When Abbie Hoffman interrupted The Who at Woodstock
When it comes to the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s, there are few events as iconic as Woodstock. A defining moment for the hippie movement and one of the most legendary music festivals of all time, Woodstock was advertised as ‘3 Days of Peace and Music’. The line-up for this iconic event boasts the likes of Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and a frankly ridiculous amount of other esteemed artists. There was no shortage of great moments at Woodstock, but one notable example was the Sunday sunrise set by The Who.
The London group were due to be the penultimate act on Saturday night at Woodstock, playing before Jefferson Airplane, but due to delays, their set did not start until 5am. Upon finally taking to the stage, they played a fantastic set comprised of greatest hits and their concept album, Tommy, in full. The group were famed for their energetic and anarchic live performances, and their set at Woodstock was no exception. Although they were noted as one of the tightest groups to perform at the festival, the band have repeatedly spoken about what a terrible time they had there.
Frontman Roger Daltrey explained how the nostalgia-ridden presentations of Woodstock do not ring true for him, “Woodstock wasn’t peace and love”, he told the New York Times. “There was an awful lot of shouting and screaming going on,” he added. “By the time it all ended, the worst sides of our nature had come out. People were screaming at the promoters, people were screaming to get paid. We had to get paid, or we couldn’t get back home”. It is hard to blame The Who for not enjoying the Woodstock experience, especially given the issues that plagued their performance.
If Woodstock represents the ‘peace and love’ aspect of the hippie movement that was later criticised for its complacent, the counter-cultural revolutionary aspect of the movement was best exemplified by activist Abbie Hoffman. Founder of the Youth International Party, Hoffman was an icon of the anti-Vietnam protests and was even charged with inciting a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention – the trial of which was later dramatised for the 2020 film The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Seeing Woodstock as an opportunity to spread his ideas for a cultural revolution, Hoffman was active throughout the weekend. By the time Sunday morning rolled around, the activist had made the executive decision to trip. Under the influence of LSD (along with, presumably, everybody else in attendance at Woodstock), Hoffman was inspired to speak out against the injustices which he thought were being ignored by the festival.
During The Who’s set, he leapt onto stage to let the crowd know about the imprisonment of John Sinclair. The poet, activist and manager of Detroit proto-punks the MC5 had recently been sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the possession of two joints. Hoffman yelled to the crowd, “I think this is a pile of shit while John Sinclair rots in prison”, before promptly being kicked off stage by guitarist Pete Townshend, who can be heard telling Hoffman to “fuck off my fucking stage”.
The stage invasion happened during a camera changeover and therefore wasn’t captured on film, but the audio can be heard on the track ‘Abbie Hoffman incident’, included on the boxset Thirty Years of Maximum R&B.
