Fifty-six years ago, the iconic Woodstock Music and Arts Fair opened on Max Yasgur’s sprawling dairy farm in Bethel Woods. When Brooklyn born Richie Havens took the stage at 5 p.m. on Friday, August 15, none of the nearly 500,000 people spread across the pasture knew they’d be writing history in Max’s yard.
Havens acoustic freight train instantly lifted the human ocean off the grass with every passion and rage filled strum and thump of his guitar. It was 1969 and the world was changing with a blitz of global conflict and uncertainty that motivated people to dance, hug and play in the common love of music and mud.
Joan Baez, Santana, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, The Who and Janis Joplin joined over 160 musicians and 32 bands in singing the stories of joy, frustration, confusion and celebration. David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash played with a Canadian guy named Neil Young for the very first time.
Melanie Safka, a 22-year-old coffee house kid from Astoria, NY found herself alone and terrified on stage in the middle of a rainstorm. She sat on a stool and sang. The crowd, sensing her anxiety, and taking a cue from emcee Chip Monck, who said something about lighting up a candle to keep away the rain, decided to help. In moments, lights flickered to life across the field.
The Generation that Sparked it all
“It looked like the entire universe was lighting up,” said Melanie, who wrote the song “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) the next day. It sold millions and lighting candles and sparking lighters at concerts became the time-honored ritual we know today.
From dawn to well past dusk, the Sullivan Catskills sang along with the people and by the time Jimi Hendrix electrified the Star-Spangled Banner on the morning of Monday, August 18 as part of an uninterrupted two-hour set, the world was changed.
Experience all the Feels of Woodstock
Today, the songs, voices and raw emotions of Woodstock can be heard and felt at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts which is now rooted in the rich earth where the historic festival took place. Its lush 1,000-acre campus includes an amphitheater, event gallery, campground, and a conservatory and studios for arts education. At the heart of the Center is the award-winning Museum of Bethel Woods where the history, spirit and soul of the 1960s continues to inspire those born every year after.
Whether you’ve ever worn tie dye or listened to The Band, Bethel Woods isn’t just the story of a temporary concert venue built on a graceful green hillside where a generation of hippies danced together in the rain. It’s about understanding the feeling of those things. It’s about people learning from each other through a landscape of music and art. It’s about finding your sense of self and being present within all of it.
Today, you can go camping in the Catskills and see a concert on the exact site of Woodstock. How freakin’ groovy is that!
Get a Backstage Pass
A guided tour of the Museum at Bethel Woods will guide you through the history and magic of Woodstock, while providing brain bites most would never know. For example, did you know other names were used, like Bethel Rock Festival and Aquarian Music Festival. Say the word “Woodstock” today and everyone knows exactly what you’re talking about.
Or how about this one. The festival was supposed to happen 40 miles away at a 300-acre industrial park in Wallkill. Locals opposed the event and town officials refused to issue a permit. A humble guy named Max, who was born in Manhattan to Jewish immigrants Samuel and Bella Yasgur, came to the rescue.
BONUS ROUND: By the late 1960s, Max, his 650 cows and the blessed green pasture that became Woodstock produced more milk than anyone in the Sullivan Catskills.
Any questions? A kind and knowledgeable docent has your answer.
Take a Behind the Scenes Tour for guided backstage pass into the past and present of this breathtaking venue, including a peek into the artists’ dressing rooms and luxury glamping area as you take a relaxing roll on a golf cart through the storied grounds.
The Main Gate Tour will wisp you to the field where half a million spun in the sun and turned the hillside into a communal slip n’ slide when it rained. It includes a trip through the Bindy Bazaar where the intended main gate* was located and lets you stand in the exact locations where never-before-seen photos of Woodstock were taken. Hint: You’ll get to see them.
*Ask your guide what “intended main gate” means.
Oh, and the How Bazaar! Arts, Crafts and Camping at Woodstock add-on is totally worth it. If you want to learn why all major music festivals now have killer vendor villages, it’s because of Woodstock.
Join the Jam
If you time it right, a visit to Bethel Woods Center for the Arts can also include catching a concert at the incredibly stunning open-air amphitheater that features state-of-the art acoustics and hosts some of the most gifted artists in the world. For example, Neil Young returns to the Bethel Woods stage on August 25, just over five decades after he harmonized Judy Blue Eyes Suite for the first time with Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Other acts this season include The Black Keys, Heart, Blink-182 and The Black Crowes.
From August 31 to October 5, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts hosts 100+ local farm, artisans and craft vendors where you can find everything from Catskills kilned pottery to homemade rhubarb jam. Families can make art together, roam a corn maze, take a wagon ride and crush a variety of delicious dishes from any one of the quirky food trucks.
Peace, Love & Pumpkins is the headliner from Friday, October 10 through November 2 with a cornucopia of family-friendly Halloween fun. The garden trails of Bethel Woods get a little funky with thousands of jack-o-lanterns hand-carved in groovy (and spooky) themes suited to the space they fill. It is Woodstock, right? Book a campsite and make it a fall weekend.
A Rhythm That Inspires
For a place that was planned to draw 50,000, to one that historically hosted 500,000 and has since inspired millions of visitors, the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is something special. Not just for what it meant to those living in the Age of Aquarius, but to every generation that came after. Sure, it was music. It was art. It was a celebration of peace and love. It was also a beautiful mess that is befitting of the gritty earth that is the Sullivan Catskills.
Here, you’ll find the spirit of Woodstock everywhere. It’s the rhythm of a place that inspired a whole lot of people to sing and then never stopped. Catskills communities carry that genuine sound of friendship, togetherness, care and curiosity. It’s no surprise that many of the shops and restaurants are now owned by people who belted Freedom with Havens.
This is a place where people share things. Not because they feel they need to, but because they want to. When food and water ran short in August of 1969, Max Yasgur hung a huge “Free Water” sign on his barn and handed out milk, cheese and butter.
“How can anyone ask for money for water?” he asked at the time.
When he was finally coaxed on stage for a recognition he didn’t want, Max said:
“I’m a farmer. I don’t know how to speak to 20 people at one time let alone a crowd like this. This is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place … but I think you people have proven something to the world — that a half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music!”
Half a century later, that sense of community still hums in the hollers of the Sullivan Catskills. It’s a sound you’ll hear, feel and want to be a part of when you visit Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, but it’s also something you’ll experience everywhere.
Some places are like that. This is one of them.
