Original Woodstock

It seems to me that all the pundits who should know better are missing the point of Woodstock. The point is that the original one was a dreadful screw-up. Not that I was at the original one (thank God), but from what I’ve read the primitive facilities were completely overwhelmed by the unexpectedly large number of people who showed up.

Those people didn’t mind the squalor; in retrospect they seemed to relish it, because they were young and they were treated to music their parents hated, and that seemed to make it all worthwhile.

The music was different back then. Jimi Hendrix’s version of our national anthem must have seemed superbly ironic with the term “race music” still hanging like smoke in the air and with our country involved in a controversial and unpopular war. Yet 25 years later this tune is not revolutionary at all. It was used in a TV commercial by a big company.

The original Woodstock probably was intended only as a money-making scheme, but it also was history-making. Woodstock 2 seems to be dominated by complete cynicism.

DAVID G. BARRETT

Costa Mesa