The 1960s were the decade that introduced the idea of the stadium concert. The first ever stadium concert was the Beatles performance at Shea Stadium in New York City on August 15, 1965, to nearly 56,000 fans. This performance was made famous for its size as well as it being the first ever concert held in a stadium. The newness of the concept can be seen by the overall poor quality of the performance with girls screaming, drowning out the sound being projected from the loudspeakers of the stadium.
While this was one of the most famous concerts of all time, it would lay the groundwork for large scale festivals to come including some of the most famous music festivals of all time. The likes of which include (in chronological order) The Monterey Pop Festival, The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, and The Altamont Free Festival. All of these festivals would become famous for their iconic lineups and cultural influences on the world around them, both positively and negatively.
The Monterey Pop Festival
What made Monterey so exciting was the sheer newness of all of the acts. Many of the biggest names at the event, when looking back today, were largely unknown going into the festival. This is what makes Monterey such an interesting festival historically. The “Origin Story” of the festival is profound in it of itself. While sitting around a table at Mama Cass’ house (Of the Mama’s and the Papa’s) with the likes of Paul McCartney, her other group mates, and famous producer Lou Adler, the spark for the idea was conceived. From a conversation about Rock and Roll as a genre and Adler’s recent experience at the Monterey Jazz Festival, they decided to advertise Monterey as a non-profit charity event and gave themselves about six weeks to put it together
They tried to get a diverse lineup of musicians to perform at Monterey in order to show the full breadth of Rock and Roll as a genre. Their efforts can be clearly seen in the lineup for the three-day festival. The likes included British rockers like the Animals and The Who to folk artists like Simon and Garfunkle and The Mama’s and the Papas’s and new names including The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Big Brother and The Holding Company (Janis Joplin’s old Group), Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and other assorted groups including Ravi Shankar and Otis Redding made for quite the lineup.
For all intents and purposes, the weekend went off without a hitch. It was nice weather, all roughly three dozen diverse acts performed and it would set the standard that all festivals in its wake would strive for. About 200,000 would show up for the three-day west coast music festival, many of which were drawn to the area through the Scott Mackenzie Song “San Francisco” and were beaming with love and positivity for the world around them. There was no drama here and it was famous for how smooth it went. This would not be something replicated with other large festivals that would follow in the coming years.
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair
The king of the 1960s music festivals is The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, more famously known as just Woodstock. This was an insane festival (to put it lightly) that took place from August 15-17 1969. The 1960s as a decade were a roller coaster and Woodstock placed itself as a sort of punctuation mark on the decade of peace and love. The crowds for the festival reached numbers as large as 500,000 (original predictions for turnout were closer to 50,000) and the lineup consisted of some of the biggest names in music at the time (many of which were Monterey Veterans).
Compared to the simplicity with which it seemed Monterey was put together, Woodstock was much more of a challenge. Similarly, it started with an idea by John P. Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld, and Michael Lang who thought it would be a fun, lucrative investment and business venture to put together a music festival in New York. Little did they know, many headaches were to come in getting this festival together.
Location, weather, fencing, and people all caused chaos. Originally the festival was to be held at Howard Mills Industrial Park, but the owners got cold feet and backed out fairly last minute. This led to them only pinning down a venue one month before the event, landing on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel NewYork. On top of this, because everything was so last minute, they did not have the time or the means to fence things off and make a ticket area, so they just made the event free. They prioritized making the event as great as possible at the expense of charging for tickets. Everything seemed to now be in place until the people started coming, and then more…and more until numbers nearly reached a staggering half a million. Then, once the hundreds of thousands of onlookers arrived, the weather got bad. Yasgur’s farm would turn into a mud pit that would house the four-day event. In spite of all of the chaos with getting the festival together, it was still a smashing success, planting itself in the annals of music history.
So how could such a mess still be such a success? Well, those three young men created an environment that was the epitome of the 1960s. The music, the sex, the drugs and lots of rock and roll steeped with wishes of love and peace really created a perfect event. On top of everything was the loose and free setlist. This three-day festival quickly became a four-day event with groups like Crosby Stills Nash and Young going on a 3 am on Monday. Beyond them, the legendary lineup included the likes of:
- Richie Havens
- Ravi Shankar
- Joan Baez
- Santana
- Canned Heat
- Grateful Dead
- Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Janis Joplin
- Sly & The Family Stone
- The Who
- Jefferson Airplane
- Crosby Stills Nash and Young (CSNY)
- Jimi Hendrix
- And many more…
I could go on forever talking about the events that happened that weekend in 1969 in regards to just how momentous that weekend was, but I still do not think I would be able to do it justice since I would be lucky to even scrape the surface. This weekend summarized the golden age of popular music and gave those who are nostalgic for the decade so much material to cling onto. In the wake of the festival, the song “Woodstock” written by Joanie Mitchell and performed by CSNY and was released as a sort of melodic retelling of the weekend and successfully captured the essence of the love and energy of the event:
For those of you who want to know more about Woodstock or want to get some imagery of the weekend and just how free and crazy it was, I recommend watching the documentary Woodstock. You will need plenty of free time since the whole documentary rings in at about 5 1/2 hours but well worth it for any fan of the era.
The Altamont Free Festival
The antithesis to the peace, love, happiness and just general good vibes of the late 1960s was that of The Altamont Free Festival. Similarly to Woodstock, Altamont was a free festival for fans to come and watch and was ultimately held at the Altamont Speedway in California. The event took place in the last days of the decade on December 6, 1969.
The headliner for Altamont was The Rolling Stones, one of the largest groups of the decade, and they were to be sharing the stage with many other famous artists. Many of the members of the lineup had also performed at Woodstock a couple of months earlier including The Grateful Dead (who would end up not performing over concerns for their own safety) as well as Santana, Jefferson Airplane, CSNY and more.
The best way to explain how poorly Altamont went is to compare it to Woodstock since not only were their issues the opposite of the outcomes of Woodstock but also because Altamont was intended to be the “West Coast Woodstock”. So what was so bad about Altamont? Well, there was not much planning behind the festival at Altamont whereas ones like Woodstock were more carefully planned by well-funded individuals. They were not able to figure out much of the logistics of the event since they only pinned down the speedway a couple of days before the event actually took place. And finally, Altamont, although it was intended to be the West Coast Woodstock, it did not end up being remembered for peace and love but for anger and violence. But why is that?
As a result of the last minute planning and decision making, someone thought to help with budget concerns, it would be a good idea to hire the Hells Angel’s motorcycle gang members to be security for the event. This was the worst decision they could have possibly made. The Angel’s were violent, aggressive and hard to control. This led to the stabbing of the armed audience member, Meredith Hunter, by one of the Hell’s Angel’s. The worst part is that his murder was caught on film by the Rolling Stones Documentarian while he was filming to make the documentary Gimme Shelter about the tour they were just finishing. Below is a video of the Rolling Stones Performing “Under My Thumb” as part of their performance to conclude the Altamont Free Festival. For sake of sensitivity, the below video cuts out right before the murder of Meredith Hunter but still exhibits the chaotic nature of the Festival as a whole leading up to his passing.
As one can see, music festivals were a significant landmark feature of the culture of the decade by exhibiting the music, people, and general attitudes of the decade. From the originals such as Monterey to the iconic Woodstock Festival to the symbolic and literal end to the decade of peace and love with the Altamont Free Festival, all of these events managed to somehow shape the tail end of the decade in some way and show the progression of the careers of many of the decades favorite artists as well. In the end, there is no better microcosm to explain the cultural influence of the 1960s on music and history than the major music festivals of the late decade.
