Remembering Woodstock: Songs from A Seminal Event in an Upstate Pasture

When rain washed out the second day of the Miami Pop Festival in May 1968, it would prove good training for promoter Michael Lang, who had organized the gathering of 25,000 at Hallandale’s Gulfstream Park. Lang, an NYU dropout who moved to Coconut Grove in 1967 to open a head shop, would relocate to upstate New York the following year and become the driving force for a three-day music festival in a cow pasture that became a seminal moment for a generation. Woodstock, expected to attract 50,000 people, drew nearly a half million, clogging traffic throughout the region and shutting down the Newburgh and Harriman exits on New York State Thruway. The festival became a marvel of peaceful coexistence and a symbol of Sixties’ communal values successfully applied. The music, by Crosby, Stills and Nash, Country Joe MacDonald, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence and others, became the soundtrack of a generation.

The PinkSlip Duo (Joan Friedenberg and Bill Bowen) will take you down the traffic-snarled road to Woodstock and examine this pop culture milestone, with slides illustrating the story and live music lending a concert flavor to the program. As always, PinkSlip will project lyrics for audience sing-along. Wear your tie-dye, but, sorry, weed not provided.