Thursday, July 22, 1999
Woodstock at 30
It's still the music that draws fans to famous festival
BY JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
There was no pay-per-view for the first Woodstock, no official Woodstock Web site, no amazon.com auction site tied to the music festival.
And this year's festival, held today through Sunday in Rome, N.Y., will likely avoid the drug overdoses, the filthy conditions and the gate-crashing that marked its predecessor 30 years ago.
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ON THE WEB
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Can't make it to Woodstock '99? You can check out 62 continuous hours of programming on Woodstock.com beginning at noon today and ending at 2 a.m. Monday.
Last-minute tickets to the music festival cost $180 for all three days. Call Ticketmaster at (212) 397-7474.
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What the two festivals have in common besides a name is music, and lots of it. And that, say locals heading east for this year's event, is the best reason to go.
“I think I would've liked to have been at the original, but it's not something I spend a lot of time regretting,” says Carl Mills, 57, of Hillsboro, who is going with his daughter, Jessica, and two of her friends.
“It's best not to romanticize the '60s and not romanticize Woodstock. They were wonderful times and a lot more intense than now, but they're over. In a time of peace, prosperity and cynicism, I don't believe you can create another 1969.”
This year's event is trying hard to be a cultural event worthy of its lineage. Its Web site has interviews with the stars of 1969, sponsors a John Lennon Song Writing Contest and offers a chance to win '60s music souvenirs.
And people who were born after Woodstock occurred admit that the original, held near Bethel, N.Y., has a certain appeal.
“The first one, with everyone crashing the gate, that would've been a great experience,” says Casey Long, a University of Cincinnati student who is flying to New York Thursday to attend Woodstock with his brother and his aunt.
“It costs a lot more now. There will be a lot of the same atmosphere, but like everyone says, it's more commercialized now.”
That commercialization includes a $59.95 pay-per-view deal that allows fans to enjoy the music without running the risk of overflowing port-a-potties, mud and rowdy concert-goers. It also includes a chance to buy official T-shirts for this year's show and memorabilia from the original concert. Tickets for Woodstock 1999 are $150, not including service charges. Tickets in 1969 were just $21 for three days of music, mud and mayhem.
But some of those heading to the concert are looking forward to a show that will be better organized and more enjoyable than the original. Stacey Tsibulsky, born 14 years after the first Woodstock, left Wednesday for this year's show.
“I haven't really read anything (about the original) but I heard a lot about it. It was all like drugs,” says Miss Tsibulsky, a Mount Washington resident who attends Walnut Hills High School. “It didn't seem like a very happy time — it was all like sex and drugs.”
She and her friends are going for a musical lineup that includes Jewel, Al Green, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Everclear, Limp Bizkit, Los Lobos, the Dave Matthews Band, Rusted Root, Alanis Morissette, Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In all, more than 40 bands will play three all-day shows on multiple stages, with an art village, food courts, beer gardens, a film festival, ecology displays and video walls.
“It's going to be an unbelievable concert,” Mr. Long says. “I like a lot of the bands that are going, and I also know it's going to be a great time. Everybody's probably going to be around my age — I'm 20 — and we'll meet people and just hang.”
But can this year's music top Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Santana, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane and others who played at the original Woodstock? After all, another Woodstock held five years ago was quickly forgotten. But Mr. Mills thinks the comparisons are misguided.
“You can't go back. When you listen to the really good stuff from 1969 you might want to go back,” he says. “But there was just as much bad to mediocre music then, too.”
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