(first posted 11/25/2012) Now why would I suddenly find myself thinking of Woodstock on this gray and cold morning? Especially since it’s a bit of a sore spot in my memory banks: I came within a cat’s whisker of going there, even though I was just sixteen (more on that later). But it’s fun to see the cars those did make it arrived in; quite the eclectic collection, and obviously a combination of their own cars and Mom and Dad’s.
Let me start out by saying that I would give credit to the original photographers of these photos, if I knew who they were. These pictures have floated around the web for years, so it’s almost impossible to attribute them. But whoever you are, thank you. And did you have a good time?
Well, at least we know where this one came from. I should be in that picture, since my ride was going to be in the back seat of my brother’s ’66 VW. We had just come back to Towson from a long summer trip back to Innsbruck, and my college-student older brother told me about the planned big party in upstate NY, and offered to let me go along with him and his buddy.
Given that I was sixteen, the truth would not have gone over well with my parents. Truth wasn’t exactly a commodity in the Niedermeyer household at that time. So the ruse was that we were going up to see car races at Watkins Glen, NY, something my older brother had done before. We were literally packing stuff in the car when my Mom came trotting out the back door with “that look”. She had just heard on the radio about the NY Throughway being jammed for miles because of a half-million kids heading to a music festival in Woodstock, NY. Uh oh.
Was I ever bummed. If we had just left fifteen minutes earlier… And hearing all about it on the radio and tv…and my brother’s stories when he got back, looking a bit worse for wear.
I’d really have something to write about today, instead of just showing you the cars of Woodstock.
I’d hazard a guess that there were more VWs there than any other single model of car.
The tired old stereotype of Woodstock is that it was a “hippie festival”. Obviously, they were represented there, but probably 90% of the kids there were like my brother and his friends: college-age kids driving their VWs or Mom’s Chevy looking for a big party. Undoubtedly it exposed them to, or reinforced the nascent cultural themes and values. Perhaps a deep immersion, in some cases. My brother dropped out of school not long after, and has lived a rather un-traditional life. Who knows what would have happened to me if I’d actually gotten there? I might have done the same thing….
Did any of you make it?
I wish! But since I was a 16 yr old living north of the 54th parallel at the time, and news coverage being what it was, I didn’t even hear about it until it was over.
Hah! I was 15, the driving age in NJ was 17, and none of my buddies had older brothers (or in my case, my brother was 30 and living in Iowa with his wife and two kids), so we just saw the reports on TV. I’d love to have been there – although advancing my beginning of pot smoking by a couple of years might not have been a good thing for my high school career.
I was returning to Chicago from my parent’s home in Connecticut in my ’64 Corvair Monza convertible and was on the New York Thruway. I picked up a couple of hitchikers who told me that they had been to Woodstock. In appreciation for the ride they offered me weed and all sorts of pills, which I declined. Had it been beer I would have gone for it.
I was 6 years old at the time, so the chances of me going were somewhere between slim and none. I have plenty of Santana, Who, CSNY, and Hendrix in my music collection, so at least I can access the spirit of Woodstock. My father in law ( a retired long haul trucker) was in the area at the time and got a couple of people closer to their goal, however. Check out the “Festival Express” movie sometime. It chronicles several bands including Janis Joplin, The Band, the Grateful Dead, and other bands who rented a CN passenger train and travelled across Canada giving concerts in the summer of 1970. Plenty of music, anecdotes, and old Detroit iron at every stop.
Yeah. Me too. I wanted to go and when I asked my dad, he told me that if I wasn’t asleep by the time Lawrence Welk was over I’d be getting a paddling.
Those of us born at the tail end of the baby boom missed everything.
I was there. 16 years old, with no idea of what I was in for. I lived near Utica, NY, so we knew the back roads to the Hudson Valley and avoided the Thruway and traffic jams.
Our car? A 1965 VW Beetle. Typical, eh?
When we left the concert grounds, we had a 10 mile walk back to our car and we were beat. An otherworldly 61 Plymouth stopped and allowed us to hop on the huge flat trunk. When he took off, I slid off the trunk and thought I was sunk. I saw the brake lights come on and hopped back on. Thank God for that strange Plymouth.
Way before my time, but my pops wuz there. I think his first car was a ’58 Bel Air, anybody see one in these pics? I’ve asked him many times what it was like to go to such a historic event, and the extent of his recollection is that “It started raining when we woke up and all the girls took their tops off!”
In other words, either his memory of that weekend was zapped by all that bad acid floating through the crowd, or he thinks the details of this story are just far too groooovey for me to handle, man!
I’m not sure I would have gone anyway but since the morals of a submarine sailor are somewhere below those of an alley cat it is possible. However, I think I was around Panama on the way to Hawaii and points west. Heard about it but it was secondary to keeping the number of our surfaces equal to our dives. Sort of required a short memory for nonessential stuff.
Back in high school that September, my senior social studies teacher asked us to go around the room and each say what we thought the most important event of the summer had been. Half of us said, “Woodstock, obviously!” The other half said “the moon landing, obviously!” We all looked at each other like, “what planet are you on?”
Neither one turned out to matter nearly as much as we expected.
That stars and stripes ’61 Polara rocks.
“Neither one turned out to matter nearly as much as we expected.”
You’re a wise man, Mike.
Thanks, Cap’n, but only in hindsight.
In retrospect, the most important thing that happened in 1969 was the fledgling beginnings of what would become the Internet, though its importance took about three decades to become apparent
Remember watching the moon landing on TV with most of my family and my grandparents.. My father and grandfather, both born cynics said that it was NOT real, it was just a hoax that was pulled off with Hollywood style special effects, and was probably filmed on some sound stage. The “tell” they said was the flag blowing in a breeze. There is no atmosphere in a vacuum, right? Who can say for sure, but maybe after all these years, they were right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories#Environment
5. The flag placed on the surface by the astronauts fluttered despite there being no wind on the Moon. This suggests that it was filmed on Earth and a breeze caused the flag to flutter. Sibrel said that it may have been caused by indoor fans used to cool the astronauts since their spacesuit cooling systems would have been too heavy on Earth.
The flag was fastened to a Г-shaped rod (see Lunar Flag Assembly) so that it did not hang down. The flag only seemed to flutter when the astronauts were moving it into position. Without air drag, these movements caused the free corner of the flag to swing like a pendulum for some time. The flag was rippled because it had been folded during storage—the ripples could be mistaken for movement in a still photo. Videos show that when the astronauts let go of the flagpole it vibrates briefly but then remains still.
This theory was debunked on the MythBusters episode “NASA Moon Landing”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings
I find it interesting that there is a mixture of the obvious hippie and starving-student-mobiles (the VW Beetles, the old Ramblers) and new cars that almost surely belonged to Mom or Dad (the ’69 Chevy in the first photo, for example). Hope the new cars made it back home before the photos made the magazines. The ’58 Buick was probably a $350 back-of-the-lot beater back then.
Seeing how it happened six years before my birth, I was not able to attend. As close as I can come to sharing a story is there was a lady that worked in the office at the high school I attended in Florida (and that my mom worked with) that attended with her husband. I forget why they were there, but they were staying in a camper behind the stage. It surprised me because they were a rather conservative couple from Long Island and would have been a bit older than most that would have been there.
Interesting that, aside from the 3 in a row Beetles, in the 1st and 3rd pictures there are same-make cars nose to tail, less than 10 years difference in the pairing, but seemingly of different generations (the 2 Ramblers and the 2 Pontiacs, two brands which have also disappeared). And is that a 404 on the far right of the 2nd picture? I was NOT there … just 12 years old and on the other side of the continent. Not at Altamont or Monterey Pop either … 🙁
My Woodstock story: Had a little girl I was shagging that summer. She had two tickets, a tent, and transportation to get there. All she wanted to make it complete was to have me with her.
I didn’t think it’d be that big a deal, so I turned her down.
My wife (University of Vermont chapter of Young Americans for Freedom) was there.
“I might have done the same thing….”
Good thing you stuck to the straight and narrow instead, Paul…ahem.
Saw The Who at Boston Garden two Fridays ago. Would anyone in 1969 have expected them to make it this long? Pete Townshend was vocal back then about what a sham it all was, that the promoters who failed to collect from all those kids also failed to pay the performers. Consolation is that Pete got to smack Abbie Hoffman with his guitar when the guy jumped on stage and stole his mike.
Not to mention the Stones playing the O2 arena in London last night to begin their 50th (!) anniversary tour.
If Jagger and Richards were a car, what would they be? A Midnight Rambler?
I was 10 years old, so nothing could have been farther from my radar. But it is fascinating to look at the pictures all these years later. As an adult, I can only imagine the follow-up to that lead picture – “What the hell did you do to the paint on the trunk? This was a new car! You take it for a weekend and you ruin it.”
I’m thinking that “what the hell happened to this car!” had to be one of the most common phrases heard on the eastern seaboard the day after the concert ended!
I never took a parental car to a concert, and still heard that phrase a few times. I’ve thought the words a few times myself since my teens began driving.
Well, I was two years old, but I like to tell my wife (who was born in the 70’s) that I COULD have been there, but my two year old memory is too fuzzy to recall.
About the closest real experience I can relate is that my Dad took off to Expo 67 with my Uncle when I was two months old and left Mom and the kids behind.
What a heartbreakingly close call Paul! 15 minutes doomed you to a staid, conventional life. Oh, wait…
Actually when the DougD VW project is back on the road (next year for sure!) Woodstock sounds like a great roadtrip destination.
Paul married well. His wife has both wisdom and beauty. Worth more than thousands of Woodstocks.
I was at Expo 67 too! (and was going to note that even before I read your post). I was only a 2 year old baby though so I have no recollection of it from 1967 except from reading the brouchures and memorobilia that were brought home which were saved for many decades to come. I do however remember numerous trips to see Man and his World in later years, which was basically most of the exhibits and pavillions from Expo 67 that were reopened each summer afterward. The buildings weren’t intended to last more than two years though, and every time I went it was a little more delapitated than the last time. It finally closed down for good in 1984 – except the La Ronde amusement park which is still there today (and now owned by Six Flags, though it’s the only park they own that doesn’t have any reference to Six Flags in the park’s name).
Another part of the Expo 67 festival that survives is the amazing Habitat 67 housing complex, which I consider to be the greatest multi-unit residential building of all time.
Ha! I was 8, and my parents loved it. We went 4 times from Vermont, camping out of town. My mom loved Habitat 67 and we wandered around that. The Soviet pavilion was amazing! We went to Man and his World in 68 once I think. Such an interesting experience for me. I went to look at the island in 1987? and recognized nothing…
We were also living in Vermont at the time (the first, from ’65-’69) on our way to Virginia where we lived between (’69-’75) moving back to Vermont. We did go to Expo ’67, that was more our speed, I was 11 years old the first time around, and we undoubtedly were on the NY Throughway (or was it the Northway?.my niece lives there still but we’ve been in central Texas 40 years now and don’t get back for visits much). My parents are from NE Pennsylvania so we travelled back and forth probably several times that year. On one of them my Dad bought a car, in Pennsylvania, at the same dealership that my Uncle had also bought a new car, as he just graduated from college and the hand me down ’51 Chrysler he drove through his undergraduate days living at home blew a head gasket and he didn’t have time to get it fixed. Following a pattern he repeated with my sister, he bought the same year same model (though my Uncle bought a 4 door hardtop and my Dad a station wagon)…a 1969 LTD. Uncle bought his in June, I think Dad bought the wagon in July. So we lived pretty close at the time but weren’t the target audience. Similarly, I missed the ’80 Olympics despite driving to Lake Placid more than once as a transporter for Hertz, there were so few lodging places nearby (Lake Placid is pretty rural) that people were staying in Burlington and getting transported there (which is harder in the winter, since Lake Champlain freezes over and the ferrys stop running for the season, which lengthens the drive). I was finishing my last semester of my undergraduate degree in engineering, and didn’t have the luxury of taking time off…we had such a small enrollment in engineering that pretty much everyone in a given year had to take every course offered when it was offered, else wait another year to take it with the subsequent class, so we were highly motivated to complete them (the school wasn’t particularly small, just the engineering program, and actually had more graduate students in engineering than undergraduates when I went there).
I did work with a lady almost 10 years older than I who did go, she was still in her (late) teens, and she found her way from Indiana. I worked with her much later (in fact, during my last job before I retired) she had a good time but told me it was a bit of a mess, but I guess with that many people you’d have to expect that. My Uncle still lives in that area (the one who bought the LTD, he moved there in 1969) and my (much) younger cousin was at the one they had in ’99, which I heard was likewise a bit of a mess…he was selling plastic trash bags there…though he’s not a particularly business minded person now, guess he was then (he wasn’t 20 years old yet in ’99).
Those Woodstock teens grew up to be ‘Safety First’ parents who won’t let their kids drive until nearly 20. “Oh no, it’s too dangerous”, so they shuttle in minvan/SUV all over creation.
Given that most of those who attended Woodstock were in at least 18, I’ll bet that more than a few are grandparents by now.
I was seven years old at the time, and none of my friends had siblings who were old enough to attend, so I never heard anything about the concert until years later.
What’s interesting is how thin everyone looks. Today most of the people in the photos could probably find work as models.
Good point about the thinness. After I left home at 18, getting enough food for my healthy metabolism was major concern in my life, as hard as it may be to believe nowadays.
During the periods when I didn’t have, or couldn’t get a job, food stamps were generally not available to me either. You had to prove that you had access to a full kitchen, or they would turn you down, as in a rental agreement or letter from the landlord. Renting single rooms was common back then-no dice. “Lady; I can eat cold sandwiches, use a hot plate, or use my backpacking stove” “NO!”
Most of all, we just ate less, even if we had food. Portions were all much smaller back then.
I was 9 going on 10 in the summer of 1969. I was also growing up in the Bay Area so even as a youth (playing Little League ball for Don Collins Buick). So I was too young and too far away. But we certainly got the music and as I approached adolescence, was tuning into the “FM Album Rock” stations, which the Bay Area was legendary for . . . . (KSFX/KTIM) . . .
I’m the same age as you, but I wasn’t interested in Woodstock; I’ve never liked huge crowds, although thinking back now, I would have loved to have seen Hendrix, and some of the others live.
Absolutely never wanted to go, then or now. Don’t like crowds. Don’t like black Friday sales.
Never was a hippie. When I went into the US Army in 1971, most guys had long hair. Watch the hair cutting scene of Full Metal Jacket. It truthfully depicts the reception center and basic training phase. (Army basic was just as miserable as Marine basic.) Never went to Vietnam so I can’t vouch for the war half of the movie.
I’ll still donate money to buy Hanoi Jane a one way ticket to any foreign country of her choice.
No Wood-stocking for me, either – I was 12 and hanging out in Cleveland.
My mother, though…she was from Utica, NY; and she and my father had both gone to college in that area…they were all a-buzz over it.
As an active twelve-year-old, I didn’t watch much television; and the local paper didn’t make much of it. So I pretty much missed what the hoopla was about.
I was camping in the Med on a desert island in the summer of ’69 – right out of high school and hitching thru Spain with my Boy Scout backpack. I did hear about the concert at Isle of Wight, but didn’t learn about Woodstock ’til I got back – just in time to get drafted. My number was 98 in the only lottery I have ever won…
So, in basic training at Fort Ord (near Monterrey, CA) we were finally allowed to go to town for entertainment. I went with a few other recruits to see the movie – but only after a guy had insisted that it was the greatest thing that had ever happened. Nobody believed that he had actually attended. You can imagine our surprise when his mug appeared center screen at the beginning when folks were arriving!
there is a great photo of a campsite near the apollo 11 moonshot.
http://www.who2.com/blog/2009/07/t-minus-12-days-and-counting
this is the best one I can find at shortnotice but am sure theres a higher res one out there.
I bet it smelled horrible
Interesting sidelight: Remember the picture that became the poster for the movie and the album cover? That hippie couple out standing in the mess after the rain storm had come thru?
They’re still together. And still married.
I was only 4 years old in 1969 so I had no chance of going, especially since neither of my parents liked rock and roll. I did have a friend in college whose mom took her to Woodstock. And……… he hated it! Sitting out in the rain for three days listening to loud, strange music apparently isn’t a fun thing for a five year old kid to be put through. The only performance he specifically remembered was Jimi Hendrix playing “The Star Spangled Banner” because it was the only song he had heard of – something his mom pointed out – even if it was an unusual rendition. Of course the grown-up version of himself thought “cool! I was at Woodstock! And I saw Jimi Hendrix!”.
Yeah, every time I see Woodstock pics I always look at the cars. Then I look at the people and notice that while some of them look like hippies, most of them look like typical nerdy teens and 20-somethings wearing hand-me-down clothes that could have come from any era.
I had graduated from high school that spring but was still 17. I vaguely knew (friend of friends) some people who went and could probably have tagged along but basically chickened out. I attended some smaller, one day festivals that happened after Woodstock and they were basically huge clusterf*cks. Invariably they were poorly organized, with not nearly enough facilities, and the concert sites quickly turned into mud holes. Even the 19 year old me didn’t care for the experience; looking back now I wonder why I ever attended any after the first one. The final straw was the festival where we ended parking the car 4 or 5 miles away from the site and hoofing it the rest of the way. When we returned for the car it was gone, fortunately it was not my car and we were able to hitch a ride back to town. I honestly don’t remember now if the car owner got his car back, or even ever learned what had happened to it.
Only 11 when the festival took place. However, did visit the site 40 years latter. They were in the process of developing the visitors hall which was to have a photo display.
Just a side note, the concert actually took place in Bethel because the town of Woodstock turned down the promoters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock
Same age as you…we lived in Vermont,and later that year moved to Virginia, my relatives in NE PA, so we were up and down the northway and the NY Thruway many times that year. My Dad’s youngest brother (who died this past February) got married in November that year, though I was really into space stuff I wasn’t really into music or (frankly back then much of any politics) so it wasn’t really on my radar..guess just a little too young and still naive…I remember hearing about Judy Garland dying that summer when we were on a camping trip to Lake Dunmore (one of our favorite places to camp back then)….between that and the moon landing, constitutes most of my memory of the summer of 1969 (yes, I was into cars back then too, though it would be 5 years until I got my license….I really think I was probably started being interested in cars at age 4…not sure why, since no one else in my family is.
I wasn’t born yet but I enjoyed to see this Pepsi ad celebrating the 25th anniversairy of Woodstock in 1994 when hippies became yuppies. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-LUexYsRpY
A more longer version of the same ad.
I’ll take the ’65-ish Austin-Healey Sprite at right in the 6th photo …
The dog dishes probably identify it as a Sprite – Midgets mostly had wire wheels.
The larger wind-up side windows place it as a “65 or newer. Prior to that, the tiny, removable side-curtains were used.
….I’ll also take the MG. B(?) at left in the 2nd photo …
That’s a Triumph Spitfire.
Look at the plate of the Chevy in the first picture 8210 OZ. That is when NY coded by county plates. It was from Orange County….very near the site of the concert. It was also bought at Spielman Chevrolet which was in Brooklyn. This car belonged to a very early Orange County to NYC commuter. I moved to Oc in 1999 and there were very few but there are plenty now. This took place in Sullivan County along route 17B. Some people now commute over 100 miles one way to NYC from there now. How times have changed.
I was 16 at the time, with only a learner`s permit .I went with my younger brother ,13 and my cousin ,23 who borrowed his father`s `66 Le Sabre four door with air. We never got anywhere near it ( we only went for Sunday), but we were part of the experience, and that`s what mattered .I had the whole back seat to myself, so on the way home, I just laid across it and watched the scenery roll by. We stopped for eats at a local diner, and arrived back home to Brooklyn, NY at about 10.30 that Sunday night. A great experience that we talked about for years. We still have our tickets. I still can`t believe that was 47 years ago! Remember it like yesterday.
Well, being 9 and in Israel made certain I could not attend (an aunt did but she never talked about it – who knows what she was up to).
On the other hand, I got to go on a Sinai Desert road trip with my dad, uncle, aunt (not the one who went to Woodstock obviously) and cousin in said uncle’s 65 Buick Skylark, so there.
Seeing the parents new cars like that Impala reminds how much this revolution was being underwritten by the parents and the rest of the power structure that was being mocked. Nixon used to always encourage parents and college administrators to reign in the excesses of the student movement. This effort had little result.
Keith Richard once said that a power structure that wouldn’t enforce the rules on a silly rock star was obviously pretty weak. He was referring to Mick Jagger getting off on a drug charge, but I think he was hitting on something bigger
Spot on. It all went too far and the results can be seen today.
Peekaboo Corvair (2nd gen) in Photo #1 at lower right. I was ten going on eleven at the time of the festival, living in Rio de Janeiro. Closest I got was the 3-disc album a few years later.
I was there. Went with a friend and 2 girls who were sisters in their father’s ’66 Ford Galaxy no frills 4 dr. sedan. Not the kind of car you would choose to go to an event like Woodstock but it got us there and back from West Hartford, Ct.
I couldn’t go – at 18 I was the right age but I was in a factory in Glasgow making torpedoes.
If it’s any consolation, Paul, and I’m sure you already know this, the definitive song about Woodstock, Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock”, was written by a non-attender as well;-)
Lived about 60 miles away via local roads and drove a ’62 Lark V-8 with Twin-Traction that was fairly reliable, but not pretty. Didn’t even think about going. Had 2 jobs at different service stations nearby and was saving to go to college. Graduated 7 years later.
A friend and his eventual wife made it to Woodstock… inauspiciously.
They parked well away and hitched in. An overstuffed Torino offered a ride, but they had to sit in the trunk with the lid open. All went well until a whoop-de-doop bounced Ron up off his tail… and he landed on a wine bottle. The bottle shattered, his gluteus Maximus was deeply cut, and they were transported right back out by ambulance.
I guess Ron can say that Woodstock left a permanent mark on him!
What a pain in the butt!
(Someone had to say it…)
I read recently there was a declared influenza pandemic at the time. Since the approach to pandemics was apparently much more relaxed then, at least you maybe avoided getting sick by not going. Would have been totally worth it though!
I’ve noticed before on pictures of Woodstock it’s funny how even the newer cars somehow don’t look very new. I think the sharpest, freshest looking one in this bunch is the light blue 69 Firebird.
Couldn’t make it there. I was visiting another party place called Vietnam.
I recall early and mid 70s AM radio absolutely loved the Matthews Southern Comfort version of Woodstock. The musical arrangement, and Ian Matthews voice sounding more in tune with the 70s, than the more raw and protest sounding CSN version. Or Joni Mitchell’s beautiful ‘hippie’ version.
I’d rate those three best-known versions of “Woodstock” in the same order you did. Love ’em all, but Iain Matthews is such an underrated talent, on his own, with MSC, and on the first three Fairport Convention albums (and the Heyday/BBC Sessions compilation which I actually like better than Fairport’s “real” albums, great as they are).
I’ve never heard that version before. I like it. Completely different feel. Very relaxing song!
Couple of them said “I was born a Ramblin’ man.”
…. and I don’t think it was a young Mitt Romney talkin about his daddy
I grew up in Liberty, the town over from Bethel, and am very familiar with the concert site, although I postdate the three days of peace love and music by six years. My pediatrician, Gustav Gavis, an old grizzled doctor who was from Vienna, became a refugee, and put himself through medical school despite having no high school diploma, went to the concert site to check on the children the back way through Jeffersonville.
There’s an alpaca farm across the street now, and Carl Rheinshagan’s farm – where we picked vegetables and strawberries – is under Alan Gerry’s Bethelwoods pavilion.
A similar festival was held in Southern Louisiana not long after , with many the same artists. Not sure how it turned out.
I was a wee tot (well ok, 11), so although it took place 3 hours away I don’t see my parents allowing that to happen. Overall though, it certainly was definitive moment for that generation and it seems it transformed into a much bigger event than was planned. The soundtracks are pretty amazing for the technology of the time.
Semi-related, the kid and I watched a documentary about Woodstock ’99 this weekend. It seemed so forced and contrived as a life-defining event…like they could conjure up another moment. Of course after the disasterous Woodstock ’94, ’99 was an even bigger shitshow because peace and love left the train station in the cynical early ’70s.
I was 19 in 1969 – there wasn’t that much peace, love and understanding about in those days as people would have you believe .
When I was a college student in the ’80s I completely romaticized Woodstock and wished I was born a bit earlier so I could be there. But nowadays, when multi-day music festivals have become a routine occurrence, I have to wonder what was so unique about Woodstock that it was such a defining moment for that generation, especially when there were several other worthy big music festivals from the late ’60s like the two Northern California Folk-Rock Festivals that are all but forgotten. I’ve also learned over the years that while it’s easy to paint peace symbols on signs and VW buses, and while every sane person prefers peace to war, actually achieving peace in the real world usually involves acceptance of people and governments whose values you find repugnant.
I remain amazed that the inexperienced group that planned Woodstock were able to carry it off as well as they did, despite all the logistical and weather issues that occurred. This could have easily turned into the Fyre Festival half a century early.
Although 18 at the time and living in Oregon I never had a chance to attend Woodstock. I did make it to the state of Oregon’s sponsored rock concert, Vortex. It was a mini Woodstock, nowhere near the crowd numbers but a fun time for all. The thing is these gatherings were almost violence free events which sadly would not turn out to be so if held in the same manner in today’s world. 3-400,000 basically unsupervised people together today would be a recipe for disaster. We lost something along the way. And yes at the tine it seemed every third or fourth car was a VW