Woodstock at 50: A happy misfit applies lessons in Tacoma
Editor’s note: This is a refreshed version of a News Tribune column that Brown wrote for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock in 2009.
When we drove to Woodstock, New York, in a rented Ford, we didn’t know we were going to “Woodstock,” an event that would be celebrated 50 years later. We were simply going to another concert.
In 1969 I lived in Greenwich Village, in New York City. That summer, the city was filled with music. Bob Dylan was right: There was “music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air.” And, thankfully, I was right in the middle of it all.
I drove to Woodstock with five friends. When we arrived mid-afternoon on Friday, the fences were down, and it was already a free concert. The size of the crowd shocked us, and it would keep on growing.
We stretched out our sleeping bags not far from the speaker towers. Two friends left early, but I stayed through heat, rain and mud for the whole thing.
Yes, the music was amazing. I remember vividly the opening set by Richie Havens. When he ended his set with the song “Freedom,” I knew this was something special.
Sunday morning, I crawled out of my sleeping bag to hear Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane shout: “Good morning, people, you have seen the heavy groups and now you have morning maniac music. It’s a new dawn!”
Yes, it was. On Monday morning, my 21st birthday, after three days I walked to the car to the sound of Seattle’s own Jimi Hendrix.
The popular myth about Woodstock is that it was all about the 60s’ trinity of sex, drugs and rock n roll. To be sure, there were sex and drugs but not everywhere and everyone. People came for the music and to feel part of a community or a movement.
Most of the folks around me those three days in August understood themselves as somehow different from mainstream American society. To use the once-popular term of that era, they were freaks! Happy misfits!
With idealistic eyes we viewed mainstream straight society as something that sucked the joy from living and was hopelessly materialistic. Some of us were active in movements to stop the war and bring full civil rights to all Americans.
These themes echoed in some of the music we heard from the stage. Woodstock was a place where it was OK to be who we were, to be different, to be hopeful. Indeed, there was freedom.
As we celebrate Woodstock at 50, some feel nostalgia for a different time and/or their youth. But I think anniversaries can be about more than nostalgia. This anniversary can serve as a reminder of what is: the power of music to bring people together and create community.
Woodstock did that for three days. Music is powerful and can engage, delight, challenge and connect us to other people and something bigger than ourselves.
Woodstock is about the past and the present. In 2019 live music performance still brings people together. Musicians nourish the spirit and soul during a time when spirit and soul need nourishment.
Looking back at my 21st birthday party in New York encourages me, in whatever ways I can, to keep creating occasions in Tacoma where music is made, and where people can gather.
Rev. Dave Brown is a consultant/writer, creator and host of Blues Vespers. This October he will begin a first Monday Blues series at the Spanish Ballroom. He is the former pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Tacoma.
This story was originally published August 17, 2019 at 7:32 AM.