- One of the bankers picked
up our folder, I remember, and

2150
01:38:28,703 --> 01:38:32,874
in an attempt of emphasize
the points he was making,

2151
01:38:32,874 --> 01:38:34,076
and he was making points

2152
01:38:34,076 --> 01:38:35,978
about how irresponsible
and stupid we were,

2153
01:38:37,179 --> 01:38:40,215
he began to slam the
folder on the table,

2154
01:38:41,984 --> 01:38:45,887
and in so doing out
popped some of the papers

2155
01:38:45,887 --> 01:38:47,622
from this manila folder,

2156
01:38:47,622 --> 01:38:52,627
and one of the papers was
the personal guarantee form

2157
01:38:53,361 --> 01:38:54,629
obligating John and me

2158
01:38:54,629 --> 01:38:57,199
to whatever debts we had
rung up over the weekend

2159
01:38:57,199 --> 01:38:59,401
by writing all these bad checks.

2160
01:39:00,735 --> 01:39:04,806
The guarantee form was
unsigned, just evident.

2161
01:39:04,806 --> 01:39:07,509
You could see that the
signature part of it was blank,

2162
01:39:08,610 --> 01:39:10,612
and this fellow
stopped in mid-tirade,

2163
01:39:10,612 --> 01:39:13,681
and everybody at the table
looked down at this form,

2164
01:39:13,681 --> 01:39:16,618
and looked at each other,

2165
01:39:16,618 --> 01:39:19,454
and then, (laughs) and John
and I looked at each other.

2166
01:39:19,454 --> 01:39:22,557
It was such a wonderful
moment, especially because

2167
01:39:23,758 --> 01:39:26,561
the period of time,
that Monday morning,

2168
01:39:26,561 --> 01:39:29,464
was such a leaden period.

2169
01:39:30,898 --> 01:39:35,070
- And we said,

2170
01:39:35,070 --> 01:39:38,673
naively perhaps, but we said it,

2171
01:39:38,673 --> 01:39:41,543
"Well, it was our intention
to honor these debts,

2172
01:39:41,543 --> 01:39:45,213
"and we'll sign whatever
papers you ask us to sign

2173
01:39:45,213 --> 01:39:48,083
"to memorialize that."

2174
01:39:48,083 --> 01:39:51,586
- And I'm not sure that legally
we could have done anything

2175
01:39:51,586 --> 01:39:55,090
other than just honor that
commitment, that obligation,

2176
01:39:56,224 --> 01:39:58,426
but it did make the
bankers a lot friendlier

2177
01:39:59,594 --> 01:40:01,163
right at that moment.

2178
01:40:01,163 --> 01:40:04,599
(melancholy piano music)

2179
01:40:14,942 --> 01:40:17,545
- Michael and I have a very
interesting relationship.

2180
01:40:17,545 --> 01:40:20,948
We can't be too close, but
we can't really be too far

2181
01:40:20,948 --> 01:40:22,684
because we had a child together,

2182
01:40:25,120 --> 01:40:26,488
and that was Woodstock.

2183
01:40:29,091 --> 01:40:31,759
- I left the site, I guess
around noon on Monday,

2184
01:40:31,759 --> 01:40:34,862
and John and Joel I guess
had left the night before,

2185
01:40:34,862 --> 01:40:36,931
and Artie had left
early that morning,

2186
01:40:38,733 --> 01:40:40,568
and as I was leaving,

2187
01:40:40,568 --> 01:40:43,138
they were in Wall Street, they
were in a meeting at a bank,

2188
01:40:43,138 --> 01:40:44,406
and I got a phone call

2189
01:40:44,406 --> 01:40:45,607
that said you had to
come down right away,

2190
01:40:46,941 --> 01:40:48,976
and one of the last
helicopters was just leaving.

2191
01:40:48,976 --> 01:40:53,515
The guy offered me a lift,
and it was the first time I

2192
01:40:53,515 --> 01:40:55,450
I'd never seen it from the air,

2193
01:40:55,450 --> 01:40:58,853
and I thought what a great
idea, see it from the air.

2194
01:40:58,853 --> 01:41:01,756
There were 50 or 60
kids left on the field,

2195
01:41:01,756 --> 01:41:03,125
and they were
collecting garbage,

2196
01:41:03,125 --> 01:41:06,294
and I remember as the
helicopter took off

2197
01:41:06,294 --> 01:41:09,797
I saw that they were
dragging the garbage in bags,

2198
01:41:09,797 --> 01:41:11,333
and old clothes,

2199
01:41:11,333 --> 01:41:16,338
and they were piling them
in this huge peace symbol

2200
01:41:17,205 --> 01:41:18,440
in the middle of a field,

2201
01:41:18,440 --> 01:41:20,508
and that was the last
image I had as we left.

2202
01:41:20,508 --> 01:41:22,244
That was the first time
I'd seen it from the air,

2203
01:41:22,244 --> 01:41:24,312
and that was the image
that stays with me always

2204
01:41:24,312 --> 01:41:26,714
is that that's what was
left at the end of it.

2205
01:41:28,082 --> 01:41:29,951
- I mean, it was the seminal
experience in my life.

2206
01:41:29,951 --> 01:41:32,019
It was a major factor.

2207
01:41:33,455 --> 01:41:34,589
Would I like to go do it again?

2208
01:41:34,589 --> 01:41:36,624
Yeah, it won't be the same,

2209
01:41:36,624 --> 01:41:39,927
but it was fascinating.

2210
01:41:39,927 --> 01:41:42,029
I would love to
walk on the stage

2211
01:41:42,029 --> 01:41:44,999
and say, "Get off the towers.

2212
01:41:44,999 --> 01:41:47,001
"It's not a free concert,

2213
01:41:47,001 --> 01:41:50,172
"and I quit if anybody gives
a good goddamn," (laughs)

2214
01:41:50,172 --> 01:41:51,105
and call it done.

2215
01:41:52,574 --> 01:41:55,943
- It happened because of the
good vibes in planning it.

2216
01:41:55,943 --> 01:41:59,347
It happened because
of the dedication

2217
01:41:59,347 --> 01:42:01,349
of everybody that worked on it.

2218
01:42:01,349 --> 01:42:03,418
It happened because
of the weather.

2219
01:42:03,418 --> 01:42:07,922
It happened because all these
variables came together.

2220
01:42:07,922 --> 01:42:10,792
The time was right.

2221
01:42:10,792 --> 01:42:13,595
Everybody agreed,
the music, the peace,

2222
01:42:13,595 --> 01:42:16,731
everything was just
perfect for that.

2223
01:42:16,731 --> 01:42:18,132
- When the festival was over

2224
01:42:19,334 --> 01:42:21,503
and all this

2225
01:42:22,370 --> 01:42:24,839
trouble came down:

2226
01:42:24,839 --> 01:42:27,275
the dead boy, the lawsuits,

2227
01:42:27,275 --> 01:42:30,278
the pillorying in the
press, the loss of money,

2228
01:42:31,446 --> 01:42:33,315
the Yasgurs were
steadfast friends.

2229
01:42:35,750 --> 01:42:37,319
They didn't call and say,

2230
01:42:37,319 --> 01:42:39,521
"You didn't clean up
this acre or that acre.

2231
01:42:39,521 --> 01:42:40,388
"You didn't do this.

2232
01:42:40,388 --> 01:42:41,423
"You didn't do that."

2233
01:42:41,423 --> 01:42:42,924
They called up and said,

2234
01:42:42,924 --> 01:42:46,361
"Look, anything we can do
to help, we'd love to help."

2235
01:42:47,529 --> 01:42:48,896
We did clean up their land,

2236
01:42:50,632 --> 01:42:54,035
and Max called me, oh, about
a month after the festival,

2237
01:42:54,035 --> 01:42:55,337
and he said, "You know,

2238
01:42:55,337 --> 01:42:56,638
"I can't imagine what
you're going through.

2239
01:42:56,638 --> 01:42:58,306
"I mean, I know you're
only 24 years old.

2240
01:42:58,306 --> 01:43:00,808
"You must be having a
nightmare of a time."

2241
01:43:00,808 --> 01:43:02,176
He said, "I've
got a great idea."

2242
01:43:02,176 --> 01:43:03,778
He said, "Why don't you
come up here for a month

2243
01:43:03,778 --> 01:43:06,180
"and milk cows," he said,

2244
01:43:06,180 --> 01:43:07,615
"and no one has to
know where you are,"

2245
01:43:07,615 --> 01:43:09,351
he said, "You get in good shape.

2246
01:43:09,351 --> 01:43:10,184
"You'll get tired.

2247
01:43:10,184 --> 01:43:10,985
"You go to bed at night.

2248
01:43:10,985 --> 01:43:12,220
"You'll sleep well.

2249
01:43:12,220 --> 01:43:14,956
"You can forget about
Woodstock for a month."

2250
01:43:14,956 --> 01:43:16,658
I almost took him
up on it, (laughs)

2251
01:43:16,658 --> 01:43:20,728
but I'd met a girl and I was 24,

2252
01:43:20,728 --> 01:43:21,563
and my

2253
01:43:24,532 --> 01:43:27,602
my romance took precedence
over milking cows,

2254
01:43:27,602 --> 01:43:31,839
but I married her,
too. (chuckles)

2255
01:43:31,839 --> 01:43:34,075
- Well, I don't think you
can plan to have a Woodstock

2256
01:43:34,075 --> 01:43:38,446
if by that you mean a
spontaneous mass gathering

2257
01:43:38,446 --> 01:43:40,315
of tremendous
energy and goodwill

2258
01:43:42,717 --> 01:43:44,419
at which people
have a great time.

2259
01:43:45,553 --> 01:43:47,455
I think you can offer it.

2260
01:43:48,590 --> 01:43:50,625
You can set the
framework up for it,

2261
01:43:50,625 --> 01:43:52,594
but having it happen is,

2262
01:43:54,596 --> 01:43:56,331
it's a miracle.

2263
01:43:57,599 --> 01:43:59,066
- Let me tell you this.

2264
01:43:59,066 --> 01:44:01,336
Didn't matter how I went
into it and came out of it.

2265
01:44:01,336 --> 01:44:03,004
Didn't matter how
anybody else came into it

2266
01:44:03,004 --> 01:44:04,706
and went out of it.

2267
01:44:04,706 --> 01:44:07,875
We wouldn't be having
this conversation today

2268
01:44:07,875 --> 01:44:09,377
if it didn't mean something

2269
01:44:09,377 --> 01:44:12,547
to millions and millions of
people who weren't even there.

2270
01:44:12,547 --> 01:44:14,682
We wouldn't be standing
here with this camera,

2271
01:44:14,682 --> 01:44:15,683
and these questions,

2272
01:44:15,683 --> 01:44:17,184
and you wouldn't
be making a film

2273
01:44:17,184 --> 01:44:19,887
unless this thing
historically meant something

2274
01:44:19,887 --> 01:44:21,756
to a lot of people
above and beyond

2275
01:44:21,756 --> 01:44:23,791
what it meant for those
people who were there,

2276
01:44:23,791 --> 01:44:25,427
and above and beyond anybody's

2277
01:44:25,427 --> 01:44:28,062
what they brought to it
or brought away from it.

2278
01:44:28,062 --> 01:44:30,264
It's a singular
event in history.

2279
01:44:32,934 --> 01:44:34,802
- So that what was
learned at White Lake

2280
01:44:34,802 --> 01:44:37,038
was not that hundreds
of thousands of people

2281
01:44:37,038 --> 01:44:39,907
can paralyze an area
and break the law,

2282
01:44:39,907 --> 01:44:41,909
but that in an
emergency, at least,

2283
01:44:41,909 --> 01:44:45,246
people of all ages are
capable of compassion,

2284
01:44:46,681 --> 01:44:49,016
and while such a spectacle
may never happen again,

2285
01:44:49,016 --> 01:44:51,319
it has recorded the
growing proportions

2286
01:44:51,319 --> 01:44:55,757
of this youthful culture in
the mind of adult America.

2287
01:44:55,757 --> 01:44:57,425
Walter?

2288
01:44:57,425 --> 01:45:02,330
- And that's the way it is,
Monday, August 18th, 1969.

2289
01:45:02,330 --> 01:45:06,233
(wistful acoustic rock music)