Chapter 14 half a million people together

Due to the confusion at the beginning, the order of appearance of the originally scheduled bands was all messed up.In order to save money, Vidley, who was in charge of photography, and Martin Scorsese, who later became an assistant to a major Hollywood director, originally formulated a detailed shooting plan, only shooting the singing of famous bands, but now this plan doesn't work at all.Macdonald's "FUCK" song was not fully shot.However, as can be seen in later releases of the film, the camera team did a great job.Through this three-hour film, people can see the sincere singing of folk singer Sebastian; Baez calling on people to stand up against the war in singing; Santana and his Latin rock band playing passionately; CSN&Y's beautiful harmony; "Ten Years Later" band's wild blues guitar; Joe Cocker's convulsive expression; Arlo Guthrie's country singing; "Jefferson Airplane" is slightly tired (they were on stage at eight o'clock in the morning); and Janis Joplin's visibly drugged yells.

Still, it's what happens off the stage that moviegoers are most interested in. What people see on the screen are rows of vehicles abandoned on the roadside; shirtless young men marching towards Jacob's farm; crowds of spectators singing and dancing with tambourines in a circle; and those naked child running back and forth on the grass.People can also see the excited expressions of Lange and Kornfield; "Rolling Broth" opened its toothless mouth to announce that breakfast is ready; local residents interviewed expressed different views on the music festival; a The excrement workers doing their jobs honestly; a few hippies passing marijuana to each other; middle school students queuing up to call their parents to report that they are safe; the crying of a girl who lost her friend; Man tells his story to journalist.

But the most touching thing is probably the scene of people playing on slides in muddy water.Two storms fell during the festival, turning the whole farm into a mud pot.People tried their best to hide from the rain at first, but seeing that they couldn't hide, they simply enjoyed the baptism of the heavy rain. People lined up and rushed to a mud pit in turn, just like children playing on a slide, making their bodies covered in muddy water. But everyone is very happy and happy.Tired of playing, I went to the lake behind the farm to take a natural "mineral bath". All men and women were naked, but there was no distraction. Everyone played in the water like children, as if they had returned to the Garden of Eden.

Of course, there were some not-so-good things going on at the festival. Let's revisit the following shots, scenes that were not included or detailed in the famous documentary, but which can show the deeper side of the festival: Shot 1: A garbage truck drives past a pile of garbage without noticing a person sleeping in a dirty sleeping bag.As a result, a seventeen-year-old boy from New Jersey was run over to death.Another person at the festival died from a heroin overdose.However, people later agreed that it was a miracle that only two people died in such a large-scale mass event held in the turbulent 1960s, and both of them could be regarded as accidents.

Shot 2: Drugs were, inevitably, the number one issue at the festival from the start.The sound of selling marijuana and LSD can be heard everywhere on the farm.The air is always full of the smell of marijuana. A yellow LSD tablet has caused more than 400 cases of "vicious hallucinations" due to its impure ingredients. Fortunately, the members of the "Little Pig Farm" present are very experienced with this disease On encountering such a patient, instead of giving them an antidote (which would be worse), they grab the patient's hand and talk to them constantly to make them realize that they are not alone.In the end, none of the four hundred patients left any sequelae.However, there are many drug dealers selling hard drugs to people at music festivals, and it is here that many people get their first taste of heroin.Later, many historians believed that the reason why this music festival was so peaceful and there were no troubles was that almost all the audience present were "high" under the stimulation of a certain drug, and everyone was dizzy all day long. You are in a psychedelic state, how can you have any thoughts to make trouble?

Scene 3: Due to excessive use, the temporary toilets were quickly full, and the roads were blocked, and the cleaning vehicles could not come in. As a result, many toilets in the site were "flooded with excrement smell", and many people had to run to the farmland of the nearby ordinary people solve the problem.Encountered the intervention of local farmers, they also plausibly said: "It's good if you don't care about the money for fertilization!" In order to prevent the heavy rain from turning the farm into a huge septic tank, the organizing committee had to dig A big pit, pour all the excrement into the pit.Although many chemicals were added, it still couldn't cover up the strong smell.Probably this is one of the reasons why everyone smokes marijuana desperately.

Shot 4: Because there were too many people, all the sixteen food stalls that had been set up were full of people. However, the members of the "Food for Love" organization were well prepared, and there was no major disturbance.But the next day, a group of members of radical organizations began to smash up the place in an organized way and rob food. They accused "Food for Love" of charging too much, but the quality of the food sold was not good.After a round of looting, twelve booths were destroyed.Later, after a heavy rain, a lot of food stored in the open air was spoiled, and the organizing committee had to dispatch a helicopter to deliver the food to the farm.The local people also took the initiative to share the food stored at home.Although they disagreed with the hippies, they believed in this: Children must not go hungry!But the biggest contributors are the members of "Little Pig Farm".They have stockpiled a large amount of cheap peanuts, coconut meat, melon seeds, oats, raisins, flour and sugar in advance. When the time comes, they only need to put them into the pot, add water and boil them into a paste, which is convenient and nutritious. "Little Pig Farm" used such a crude method to feed most of the audience.

Shot 5: Hoffman and his "different skins" have never forgotten to publicize their ideals.They set up a propaganda station in the venue and distributed leaflets to the passing crowd.Probably thinking that this method was not effective, Hoffman rushed to the stage again, took down a microphone, and called on the audience present to support the "White Leopard Party" (a white radical organization in the 1960s that used violent means to resist race) who was in prison. Discrimination Policy) Chief Sinclair.It just so happened that it was the Who's turn to sing, and the band's guitarist, Pete Townsend, didn't know Hoffman.Seeing someone snatching the microphone, Townsend picked up the electric guitar and threw it at the person's head without saying a word, and one guy knocked him offstage.No one has seen Hoffman at the festival since.

Shot 6: Most of the 300 New York police officers who use pseudonyms have never experienced such a scene. These people are especially interested in "slutty" female hippies. Many police officers have given up their jobs and chased girls everywhere.The law and order at the scene was almost completely handed over to the volunteers recruited temporarily by the "Little Pig Farm". "Broth" gave everyone an armband and stipulated a code word: "I forgot".The hippie cops treated most of the audience with laissez-faire, hands off all but the outrageous, which turned out to be perhaps one of the smartest policies the organizing committee had ever adopted.Later, Jacob was invited to the stage to say a sentence to the audience that summed it up well. He said to the cheering crowd: "I think you have proved to the world that half a million children can gather together." Together, enjoy three days of fun and music without any trouble!"

Scene 7: Contrary to the innocent smiles on the faces of the audience, many bands and their managers did not perform so well.These people live in the specially built artist lounge, where they eat and drink hot food, and they are picked up by helicopters when they come and go, so they don't lose anything.Even so, when the news spread that the music festival was destined to lose money, many managers went to the organizing committee to ask for the full remuneration in advance, for fear that the organizing committee would renege on the excuse of losing money.Not only that, they don't even trust the checks issued by the organizing committee, they only accept cash or checks guaranteed by the bank, otherwise they will stop the performance.At that time, the organizing committee really had no cash. Fortunately, an accountant accidentally remembered that he once locked an extra blank bank guaranteed check book in a drawer in the office.For this reason, the organizing committee specially sent him to the office by helicopter and got the check book, so the scandal of the band strike did not happen.In fact, later developments have proved that no matter how much the band that comes to perform is paid, it will eventually make a lot of money.Just like the Montreal Music Festival two years ago, the popularity of all the bands who participated in the performance soared immediately afterwards, and the performance opportunities continued.Especially the three of Havens, Santana and Joe Cocker, because of their outstanding performance at Woodstock, their appearance fees have all doubled several times in the future.Although the organizing committee worked hard for a long time, Bob Dylan did not appear on the Woodstock stage in the end.It turned out that his agent, Grossman, arranged for him to perform in the UK. This is a concert scheduled to be held on the Isle of Wight in the UK a week after the Woodstock Music Festival. $14,000 to appear.Although the British fans put out enthusiastic slogans such as "Come and sink the Isle of Wight with Dylan!", Dylan's performance was not passionate, and the performance of the "band" was also lackluster, which made the 150,000 people present The audience shouted that they were fooled.

Scene 8: Although the music festival is a great success, the life of the organizers of the performance is not so easy.Immediately after the end of the music festival, the organizing committee received about 80 lawsuits of various kinds. Although most of the lawsuits were settled in the end, it still caused the organizing committee a headache for a long time.According to the accounts released by the organizing committee later, the music festival spent a total of 3.4 million US dollars, while the income was only 1.3 million US dollars, a loss of 2 million!Although many people later accused the organizing committee of having false elements in the figures released, it should be true that they lost a lot of money.In the end, it was Roberts' father who used the money earned from the toothpaste factory to fill the shortfall for his son, so that he didn't force him to file for bankruptcy protection.In order to maximize their own interests, the four founders sued each other for the right to use the name Woodstock, and the friendship established at the beginning of the business disappeared.