by Rupe (stage crew)
I was always a fan and I was curious about the "happening" in '69 but I never went because at the time I was only 15 and the folks said, "bla bla bla" ..... well, you know how it is. I had a thing for the "summer of love" style music and I was "up" on all of it, including the release of the original sound track. Matter of fact I had a radio station "boot leg" of that album months before it hit the stores because I had a friend who's father was a D.J. at the NY city station WNEW.

Anyway, many years later a friend asked me why I hadn't gone to the 20th reunion at the original site. It seems that this friend had heard about the reunion, read about it in the paper, and had no idea that I wasn't paying attention. My reply was along the lines of, "well, you get busy....family, kids, job, etc, .....you lose track. I mean, after all it's been 20 years and I hadn't heard much. Of course I had been sucked into main stream society with all of its problems. That's why I hadn't been paying attention for all of those years!

Along comes the 25th reunion in '94 and it's being played up big time. I want to "check it out" but my wife is working that weekend. Sooooo..... I ask my sister instead. The whole think winds up being like a trek to the original festival except this is 1994. Most people think we are heading to Saugerties NY but we keep explaining that the "other show" is still on despite publicity of a cancellation. We start late, get bad directions, (the Saugerties bit) make wrong turns, wait in traffic for hours only to park miles away and axle deep in mud at that. (sound familiar?) I'm only about 100 miles away and it takes 7 hrs before we get to the site.

We set up camp, it rained like hell's bells, the acts keep on commin' till all hours of the night, and with each act the stage / equipment just kept getting better. As far as I can recall we saw Mountain (with Noel Redding on bass), Sha Na Na, Arlo Guthre, Melanie, Canned Heat (what's left of them), Soul Asylum, and lots of other bands. I was hooked and offered to help out with several projects back stage.

The next year ('95) my wife was still working weekends so I took my son. Once again, the bands kept rolling in and the stage kept getting better by the hour. At the time my son was about 14 and he got to see Richie Havens that year. Mind you he's not a fan of Richie's music, but after about 10 minutes he figured out why everyone likes it. (chalk one up for the older generation) The guy has energy and knows how to make the crowd crazy! This was the year that the original dates fell in the middle of the week so after 3 days of fun I found out that it was going to continue through the week into the following weekend. WOW, was I blown away! I also had a serious scheduling problem but wound up taking off early on the following Friday to make it happen again.

I drove back by myself the next weekend. This is the week that Jerry Garcia passed away and it's the only year anyone can remember there being no rain for 10 days straight during a festival. Nice of him to leave us the clear skies but I'd rather have him around. Needless to say after doing some things with the stage crew I spent a fair amount of time at the local swimming hole that weekend. Lotsa Dead Heads with candles that weekend also. Needless to say, those were two memorable weekends.

Now we are up to '96 and the controversy of having the festival at the original site rages on. The town and the police are not allowing people to gather, the site is blocked off and there is much talk about where to move things. I show up with my wife that year only to find out that nothing is happening till the following weekend and we will be at Roy & Jeryl's place. My wife can't get the next weekend off from work so I invite another long time friend.

This is where it starts to get interesting because my buddy "Elbows" (good nick name, eh) had never been to one of these reunions and for all of the same reasons I didn't get there for 20 years. We are walking around checking out the vibes as we pass a pick up truck full of 18 - 20 year old people. This is not just any truck mind you, it's about a 1966 Chevy and it has CSN&Y blasting from the factory 8-track player. (remember 8-tracks?) We both chuckle and comment on "what's wrong with this picture?" Then Elbows says, "this place is comfy, like an old broken in pair of shoes." This is also the year we work with Bill Hanley (second time for me) who did the sound at the original festival in '69. There was a lot of good talent that year but also a lot of disorganization due to this being the first time at another location.

In '97 Elbows and I head out once again but we are prepared. (or so we think) We made plans to get there early (Thursday eve) and spend lots of time setting up Bill Hanley's aging stage equipment which required more time to make repairs than anything I've ever seen before. Then we get the "bomb" dropped on us about the guy who was supposed to bring the sound equipment...... somebody dropped the ball and there wasn't anyone. In the typical Woodstock fashion we started setting up what we had and the rest just appeared out of thin air. We borrowed things from each band and rigged things as best we could. In general it was a pretty good "hat trick" and we managed to pull it off some how.

That year we had Melanie and the Buddy Miles band plus a lot of other real good talent. (hmmm, that may have been another year but it really doesn't matter) Maybe it was the year of David Marks, Riki Hendrix, & Stir Fried. At any rate this place seems to be a magnet for good music! That was also a year where the town was trying to stop the show once again but this time they didn't have any real good excuse except "you don't have the proper permits." If one stops to think about it, there have never been any permits since day one in '69.

1998 was another banner year. There was a court injunction in place to stop the show but the people came anyway. It seems that the injunction was supposed to stop any advertising but it also stopped the word of cancellation from getting out as well. People came in droves and many sported the slogan "we're not here" just in case someone in authority should ask. We didn't have too much to do in the way of setting up stage equipment because we just let it happen and people set up stages all over the place.

Last but not least, comes 1999 and a new stage location at Max Yasgur's barn. This is something new for everyone involved because we now have a "back stage" area and for the first time we have real electricity without using generators. Another thing going for us this year is the fact that we now have a pretty solid core of staff volunteers who have been working the event for several years. Each year it seems that we could still use more help in almost all areas but it is getting better slowly. Along the same lines, things are starting to get more organized because most of us have this past experience to draw on.

This year brings us Melanie & family, plus Country Joe as a solo artist. The rest of the bands were great also!

In closing up my thoughts, this is the first year I took the time and stayed through Monday. I spent some time with the new & old friends I have met at this special place through out the day and in between various projects, cleaning up etc. Around 9pm I was pretty tired but it still took almost 3 hrs to say good bye to those that were there. Once you've spent time here you can't be in a hurry to leave. I finally hit the road around midnight on Monday night. There were still several hundred people milling around and there was still a band playing in the middle of the field over 24 hours after the last scheduled act was supposed to be done.

Some things never change, but that's ok with me.