- Interviewer: What do you think about the kids?
- Police Officer: From what I've heard from the outside sources for many years I was very, very much surprised and I'm very happy to say we think the people of this country should be proud of these kids, not withstanding the way they dress or the way they wear their hair, that's their own personal business; but their, their inner workings, their inner selves, their, their self-demeanour cannot be questioned; they can't be questioned as good American citizens.
- Interviewer: That's kind of surprising coming from a cop.
- Police Officer: [smiling] I'm not a cop, I'm the Chief of Police.
- Max Yasgur: [to crowd, puts up the peace sign] I'm a farmer. I don't know - I don't know how to speak to 20 people at one time, let alone a crowd like this! But I think you people have proven something to the world! Not only to the town of Bethel or Sullivan County or New York State, you've proven something to the world. This is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place. We have had no idea that there would be this size group, and because of that you've had quite a few inconveniences as far as water and food and so forth. Your producers have done a mammoth job to see that you're taken care of... they would enjoy a vote of thanks. But above that, the important thing that you've proven to the world is that a half a million kids, and I call you kids because I have children that are older than you are, a half a million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing *but* fun and music, and I God bless you for it!
- David Crosby: This is our second gig.
- Stephen Stills: This is the second time we've ever played in front of people, man, we're scared shitless.
- Hugh "Wavy Gravy" Romney: [speaking to the crowd] Good morning! What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for four hundred thousand. Now, it's not going to be steak and eggs, or anything, but it's going to be good food and we're going to get it to you. It's not just the Hog Farm, either. It's like the Ohio Mountain family and the Pranksters, and everybody else that volunteered putting in their time into the free kitchens. In fact, it's everybody. We're all feeding each other. We must be in heaven, man! There's always a little bit of heaven in a disaster area. So, if you want to make it back to your campsites, we'll try and get the food to you. Or if you stay here, we'll try and get the food to you. Now, there's a guy up there, some hamburger guy had his stand burned down last night. But he's still got a little stuff left, and for you people that still believe that capitalism isn't that weird, you might help him out and buy a couple of hamburgers.
- Blue Bandana Girl: About 30 hours at least.
- Interviewer: Thirty hours straight? No naps?
- Blue Bandana Girl: No naps.
- Interviewer: Are you on speed?
- Blue Bandana Girl: No. I'm not on anything.
- Interviewer: On blind faith.
- Blue Bandana Girl: Blind Faith is a groovy group.
- Hugh "Wavy Gravy" Romney: Now, people been sayin' that some of the acid is poison. It's not poison! It's just bad acid. It's manufactured poorly. So, anybody that thinks they've taken some poison: forget it! And if you feel like experimenting, only take half a tab, okay? Thank you.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: The warning that I received, you may take with however many grains of salt you wish, that the brown acid that is circulating around us, is specifically not too good. It's suggested that you do stay away from that; of course, it's your own trip, so, be my guest. But, please be advised that there is a warning on that one.
- Richie Havens: There are a hundred million songs gonna be sung tonight. All of them are going to be singing about the same thing, which I hope, everybody who came, came to hear. Really. And it's all about you. Actually. And me and everybody around the stage and everybody that hasn't gotten here and the people that are gonna read about you tomorrow. Yes! And how really groovy you were. All over the world! If you can dig where that's at.
- Artie Kornfeld - Music Promoter: Somebody was saying this is the second largest city in New York. There's been no police. There's been no trouble. If you check the statistics out, you'll find out these people at three hundred plus thousand people have lived together peacefully.
- Interviewer: What are they doing?
- Artie Kornfeld - Music Promoter: They're dropping, they're dropping flowers and dry clothes.
- Interviewer: From the helicopter?
- Artie Kornfeld - Music Promoter: Out of the helicopter.
- Interviewer: You're in the red?
- Artie Kornfeld, Music Promoter: Oh, the company? Financially, it's hard to think on those terms, when you're talking about something like this. Financially, this is a disaster.
- Interviewer: But, you look so happy?
- Artie Kornfeld, Music Promoter: I'm very happy.
- Micheal Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: Look what you got there, man. You couldn't buy that for anything.
- Artie Kornfeld, Music Promoter: Sure. This is really beautiful, man.
- Micheal Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: These people are communicating with each other. That rarely happens anywhere, anymore.
- Artie Kornfeld, Music Promoter: It's got nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with tangible things.
- Stephen Stills: Hey, man, I just gotta say, that you people have gotta be the strongest bunch of people I ever saw. Three days, man! Three days! We just love ya. We just love ya.
- John Sebastian: There's a cat and I really don't even know his name; but, I remember that Chip said that, that his old lady just had a baby! And that made me think, wow, it really is a city, here. But this is, this is for you and your old lady, man, and - whoo - that kid's gonna be far out.
- [singing]
- John Sebastian: Why must every generation think their folks are square...
- Male Bethel Resident #2: Saturday night we got word over at WVOS that a lot of kids in town didn't have anything to eat. Word went out that everybody should contribute food. We went over to the park and the village permitted them to camp there. A police car come up the street here with loud speaker and told the kids to come up there. And we fed them Saturday night and all day Sunday. Excess stuff was taken over to the school and they flew it to the site.
- Interviewer: How do you feel about it?
- Male Bethel Resident #2: Very good. I have a 19 year old myself. He's out on the coast and I felt you gotta give 'em a fair shake here. If kids are hungry, you gotta feed 'em.
- Interviewer: Well, you're doin' a good job here.
- Port-O-San Maintenance Man: Thank you very much. Glad to do it for these kids. My son's here too and I got one over in Vietnam too. He's up in the DMZ right now with all the flying helicopters.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: I was gonna wait awhile, but, before we talked about it. But, maybe we'll talk about it now so you can think about it. Its a free concert from now on! That doesn't mean that anything goes. But, what that means is we're gonna put the music up here for free. What is means is the people who are putting, backing this thing, who are putting up the money for it are gonna take a bit of a bath - a big bath. That's no hype, that's truth! They're gonna get hurt. But, what it means is these people have it in their heads, that you're welfare is a hulluva lot more important and the music is, than a dollar.
- Country Joe McDonald: Gimme an F!
- Crowd: F!
- Country Joe McDonald: Gimme a U!
- Crowd: U!
- Country Joe McDonald: Gimme a C!
- Crowd: C!
- Country Joe McDonald: Gimme a K!
- Crowd: K!
- Country Joe McDonald: What's that spell?
- Crowd: FUCK!
- [first lines]
- Interviewer: Okay. Go ahead.
- Sidney Westerfield, Local merchant: My name is Sidney Westerfield. I'm the owner of this antique tavern, Mongaup Valley, New York State. I was here when this crowd really came. We expected 50,000 a day and there must have been a million. I, myself, was hungry for two days because I couldn't get any food! I couldn't go out to buy any food.
- [laughs]
- Sidney Westerfield, Local merchant: I was eatin' cornflakes for two days. And the kids were wonderful. I had no kick. It was, "Sir, this" and "Sir, that" and "Thank you, this" and "Thank you, that." Nobody can complain about the kids. This thing was too big.
- [laughs]
- Sidney Westerfield, Local merchant: It was too big for the world. Nobody has ever seen a thing like this. And when they see this picture in the news-, in the, well, over the, moving pictures, they'll really see something.
- Interviewer: Are you in charge of the whole thing?
- Micheal Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: Yeah.
- Interviewer: But, you got backers.
- Micheal Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: Yeah. Partners and backers.
- Interviewer: Yes. Where are you gonna go from here? I mean, are you gonna do another one?
- Micheal Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: If it works!
- Jerry Garcia: It's really amazing, man, it looks like some kind of biblical, epical, unbelievable scene. They're all, you know, you see these cars, they're all like strewn on the sides of the roads, from the helicopter, in all different angles. They look like jack straws and stuff like that. There's just this continual flow of people, just right in the street, just going along.
- Interviewer: About numbers, tell me, about how many do you expect?
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: Two hundred thousand.
- Interviewer: Two hundred thousand people here over the three days.
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: Right.
- Interviewer: Where will you put 'em?
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: We have contracted for land surrounding the area. Setting up camp grounds, water facilities, toilets, electric. food.
- Interviewer: What does it cost to put one of these things together?
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: A fortune!
- Interviewer: You have to make two million dollars to break even?
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: Well, if we are going to break even, you know. The point is that it's happened and it's working, you know.
- Interviewer: Yeah.
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: And that's enough for now.
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: Music has always been a major form of communication, only, now, the lyric and the type of music is a little bit more involved in the society than it was.
- Interviewer: If you could tell me that if I could run your voice over while this music's playing, what that music is saying, kind of, what that music's about?
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: It's about what's happening now. If you listen to the lyric and you listen to the, to the rhythm, and what's in the music, then you'll know what's going on with the culture. I gotta split on you.
- Interviewer: Great. Groovy. Thanks.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: We apologize for the, em, the noise of the choppity-chop... It seems there are a few cars blocking the road. So, we're flying everybody in! I almost made the worst pun of the world about high musicians, but, we'll skip that.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: Can those of you in the back - hear well? Raise your hands, please. It's alright? Thank you.
- Richie Havens: [singing] Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, A long way from my home. Singing freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom...
- Artie Kornfeld, Music Promoter: Just to see the lights go on last night, man, and to see the, to see the people stand up, man, it makes it worth it. It's a, you know, I mean, you know there will be, I mean, there's people out there that really don't dig it. Very few of them man. But, you know, it really is to the point where it's just family, man.
- Hugh "Wavy Gravy" Romney: Yeah. Yeah. My name is Hugh Romney. I'm with the Hog Farm. And I'm workin' on a scene some people call it bum trips. I don't think there's such a thing as a bum trip. We're working with hobo voyages. A half an hour after we release anybody from our section we turn them into doctors and they care for people that were trippin' like they were when they came in.
- Joan Baez: Who's on?
- Festival Staff: I guy named Bert Sommer and, I think, Timmy Hardin is going on next.
- Joan Baez: So, the order of everything is just kapooey?
- Festival Staff: You close tonight. You're closing.
- Joan Baez: Okay. Maybe they'll be a few more people here by then. I don't don't want to close a puny gathering like this.
- Joan Baez: [speaking to the audience about her husband] I was happy to find out that after David had been in jail for two and a half weeks, he already had a very, very good hunger strike going with 42 federal prisoners, none of whom were draft people.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: Maybe the best thing for everybody to do, unless you have a tent or some place specific to go to, is carve yourself out a piece of territory, say goodnight to your neighbor, and say thank you to yourself for making this the most peaceful, most pleasant day anybodies ever had in this kind of music.
- Interviewer: Are you two going together or are you just hitching together?
- Eleanor, Festival Goer: Eh, no, eh.
- Jerry, Festival Goer: We've lived together for about four months or five months and eh...
- Eleanor, Festival Goer: With a lot of other people.
- Jerry, Festival Goer: You know, with a lot of other people. Kind of what you call a communal thing or someone else would call a communal thing. But, it's just, eh, we just live together, so, we just decided to come down together, because we were coming here.
- Eleanor, Festival Goer: And like, but, there's nothing, no definite thing that we're not necessarily going to be together through out the whole thing.
- Interviewer: Are you two going together?
- Jerry, Festival Goer: No.
- Eleanor, Festival Goer: No.
- Interviewer: But, you come up here together.
- Jerry, Festival Goer, Eleanor, Festival Goer: Yeah.
- Interviewer: You like that.
- Jerry, Festival Goer: Yeah. I like her. I love her. I enjoy her.
- Interviewer: What do you think about, Eleanor?
- Eleanor, Festival Goer: Well, the way I look at it, eh, like, I've known Jerry for what, four or five, six months now when he moved into the, like, the family group that I was already, that I already knew for quite awhile. And, eh, in that time I got to know him real well and I've grown to love him. And, um, like we ball and everything, but, like, it's really a pretty good thing because I have, there's plenty of freedom, because we're not going together and we're not "in" love or anything like that, you know.
- Swami Satchidananda - Guru: America leads the whole world in several ways. When I was in the East, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi met me and asked me, "What's happening in America?" And I said, "America is becoming whole. America is helping everybody in the material field; but, the time has come for America to help the whole world with spirituality also."
- Sha-Na-Na: [singing] Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, at the hop! Well, you can rock it you can roll it, You can stop and you can stroll it at the hop...
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: It looks like we're going to get a little bit of rain; so, you better cover up.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: The forecast for this afternoon is: intermittent entertainment between intermittent showers.
- Michael Lang, Exec Producer of Woodstock Festival: What you have here is this culture and this generation away from the old culture and the older generations, you know. And you see how they function on their own. Without cops. Without guns. Without clubs, Without hassles. Everybody pulls together and everybody helps each other. And it works! Its been working since we got here and its going to continue working. And no matter what happens when they go back to the city, this thing is happening and it proves that it can happen! That's what its all about.
- Artie Kornfeld, Music Promoter: What's really important, the fact that, that if we can't all live together and be happy, if you have to be afraid to walk out in the street, if you have to be afraid to smile at somebody, right? Well, what, what kind of a way is that to go on through this life?
- Arlo Guthrie: I don't if you can, I don't know if, like how many of you can dig how many people there are, man? Like I was rappin' to the fuzz, right, can you dig it? Man, there's supposed to be a million and a half people here by tonight. Can you dig that? The New York State Throughway is closed, man! Yeah, it's far out, man!
- Grace Slick - Jefferson Airplane: [starting their the set at 8:00 am following a nighttime of other performers] Alright friends, you have seen the heavy groups and now you will see morning maniac music. Believe me, yeah. It's a new dawn.
- Female Payphone Caller #1: I'm going to call my mother and father. Because, oh, they think that this is gonna be like another Chicago, you know, like I'm gonna get my head beaten in and they're terrified. So, I'm going to call and tell them, "Ha ha. I fooled you. I'm alive."
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: Somebody may have noticed or all of you may have noticed, our familiar colored helicopter over there. The United States Army has lent us some medical teams and giving us a hand. They're with us, man! They are not against us! They're with us and they're here to give us all a hand and help us.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: There are 45 doctors or more. I know of at least 45 who are here without pay, because, they dig what this is into.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: Dr. Jack Bademan, please, with full suturing equipment, your presence is requested. You've got a delivery to make.
- Chip Monck - Stage Announcer: Marilyn Cohen, wherever you are, Marilyn Cohen, Greg wants you to meet him at the information booth cause he wants to marry you. - - There goes Marilyn!
- Blue Bandana Girl: This has been declared a disaster area. Cause, I called on long distance to Buffalo and asked some cats there and, like, they said that it definitely has been declared a disaster area.
- Crying Girl: I have to get out of here because there's just too many people. And I can't leave, because, my friends will be lost. And I can't, I can't stay here any more. It's just too crowded.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
