Gary James' Interview With The Author Of Woodstock: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Mike Greenblatt



He was there. That's right, Mike Greenblatt attended the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. He chronicles the Woodstock experience in a new book titled Woodstock 50th Anniversary: Back To Yasgur's Farm. Mike Greenblatt spoke to us about what it was like to be at Woodstock.

Q - Mike, when did you first hear about Woodstock and what did you hear about it?

A - We first heard about Woodstock on the radio with the advertisements and we didn't really think about going because we were going to see Led Zeppelin in Asbury Park, New Jersey at Convention Hall. But the constant advertising with all of these bands, and we loved all of them already, we had to go. All of those bands at one place at one time. So we went to a head shop in Bloomfield, New Jersey called The Last Straw and bought our tickets. $17.50 for all three days, and we drove up a day early.

Q - When you say "we", do you mean a girlfriend or one of your friends?

A - I did not have a girlfriend at the time. I went with my friend, Neil.

Q - Were you a photographer back then?

A - Nope. I was not. I was just a fan, just an 18-year-old, long-haired Hippie pothead.

Q - How long did you stay at Woodstock?

A - We were there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, into Monday. We saw twenty-seven of the thirty-two bands.

Q - Did you see Jimi Hendrix?

A - Hardly anybody saw Jimi Hendrix. He played to a sea of garbage. Maybe 20,000 stragglers were still left. We tried to stay, but we couldn't. We were cold and wet, hungry and thirsty and had to go to the bathroom. We were very uncomfortable. Thursday, Friday, Saturday was idyllic. We had so much fin. Sunday was a nightmare. We stayed as long as we possibly could.

Q - Why was Thursday, Friday and Saturday so good?

A - I mean, we were filled with the spirit. Everybody was so friendly. We were talking politics. People were sharing their pot and their food and their water, their soda. I was meeting friends. They became instant best friends at the time. The music was great. Our spot in front of the stage was outrageously close to the stage. We were at the head of it all practically. Out of 500,000 people we were maybe a couple of hundred people from the stage. We could see the faces of the artists. But then of course Sunday, after Joe Cocker, it all turned. It was just a nightmare.

Q - You're talking about the rain storm?

A - Yeah, the monsoon blew through and the music stopped. Neil left to go find a phone booth to call our moms to tell them that we were alright. And I was alone. The acid started kicking in. I became paranoid and it became gray and it poured. All our stuff was back at the car. We didn't even know where the car was. I was trapped. I didn't want to leave the spot because Neil would never find me again. So, it wasn't fun anymore. I got really upset. I was tripping. So, I stood there.

Q - When you would leave that spot to say go to the bathroom or buy food, how did you save that spot?

A - First of all, there was no food. And there were no bathrooms. There was nothing to drink. The last time I went to buy food at a hotdog stand was early Saturday morning. Maybe it was Saturday afternoon. They told me, "We're out of hotdogs." I said, "Okay. Where do I go? Who's the next hotdog stand?" They said, "Nobody has any food left. We're done. There's no food." I freaked out. "How could there be no food? C'mon! Any soda?" "No. No more sodas." There was no such thing as bottled water back then. It would've been a lot easier with bottled water and cell phones. But I had to subsist on the largesse of our neighbors. We had that spot and one of us left. We were constantly coming and going. But one of stayed there to keep the spot 'cause it was such a good spot. The people to the left of us had a big flag that they planted with a peace sign on it, so we always looked for that flag. That was our barometer as to where we were so we could find our way back. I went swimming and came back. I found the flag. Neil left to call our moms and came back. We would leave for different reasons, but we always found our way back to where we were because of that flag. Out of 500,000 people, maybe we were like 80 or 90 people from the stage itself. So, it was a great spot. The best seat in the house, so to speak.

Q - Being so close to the stage, did you ever have the opportunity to speak to any of the performers?

A - That didn't happen. I conducted thirty-two interviews for the writing of this book and it was the first time I had ever spoken to these artists.

Q - How do you explain the fact that, given the conditions you've described at Woodstock, people were so peaceful? Today they'd probably riot.

A - Yeah. That's why this event is mythical. That's why it's still being talked about half a century later. 500,000 people had never gathered in one spot at one time I think in history. Throw in the lack of food, water and bathrooms, throw in horrible weather on Sunday, and throw in the fact there was no security, there were no police. It was the second largest city in New York State for four days, but there was no police. There was not one reported instance of violence. Impossible!

Q - Michael Lang, the promoter of Woodstock got very lucky. Had there been violence, Woodstock would've been talked about in a much different way.

A - It could've been a catastrophe. There were so many possibilities for it to be a catastrophe. In the middle of the night, in the black of the night, someone could've got crazed. If one person had a gun or knife like at Altamont and people would've started running in all directions... I can't believe what might have happened. Governor Rockefeller wanted to send in the National Guard to disperse us all. Imagine if that happened. Like Nixon sent the National Guard to Kent State where four students were killed, or Rockefeller shortly thereafter sent the National Guard to quell a riot at Attica Prison. Thirty-two people died. I can't begin to imagine what would've happened had not one the heroes of Woodstock, one of the behind the scenes heroes, John Morris, who was always the adult in the room, who booked the bands, who was on stage talking us down, talking to us to hold on to each other; I mean, him and Chip Monck, the two hosts were unbelievable and gave us a sense of continuity and community. As long as they were talking to us, we felt okay. Also, the concept of music as salvation started for me when I was 18 at Woodstock and continues to this day. In other words, as long as the music is playing, everything is going to be alright. No matter how uncomfortable we are, no matter what the situation is in the audience, as long as the music's playing, everything will be fine. And that originated at Woodstock.

Q - Did you see Janis Joplin?

A - Sure did.

Q - How was she that night?

A - She was pretty good, but the band was raggedy. It wasn't Big Brother. It was The Kozmic Blues Band. They weren't that wonderful. She was great. And just to see her was great. But the band wasn't that good. In fact, the next band made 'em look like rank amateurs in comparison, the band after Janis Joplin. Sly And The Family Stone. They had to be my favorite, number one band of all four days because as a White kid growing up in Newark, New Jersey, I had never seen such hard Rock with Funk and the horn section and the craziness that was going on, the carnivalesque atmosphere they they engendered. I know it sounds like a cliche, but we were throwing up peace signs. We were chanting "Higher! Higher!" He kept telling us to chant that word and dancing. I had to pee so bad, I'll never forget it. I found a bottle on the ground and I peed in the bottle. I remember joking to my friends around me, "I'm taking a leak on the Sly." (laughs)

Q - Did you see Canned Heat?

A - Oh, man. Canned Heat was unbelievable. You know the Heavy Metal people seem to have garnered the reputation for head banging. No way. They didn't invent head banging. Canned Heat invented head banging. Look at the movie. They were head banging like crazy on stage and so were we in the audience. That was one of the coolest, greatest sets at Woodstock. That pounding Blues and Boogie. We loved it!

Q - And Santana?

A - Oh, man. I had seem Santana about a week and half earlier on the same tour at the Singer Bowl, at the site of the old World's Fair in '64, right in front of that unisphere by Shea Stadium. They opened for Buddy Miles and the band called Pacific Gas And Electric. And they blew me away! I said to Neil, "I saw this band already. I'm gonna go scope the place out and walk around," but I listened to them. Obviously you could hear them, but I didn't really concentrate on their set. I sort of wish I had concentrated more because history has shown that that was one of the more iconic sets of the weekend. Nobody knew who they were. Their first album wasn't even out. Carlos was tripping on mescaline. Everything was aligned for them to have a poor set, but no, no. Especially "Soul Sacrifice". Michael Shrieve, the drummer, barely 20 years old, took one of the greatest drum solos in Rock history that day. Drum solos are sort of passe. It's like it's time to go to the bathroom during the drum solo. (laughs)

Q - I should've asked this earlier, but when you got to Woodstock a day early, what were you expecting to experience?

A - That's just it. We didn't know. We had never been to a Rock festival before. We didn't know what we were getting into. We packed the car for four days of camping with a tent, blankets, towels, toothbrush, toothpaste. My mom made like a dozen sandwiches, canteens filled with water, a bag of pot, a Monopoly board, books. We were stocked! Clothing. They showed us where to park. We did not abandon our car on Route 17-B like so many people did. We drove right there. Luckily we went a day early. I mean, the traffic jam was so bad a day early that at one point we stopped for so long that we played a game of Monopoly on the roof of the car before we even moved again. But even that was fun because people got out of their cars and were strumming their guitars. It was like the world's biggest tailgate party. The point is we didn't know what to expect. I said to Neil, "Let me roll a quick joint. We'll go down to the stage. We'll scope it out. We'll see where it is. We'll come back and get everything." Huh! We never got back to the car. All our stuff, all our clothing, soap, food, water, pot, they stayed unopened for four straight days.

Q - After Woodstock, did you feel that something special just happened?

A - We were still in the moment so much so that I hadn't really thought about it to digest what just happened. We were so infused with the spirit of changing the world. Politics was a big subtext and the person sitting next to you with long hair was your brother. You knew he was against the war and for women's liberation and civil rights and against President Nixon and Governor Reagan in California. It was us against them. We knew we were the generation that was the dividing point between all previous generations. We didn't know what we had just experienced. I'll tell you one thing, we knew the whole world was watching. Once it got past a certain point, we knew that that this was news. This was an event that was different from any other event in the history of the world. We had that sensation that the whole world was watching.

Q - The news coverage at the time was negative. It was only when the Woodstock film came out that the pubic got an understanding of what occurred.

A - Yeah, because all they heard was it was declared a disaster area. "Traffic Snarls Hippiefest" was the big headline. The fact that there was not enough food, water or bathrooms was the only thing the media wrote about at the time. That's why my mother was so afraid for us and upset. That's why she cried when I got home and I end the book with her tears as a metaphor for the older generation trying to understand us. A lot of negativity. They didn't understand that it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that I found like-minded souls. Like Paul Simon, "Going to look for America." We found our America.

Q - One photographer I interviewed said Woodstock was iconic.

A - Many of the artists I spoke to for the book told me the same thing, that the real show was in the crowd.

Q - And the crowd estimates, 400,000, 500,000. I've heard as many as a million people were there.

A - Yeah. It was hard to believe. They just kept coming and they kept coming and they kept coming. There are estimates that are a lot more than 500,000. Some people say there was up to 800,000. There's aerial photography that the New York State Police took that would show there was more than 500,000. Bill Graham, by the way, was very gracious in giving Michael Lang his entire staff. Bill Hanley, the Father Of Festival Sound, should be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. He had to make sure that the people all the way at the top of the hill could hear while not blasting out the people like us in the front. And he did. How did it, I don't know. But the sound is really amazingly good for 1969 and for the fact that everyone was getting shocks from the microphones and it was wet. The sound was unbelievably good.

Q - You paid for your ticket to Woodstock. Other people just walked in. Were you mad about that?

A - Hell, no. I had no idea of all that. We paid as I said, $17.50 for the three days and when we got there, there was no one to give our tickets to. There were no gates. The gates never even got up. So we threw our tickets away. And then after Thursday night, making friends and just hanging out in front of the stage, waiting for tomorrow, I got up Friday morning and turned around and saw all these people. "Neil, wake up! Wake up! Look at this!" We were at the front of what seemed like millions and millions of people. I've never seen so many people in one spot before. What a rush! We couldn't believe it. The fact that we paid for our tickets and other people didn't never even crossed my mind.

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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