Thousands flock to Bethel for Woodstock anniversary & Peace (and Music Festival!)

BETHEL - Woodstock veteran Rich Walka of Bayville ushered his 5-year-old son to the monument commemorating the 1969 Woodstock music festival and tried - in vain - to explain why the event was so special.

"You know what brought us up here?" asked Walka, 58, who was making his third visit to Max Yasgur's former farm since attending the original gathering 40 years ago. "Peace and music. There was a good vibe."

Richie Jr., who said he liked rock music, was more interested in filling a discarded soda bottle with blades of grass he plucked from the ground.

------------more story at link
Woodstock will NEVER be recreated as it was in '69. Most have been disastrous and luckily, this one was not victim to violence and other incidences.

Woodstock is a Living Thing

a press release sent to various media from Melanie who was a performer there.

WOODSTOCK IS A LIVING THING

Woodstock, the culmination of a notion~ people coexisting in harmony, consideration with music art and beauty interwoven into every day life. All the makings of Peace and Love, and not just ‘as’ catch phrase or a kitch emblem on a tie dye t-shirt

Somehow Woodstock seemed to beckon as an embodiment of the Aquarian ideals.
And now we have physicists and all sorts of right brainers giving credence to one of my favorites:
The power of our thoughts to change this planet once and for all.

Woodstock is a living thing.
It is now, and yet an event that was. And because it materialized in 500 thousand people gathering (making a pilgrimage is more accurate) some who needed it had proof.
Media takes and reality sometimes differ. Over the years I’ve seen the media slants go from serious wonder to making cynical jokes ridiculous …sex drugs, rock n roll, even the name ‘hippie’. Someone given a name sets them apart as being different, than say…you! It’s divisive.Woodstock somehow got people together before they got meddled with. It was immaculate in its chaos and forever gave me the reality of mankind’s connectedness. Now, we’d better all know this. At this point it would be wise for everyone to know this:
we are connected.

I’m not sure performers are the ones to ask about Woodstock. We weren’t in it! I wanted to be, I was there, and not there!

So my personal subjective recall has very little to do with what it really was. I would like to tell you I was rolling around in the mud getting naked, but mostly I watched and sensed. I observed a situation that reminded me of some distant yet existing ideal.~It was right. The walls were coming down and I was witness, about to go through an ordeal that I instinctively felt was life or death. I lived.
Even though, and I quote my own song, “I tried to Die Young”.

Woodstock and the Mything years. My life, My life, the story of my life…


Over the period of 40 years since, I’ve met more people who didn’t go to Woodstock than ones who did. I’ve met loads who say they were there, but they really just saw the movie or confused Gooselake Michigan, one of the many following festivals, with Woodstock. Details~the older I get, the surer I am, that a true account of anything cannot be found, with or without footage. Because if all the people who say they were ‘there’, those 4 million or so would just be getting home right about now.
And this is why we seek the truth because it is not readily available as when a celebrity dies they are so not available, that’s when everyone seeks to find them. And the mythisizing begins.

My life My life, the story of my life is much too long and complicated and most of it… untrue.-Love Melanie (signature)
Melanies website:
www.melaniesmusic.com