Woodstock

**__WHAT:__** A three day music festival. Celebrating peace, love, rock and roll music, and sexual and political freedom.
 * WOODSTOCK **

**__WHEN:__** 15th- 18th August 1969 **__ IMAPCT: __** The Woodstock concert brought 500,000 together from across North America in a non-violent protest against the war.

** __ Brief overview of the social Context: __ ** A defining chapter in America's past, the '60s shaped a generation and sculpted a political landscape that can still be seen today. The story of the '60s is illuminated with images of freedom protests, atom bombs, flower power, and a nation divided by war. Woodstock was not only a festival of "Three Days of Peace and Music," a celebration of a communal spirit to hear some of the most popular rock acts of the day. But a non- violent protest against the Vietnam War, it also signified the end of the revolution that changed not only America but the world.Musicions such as Joe Cocker, Santana, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Jimi Hendriz performed in front of an audience of over 500,000. The festival started on Friday, August 15, 1969, and the crowds quickly grew to number over 450,000, causing massive traffic jams, logistical nightmares, shortages of food and medical supplies, and potential problems of crowd control. On Saturday, the gates were opened to accommodate the many thousands who arrived without tickets. The music was almost nonstop, the rains came, drug use was widespread, sanitary conditions were primitive, bad acid trips were a constant problem, yet somehow it all worked out. Arnold Skolnick, the artist who designed the Woodstock poster said, "Something was tapped, a nerve in this country, and everybody just came." Woodstock came to symbolize all that was right and good about the hippie movement. Thirty years later, when one looks back on the "Psychedelic Sixties," it is Woodstock that invariably first comes to mind. Joe Cocker, Santana, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young ** __ What’s happening in America. __ **  1965-1969 the nation became deeply divided by the war. Peace protests swelled in size, attracting activists from the civil rights movement and other political groups. Some men refuse to serve in the war, becoming draft dodgers by escaping to Canada and other safe harbours. As the decade closes, a Peace Moratorium on October 15, 1969, turns into the largest demonstration in the nation's history: two million people march. The next month, Americans are horrified to learn that U.S. troops committed atrocities in a village called My Lai. Support for the war crumbles. The White House is pressured to negotiate for peace. Not since the Civil War had the country been so divided as during the Vietnam War. Every American family and person was impacted. Over 50,000 Americans were killed and many of those who returned suffered and still suffer deep physical and emotional scars. Many more veterans took their own lives, were treated as social outcasts or ended up on America’s streets among the homeless. What the war did to Vietnam and to the Vietnamese people was even more drastic. By the time Saigon fell to invading North Vietnamese forces on April 29, 1975, close to 2 million Vietnamese had died. Countless others perished or disappeared later in Cambodia during the carnage perpetuated by the Khmer Rouge. The Vietnam conflict was a war whose origins many did not understand, that seemed an exercise in futility, and that left a nation questioning the policies of a government they’d always trusted. It was 1965 that the Antiwar Movement found its roots and dug in. Words like “counter culture”, "establishment”, “nonviolence”, “pacification”, “draft-dodger”, “free love”, “Kent State”, and “Woodstock” were added to the American vocabulary. It was the beginning of the hippie generation, the sexual revolution and the drug culture. The country’s youth, the ones dying in the line fire, began demanding answers to America’s high profile presence in Vietnam. They wanted to know why peace talks were organized and continually failed. They wanted to know what they were fighting for. Extensive media coverage brought the violent and bloody guerrilla war home each night to every American living room. People realised that the glowing reviews of the war effort their government had been releasing were “sanitised” and far from the truth.  The music reflected the anger and hopelessness that Americans felt over the Vietnam War. Even the GI’s stationed overseas began supporting the Anti-war movement in whatever capacity they could, from wearing peace symbols to refusing to obey orders. **Relevance to Apocalypse Now** **Part of the soundtrack to Apocalypse Now:** **"The End"** by The Doors Performed by The Doors

**"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"** Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards Performed by The Rolling Stones

**"Love Me, And Let Me Love You"** by Robert Duvall **"Let The Good Times Roll"** by Leonard Lee **"Suzie Q"** By Dale Hawkins, S. J. Lewis, E. Broadwater Performed by Flash Cadillac The music in Apocalypse Now and the Play Boy Bunnies are both representatives of the sexual revolution that was raging through the sixties,the freedom, peace and love that Woodtsock represented are contrasted in Apocalypse Now, although songs such as " I can't get no, staisfaction" are present in the movie to display the era and the social state of the US. Woodstock was not only a music festival but a peaceful protest against US troops occupation in Vietnam, the charcacters Lance and Chef where conscripts into Vietnam, many participants in Woodstock were against conscription or were draft Dodgers themselves. WORK IN PROGRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bibliography[] [] [] [] []