August 17, 1969: Woodstock, Day 3

August 17, 1969: The Woodstock Music & Art Fair wraps up on Max Yasgur's dairy farm outside Bethel, Sullivan County, New York.

At 12:30 AM, Creedence Clearwater Revival took the stage. As Bruce Springsteen said when giving their induction speech for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, "They were never the coolest band in America, just the best."

Janis Joplin came on at 2:00, not with her original band, Big Brother & The Holding Company, but with The Kozmic Blues Band. Having become famous at the Monterey Pop Festival in California 2 years earlier, here, she cemented her legend for all time.

As did Sly & The Family Stone, who came on at 3:30, and played 50 minutes of psychedelic soul. It was footage of this performance that led jazz legend Miles Davis, already 43 years old, to shift gears, and incorporate rock and roll and psychedelic ideas into his music, giving him one of the great second acts in music history.

Billy Joel was at Woodstock -- not as a performer, but as a fan. A very dissatisfied fan:

I went to Woodstock, and I hated it. I think a lot of that "community spirit" was based on the fact that everybody was so wasted. Because everybody was stoned. Everybody was passing around pot and acid, and I wasn't into it.

There'd been a lot of rain, it was all muddy, and you couldn't go to the bathroom unless you stood up and went right where you were. I was there for a night and a day, and then I left just before The Who went on. I really wanted to see them, but it was very hard to, because everybody was hopping up and down and banging into you. So I walked out and hitched a ride home.

The Who came on at 5:00 in the morning, and gave one of the earliest live performances of songs from their "rock opera," Tommy. By this point, with The Beatles bringing their story to a close, The Rolling Stones were already getting people to call them "The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band." The Who blew that idea over the Catskills.

According to their lead guitarist and main songwriter, Pete Townshend, at the end of the band's gig at 2 weeks later, at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, the field was covered in rubbish left by fans, which inspired the line "teenage wasteland" in their 1971 song "Baba O'Riley." In another interview, Townshend said the song was also inspired by "the absolute desolation of teenagers at Woodstock, where audience members were strung out on acid and 20 people had brain damage. The irony was that some listeners considered the song a teenage celebration: 'Teenage Wasteland, yes! We're all wasted!'

The Sun came up, and so did The Jefferson Airplane. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine for the Festival's 20th Anniversary in 1989, lead singer Grace Slick said it was the worst performance of her career, and that, "The music was better at Altamont." A sacrilege? Maybe, but she was at both, and was in as good a position as anyone to know.

A break was taken. The show resumed at 2:00 PM, with Joe Cocker and The Grease Band. Among the songs Cocker sang was The Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends." They left at 3:25, and then, the rain came back. For 3 hours, no one wanted to take the risk of going on. There was nothing for people to do but endure the rain and the mud -- or, perhaps, play in it.

Country Joe & The Fish played from 6:30 to 8:00. By this point, the show should have been wrapping up, but several acts hadn't yet gone on, and wanted to. Ten Years After then played for an hour. The Band started at 10:00, and lasted 50 minutes.

Come Midnight, Monday, August 18, Johnny Winter, the albino Texas blues guitarist, went on, and played for over an hour, including 3 songs with his brother Edgar, also an albino, and a master of several instruments, as he would prove on his 1973 chart-topping instrumental "Frankenstein," on which he played guitar, keyboards and saxophone. At 1:30, Blood, Sweat & Tears came on, and played for an hour.

At 3:00, in only their 2nd performance together, came Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: David Crosby from The Byrds (whose current lineup were invited to play, but turned it down), Graham Nash from The Hollies, and Stephen Stills and Neil Young from The Buffalo Springfield. They played an electric set, then Young left, and Crosby, Stills and Nash sang an acoustic set. In later years, when asked about their signature show, Crosby would call it "The W Word."

People began to drift off. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band started at 6:00, with the Sun coming up. At 7:30, a bunch of Columbia University students who loved doo-wop, calling themselves Sha Na Na, took the stage, and sang for half an hour. Nobody knew it yet, but Woodstock, the ultimate 1960s event, had just given birth to the 1950s nostalgia movement.

By 9:00 AM, there were maybe 200,000 people left, most of them there because they were still waiting for access roads to be open so they could get out. And Jimi Hendrix came on, and played the National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," like nobody had ever heard it before: A loud, screechy, even ugly performance, which sounded more like the bombing of Vietnam than an expression of American pride. At 11:10 AM, he, and the festival, were done.

The immediate reports on the mainstream news said the whole festival was a disaster, full of rain, mud, drugs, naughty behavior, and bad music. But in the middle of the final full day, the venue's host, dairy farmer Max Yasgur, a proud Republican small businessman, addressed the crowd, and said:

I'm a farmer. I don't know how to speak to twenty people at one time, let alone a crowd like this. But I think you people have proven something to the world. Not only to the Town of Bethel, or Sullivan County, or New York State. You've proven something to the world.

This is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place. We have had no idea that there would be this size group, and because of that you've had quite a few inconveniences as far as water, food, and so forth. Your producers have done a mammoth job to see that you're taken care of... They'd enjoy a vote of thanks.

But above that, the important thing that you've proven to the world is that a half a million kids — and I call you kids because I have children that are older than you are — a half million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music, and have nothing but fun and music, and I God bless you for it!

The legend was born. The reality was... better seen in the movie theaters the following Spring, and experienced on television, and now on the Internet, than live. The cover for the film's soundtrack became a classic. The names of the couple in the blanket were Bobbi Kelly and Nick Ercoline. They married shortly thereafter, and as of August 17, 2022, they are still together. (UPDATE: Bobbi died on March 18, 2023, at age 78.)

Seattle Pilots pitcher Jim Bouton did not mention the Festival in his diary of the 1969 season, published the next year as Ball Four. But in Dog Days: The New York Yankees' Fall from Grace and Return to Glory, 1964-1976, Philip Bashe wrote:

Woodstock forced mainstream America to swallow its antipathy and reexamine some of the counterculture's utopian ideals. Maybe, just maybe, these kids were on to something.

Interestingly, in the process of lauding the festival-goers' conduct, commentators drew frequent comparisons to spectators at sporting events, nothing that if you assembled an equal number of beery bleacherites under similar conditions, they'd probably dismantle the stage and cart off every square inch of turf as souvenirs -- once the brawls subsided, that is.

Though many professional ballplayers belonged to the same generation as the Woodstock crowd, the majority of major-leaguers no more identified with this group and its concerns than did your average middle-age Republican from Peoria. Anytime the Yankees team bus pulled up on a red light in some American League city and someone spied a longhair on the street corner, insults inevitably came hurling out the window.

And Bashe quoted Bouton himself as saying:

Many of the players were feeling the social earthquakes going on in the country. But like a lot of our leaders and politicians, they tended to blame things on these longhaired people with bare feet who didn't bathe and smoked pot.

They said, "That's what's wrong with this country. If it weren't for those hippies, Communists and agitators, the war would be going okay and we wouldn't have civil-rights problems." They saw those people as the problem.

A 10th Anniversary show was held in 1979. The times, they had a-changed too much: Only 1,000 people showed up. The whole world was getting more conservative: Israel elected Menachem Begin and his Likud Party in 1977, the first time a right-of-center party had won there. China, under new "paramount leader" Deng Xiaoping, began its move toward a free-market economy in 1978.

In 1979 alone, Iran had its Islamic Revolution, Britain elected Margaret Thatcher and her Conservatives, and Canada voted out Pierre Trudeau and Liberal Party and voted in Joe Clark, though Clark's Conservative Party government (as in Britain, nicknamed the Tories) quickly fell apart, and Trudeau was voted back in the following year. France elected François Mitterand and his Socialist Party in 1981, but West Germany elected Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democratic Union in 1982.

But, as they always do, the times changed again. The Woodstock organizers tried again in 1994, for the 25th Anniversary, but, ironically, couldn't get the original site. This time, 25 years after rejecting them, the Town of Saugerties said, "Yes," and 250,000 people saw a nice show, with a combination of Woodstock veterans, acts from that period that hadn't played the original show (including Bob Dylan), and more recent acts. By this point, people knew how to properly stage a concert of that size or larger, and there were no logistical issues. There was enough food, enough restroom facilities, enough medical facilities, and no rain.

That should have been the last attempt. Another was made in 1999, on the 30th Anniversary, with mostly current acts, and it was another mess, including several women claiming to have been assaulted. There was no attempt at a 40th Anniversary show in 2009, and an attempt at a 50th Anniversary show in 2019 was canceled in mid-preparation.

In 2006, on the site of Yasgur's Farm, a 15,000-seat outdoor amphitheater opened, the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts. Next-door, the Museum at Bethel Woods tells the story of the area, including the Woodstock Festival. It is 103 miles northwest of Midtown Manhattan -- and 60 miles southwest of Woodstock, New York, the original intended site of the Festival.

In 1988, after a game, I came out of Yankee Stadium, and heard what sounded like the Hendrix version of "The Star-Spangled Banner." It was, and there was a guy on 157th Street, in front of the parking deck, dressed like Hendrix, and playing guitar lefthanded like Hendrix. He was playing it perfectly. But when the song got close to the end, it went back to the beginning. It was a looped tape, and he was faking. The busker still got some change tossed into his guitar case.

*

August 17, 1969 was a Sunday. It was also the day that Hurricane Camille crashed into America's Gulf Coast, and the day the New York football teams, the Giants and the Jets, played each other for the 1st time. I have separate entries for those events. Also, basketball star Christian Laettner and New Kids On The Block singer turned actor Donnie Wahlberg were born on this day.

And these Major League Baseball games played:

* New York Yankees 5, Chicago White Sox 2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Jimmie Hall hit a home run for the Bronx Bombers. Stan Bahnsen started, and Mike Kekich won it in relief.

* Another doubleheader at Shea Stadium: The New York Mets beat the San Diego Padres 3-2 in each game. Duffy Dyer hit a home run in support of Jerry Koosman in the opener, and Ed Kranepool and Bud Harrelson each got 2 hits in support of Don Cardwell in the nightcap.

* Houston Astros 3, Philadelphia Phillies 2 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.

* Minnesota Twins 4, Washington Senators 3 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Tony Oliva's RBI single won it in the top of the 13th inning.

* Los Angeles Dodgers 9, Montreal Expos 3 at Jarry Park in Montreal.

* St. Louis Cardinals 5, Atlanta Braves 3 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Hank Aaron, Bob Tillman and Rico Carty hit home runs for the Braves, but all were solo blasts, and Steve Carlton was the winning pitcher for the Cards, as Lou Brock went 2-for-5, and Joe Torre went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* Pittsburgh Pirates 8, Cincinnati Reds 5 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Gene Alley, Al Oliver and Willie Stargell hit home runs. Roberto Clemente went 2-for-5. The Reds got homers from Pete Rose, Bobby Tolan, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez, but it wasn't enough.

* Boston Red Sox 1, Kansas City Royals 0 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4, but Vicente Romo, Sparky Lyle and Sonny Siebert combined for a 4-hit shutout.

* California Angels 7, Cleveland Indians 6 at Anaheim (now Angel) Stadium.

* Detroit Tigers 9, Oakland Athletics 4 at the Oakland Coliseum. Catfish Hunter was knocked out of the box in the 4th inning, as the Tigers got 2 homers from Al Kaline, and 1 each from Jim Northrup, Don Wert, former Yankee Tom Tresh and Mickey Stanley. Denny McLain went the distance, despite giving up a home run to Reggie Jackson.

* Doubleheader at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. 1st game: San Francisco Giants 5, Chicago Cubs 3. 2nd game, Cubs 3, Giants 1. Over the 2 games, Willie Mays went 2-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Ernie Banks only appeared in this game as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* Baltimore Orioles 4, Seattle Pilots 1 at Sick's Stadium in Seattle. Dave May (filling in at right field for Frank Robinson, who got the day off), Don Buford and Brooks Robinson homered for the O's, while Don Mincher hit one for the Pilots. Tom Phoebus won it, Fred Talbot lost it. Jim Bouton did not get into the game. A sweep for the Birds over the Pilots.

As Pilot manager Joe Schultz no doubt said, "Ah, shitfuck. Let's get 'em tomorrow, and then go pound some Budweiser." If Jim Bouton and his book Ball Four are to be believed, Joe Schultz would not have fit in well at Woodstock.