This year is the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. But of course you know that. The original Woodstock music festival was held Aug. 15 -18, 1969. I don’t need to relate where, because you already know where. You also know that this event was held on a 600 acre dairy farm, attended by 400,000 plus people. As far as I know, there were no banjos, fiddles, mandolins, dobros, or acoustic basses.
I didn’t go.
In August of 1969 my new wife and I were living in a 12 foot camping trailer in West Sacramento, California. We were destitute, literally down to our last dollar, and waiting for the summer session of Chico State College (now CSU, Chico) to start so I could get some money from the G.I. Bill to survive. Illness had brought me from a relatively stable life in Southern California to where I was. I told my wife to leave me if she wanted, because this is not what she had signed-up for (yeah I know, “In sickness and in health,” but I gave her a pass on that one). Yes, down to our last dollar on the day that somebody sent us a $100 dollar bill in an envelope with no return address. We were well qualified to be “Hippies,” but we weren’t. Fast forward to today, 50+ years of marriage, and I am a well-paid CBA Welcome Columnist with all of the benefits that go with the title.
Today there are various documentaries regarding Woodstock on TV, radio, You Tube, Podcasts, and other media sources. The nostalgia of peace, love, harmony, and that historic event has risen from the ashes this year (trash actually, which I’ll get to later on). What’s not so well documented is some of the negative things that happened at Woodstock.
Reportedly, there were 797 “bad trips” during those four days. A teenager was crushed by a tractor. There were 938 foot lacerations, 176 cases of asthma requiring therapy, and 57 cases of heat exhaustion. And that’s just stuff that was reported. Then there were the rains that turned
Woodstock into Mudstock. And at the end of the Woodstock festival 600 acres of beautiful, grassland was turned into rubble. No grass left, plastic tarps, blankets, and discarded crap strewn everywhere. And only a few of the festival goers stayed behind to help clean up. When you think about it, the left over disaster was a microcosm of what humans have now done to too many places on our planet.
And then in the early 1970’s three amigos founded the California Bluegrass Association. And then the Father’s Day Festival was created. Yes, the bluegrass festival that has endured for over 40 years. And we all know how good of a festival it is, year after year. A festival that performers and audiences alike have declared as, “One of the best bluegrass festivals in existence today.” FDF is not without problems, nothing is, but minor compared to what Woodstock had. And after pondering and comparing Woodstock to the CBA’s Father’s Day Festival, I’m thinking of FDF as a sort of “GrassStock.” A music festival that was, is, and will hopefully continue as a way, way better place to spend four days a year experiencing music than at Woodstock fifty years ago.
Ah yes, Woodstock back in 1969. That was then. And now we have become old men and women….
