It may have been 20 years ago today that Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play, but it was 40 years ago this week that changed music and culture forever, as almost half a million young fans (some called them “hippies”) descended on farmland belonging to Max Yasgur in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Billed as “Three Days of Peace and Music,” the festival may have served as a coming out party for a generation, and, dear readers, I had tickets.

I had just turned 18 that month, and graduated from high school earlier that summer. A few friends and I heard about this concert being planned in what we then considered Upstate New York (relative to where we grew up on Long Island, it was, but perceptions changed when I later moved to Syracuse), and we decided to order tickets and go. I’d like to tell you that we sloshed through the mud and enjoyed Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Joe Cocker, and Santana, and all the rest, but, unfortunately, that would not be the truth.

The concert started on Thursday or Friday, but we didn’t start driving up there until Saturday morning. Part of the reason might have been that somebody had to work during the week. For me, my only job that summer was with a band, playing cocktail party music in a resort in the Catskill Mountains (remember Dirty Dancing? – that kind of place). Our gig was every Saturday night, starting at 9 PM, and the place we played at was only about 15 miles from where Woodstock was happening. So, being 18 and all, I had a plan.

Along with my friends (not the same guys as were in the band), we made the 2-hour drive from Long Island, across the Throgs Neck and Tappan Zee bridges, and up Route 17. But when we got to the exit that morning, there were New York State Troopers blocking the road, telling us that the exit was closed, the concert grounds were full, and we should turn around and go back home. Any plea we made about holding tickets was ignored, and there was nothing we could do but turn around.

However, I still had my gig nearby, and it made no sense for me to ride back two hours to Long Island, connect with the guys in my band, and head back up this way. So I told my fellow ticket-holding friends to let me off. I’d hang out there for a while, and then find my way to the gig that night.

With 40 years of additional reason crammed into my brain, it is easy to see how foolish a plan this was. But at the time (and completely sober and straight, I should say), it made sense to me. So my friends let me out and headed back home. I started walking up the road to the concert grounds. But after walking for some time, and still not getting close enough to hear any music or even see any big crowds, I decided that this probably wasn’t going to work, and if I continued in this direction, our band was likely to be drummer-less that night. So I reversed course and headed back toward the highway.

It was not my plan to walk all the way there, so I hitched a ride, and got picked up by some nice people who offered to take me to my exit, from where I knew I could walk the rest of the way. And this is where the story gets really strange.

The next thing I remember, I was sitting behind my drum set, playing along with the band, in what I later found out was our second song of the evening. I didn’t remember exactly how I got there, I didn’t remember setting up my equipment, I didn’t even remember playing the first song (which might be a statement on the quality of my drumming, if the other guys in the band didn’t notice!). Mind you, I did not (knowingly) consume any legal or illegal intoxicants. But when I, shall we say, woke up behind the drums, I told the guys we needed to take a break, so I could come to grips with where I was and what I was doing.

I love the music of that time, and the anti-establishment, peace-loving culture embodied by Woodstock still resonates in my soul. I had tickets to Woodstock, but I never got there. Several years later, after a class action lawsuit, the promoters of the concert were forced to offer refunds to any ticket-holders, and I made my last Woodstock-related mistake by mailing my tickets to the NY Attorney General’s office for some small amount of cash. Wouldn’t it be nice to have those tickets now? I guess I’ll just have to settle for the memories that I have now shared with you. Far out. Peace, my friends.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.