Woodstock Counterculture

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Peace and music over powered the 600-acre dairy farm in the town of Bethel, New York 46 years ago. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was a festival known as an “Aquarian Exposition of three days.” For an audience of 400,000 people, 32 acts performed outdoors. Woodstock was a crucial moment in music history as it changed the world of rock ‘n’ roll. The festival connected the 1960s counterculture generation through the power of music. Art and new ideas were the main historical force that changed society August 15th through the 17th in 1969, leaving a powerful influence on the Western world between the late 1960s and mid 1970s. Hippies, also known as the counterculture, were longhaired people who wore bright colors and held up peace signs. The counterculture came to be in the early 1960s. They lived mostly in hippie districts located in San Francisco, New York City, and Old Town Chicago. Gardens, head shops, and music …show more content…

The crowd was filled with 400,000 people who were part of the counterculture generation. They watched 32 artists perform over the three-day weekend. Janis Joplin, Santana, Grateful Dead, and Jimi Hendrix were some of the many who played for the massive crowd. Muddy roads and fields caused facilities to not be accessible or provide sanitation and first aid to the large amount of concertgoers. On Sunday, August 17th, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller called Roberts and told him he wanted to order “10,000 New York State National Guard troops to the Woodstock festival.” Roberts was able to convince Rockefeller not to order in the troops, but the Sullivan County entered a state of emergency and had the nearby Air Force Base help airlift the performers out of the grounds. Jimi Hendrix was the last performer and didn’t go on stage until Monday morning at 8:30. The audience was now only 30,000 people who wanted to catch a glimpse of Hendrix before leaving

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