WILL FERNANDEZ
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009

FORTY YEARS AGO a group of young people from all over the country arrived in White Lake, N.Y., to attend one of the biggest concerts of the summer.

It would turn out to be one of the most iconic events in modern music history.

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was a three-day jam fest featuring the most popular acts of the day, including Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Santana, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Jimi Hendrix.

To call this a big event is an understatement.

But what made this concert so different from all the subsequent rock concerts and even major concerts of today, like Lollapalooza in Chicago, Coachella in California, and Bonnaroo in Tennessee?

To a 15-year-old today, Woodstock seems like a heaven on earth: a free concert with some of the best bands that have ever been brought together in one place.

Hello? Am I the only one jealous that I wasn’t there?

Using drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll, the hippies who arrived at Woodstock became the face of a generation determined to "change the world."

There were many concerts showcasing some of the top talent of the day both before and after — including the Monterey Pop Festival in '67, Newport Pop Festival '68, and the Newport Jazz Festival of '69 — but no festival came close to Woodstock.

"Three Days of Peace, Love, and Music" is how it was promoted, and no one could pass that up. Even though at first tickets were being sold, the concert ending up becoming free, and along with the 186,000 who already bought tickets, estimates have put the final count somewhere around 500,000 people attending. A sea of humanity had come to the small town of White Lake, with its population of only 5,000.

Director Ang Lee's latest film recaptures the spirit of Woodstock.

With that in mind, I was looking forward to see the latest film by University of Illinois alumnus Ang Lee , the recently released “Taking Woodstock.” To my surprise, though, the movie was less about the music than about the locals and how this concert affected their lives.

Elliot, played by stand-up comedian Demetri Martin, is a young ambitious man who works at his parents' hotel, the El Monaco Resort, and feels that he is destined for something bigger.

When he hears that a concert featuring some of the biggest artists of the day failed to score a valid festival permit in a neighboring town, Elliot contacts the concert organizers and offers up a valid permit that he had acquired for a much more modest event that was to take place with local theatrical talent and DJs.

In performing this sleight of hand (at first unbeknownst to his neighbors), Elliott does not fully comprehend how his desire to help will fundamentally change the town. Most of the locals hate him for bringing more than half a million hippies to their town, while others — such as his parents — are overjoyed with the incredible boom in business.

The film is not a fantasy; it's the true story of Elliot Tiber, as translated to the screen from his 2007 memoir, also titled "Taking Woodstock." Lee took Elliot’s story and turned it into an incredibly funny and visually beautiful film.

Not only is the movie a perfect snapshot of my parents' generation, but “Taking Woodstock” gave me a whole new view on the music that I love and listen to on a daily basis.

A few weeks ago, as the Ellnora Guitar Festival was getting ready to open the new season at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, I asked Krannert Director Mike Ross how Woodstock changed the face of popular music.

“If you look at it only from a music standpoint, then yes, you have a ton of great artists — Janis Joplin, The Who, and, of course, Jimi Hendrix — but it was so much more than a concert," he said. "It was more about a movement than it was about any artist, and it showed the entire world what this generation was all about.”

Sadly, I’m 40 years too late. To put this in perspective, my dad was only 12 when Woodstock occurred. What a drag, man! Today’s youth who really appreciate music would give anything to go back to the '60s and listen to real musicians instead of today's mediocre attempts by kids in their garages.

Although there are good artists who are pushing the boundaries of comfortable music, nothing can compare to the break from artistic convention that seemed to happen on a daily basis in the '60s. And in August 1969, an explosion of creativity and expression burst out from the hills of upstate New York, rebelling against not just art forms but a way of life that had grown stagnant.

For all the differences between then and now, it's an event still worth remembering.