Woodstock: The music festival that wanted to change the world - why it still matters in 2025
Ahead of the 56th anniversary of the iconic Woodstock music festival, we take a look at how the event remains relevant today.
It is 56 years this week since the Woodstock Music and Art Fair - better known simply as Woodstock - brought hundreds of thousands of revellers to a dairy farm in New York State, under the billing: “3 Days of Peace & Music”.
Who played at Woodstock?
Beginning on August 15, 1969, the music festival saw a raft of iconic acts take to the stage in Bethel, a tiny town located some 90 miles from New York City. The list of big-name performers was extensive: The Who, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix…
The brainchild of a group of 20-somethings led by the music executive Artie Kornfeld and the concert promoter Michael Lang, Woodstock was originally intended as a paid event.
However, logistical issues over ticketing led the organizers to make the late call to turn it into a free event - and it’s estimated that around half a million people descended on the site of the festival.
“The community spirit never broke”
Woodstock was beset by poor weather; notably, Cocker’s concert was hit by a huge rainstorm. “The skies burst with a particularly vicious, soaking rain, swamping everything and turning the entirety of Woodstock Nation into an enormous mud pit,” says the Woodstock Museum.
“But instead of ruining the festival, it became part of its legendary charm,” reads a post on a prominent social-media page dedicated to commemorating Woodstock. “The community spirit never broke. People laughed, danced barefoot in the mud, and even slid down hills for fun.”
Rolling Stone, which included Woodstock on its list of “50 moments that changed the history of rock & roll”, agrees. “Woodstock pulled off the ultimate magic act of the 1960s,” the music magazine says: “Turning utter rain-soaked chaos into the greatest rock festival ever and the decade’s most famous and successful experiment in peace and community.”
As can be heard in a Woodstock retrospective by the BBC series The Documentary, one PA announcement told festival-goers: “The man next to you is your brother - and you damn well better treat each other that way.”
Peace and unity amid major conflict
Woodstock’s message of togetherness came against the backdrop of a period in U.S. history marked by tremendous conflict. The country was in the midst of a bloody war in Vietnam, while the 1960s had also witnessed significant societal division over the civil rights movement.
Indeed, the civil rights leader Martin Luther King had been assassinated just over a year before Woodstock.
In the six years before the festival, the U.S. had also endured the killings of President John F. Kennedy, in 1963, and of his brother Robert, then a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, in 1968.
Five and a half decades on, Woodstock’s immense historical significance as a music event is evident.
But, just as importantly - amid devastating wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and with the U.S. a nation seemingly as divided as ever - the music festival’s call for unity and peace remains as relevant now as it was then, writes the USA Today Network journalist Stephen Israel.
Woodstock message rings true today in divided America
“The idea of what it has come to symbolize - a peaceful, compassionate and joyous gathering - lives on,” says Israel.
“We may be as bitterly divided as we were in 1969, but nearly 9 in 10 of us believe in those values of compassion and respect for one another despite our differences,” Israel adds, citing a 2023 poll by researchers at the University of Chicago.
These differences have been starkly illustrated by recent surveys. In June, for example, a poll carried out by YouGov found that 78% of Americans believe the country has become increasingly politically divided in recent years.
What’s more, an Ipsos survey conducted as President Donald Trump took office in January - six months after surviving an assassination attempt - painted a picture of a marked split in public opinion on key issues.
For instance, 46% stated their support for Trump’s promise to impose aggressive import tariffs on products from overseas - a policy which, as things stand, has been one of the defining features of the 79-year-old’s second term in the White House. Fifty percent, meanwhile, said they opposed Trump’s tariffs.
Bethel Woods Center keeps legacy alive
Since Woodstock came to a close early on the morning of August 18, 1969, there have been two anniversary festivals - in 1994 and 1999 - while a third, slated for 2019, was cancelled. What’s more, a cultural center built on the site of the Bethel event now works to preserve its fundamental message.
Opened in 2006, the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts says it seeks to build on Woodstock’s “rich history of peace and music by providing extraordinary experiences and access to the arts”.
Aside from a museum dedicated to the festival, Bethel Woods has a 16,000-seat amphitheater, a 422-seat indoor venue, and a conservatory and studios, as part of its mission to make “music, visual, performing and creative arts programming available and accessible to the community, helping people of all ages discover and tap into their creative potential.”
And as Israel notes, Woodstock’s legacy has also endured linguistically. Just as the Watergate affair from the early 1970s has led the suffix “gate” to denote a scandal, “stock” can be added to the end of a word to symbolise “any peaceful, joyous gathering”.
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