The US Army helicopter that delivered snacks to Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival is remembered as one of those moments in music history that makes people sigh and say, ‘I was born in the wrong generation’.
Seen as the ultimate gathering of the hippie age, the pinnacle of the peace and love generation, even the word ‘Woodstock’ now feels more associated with rock and roll hedonism than it does with the actual town in upstate New York.
But as its legacy has rolled on, the rose tint has intensified too. It’s often mistakenly assumed that the absolute who’s-who of the 1960s populated the lineup when, in reality, the festival actually struggled getting people to say yes, receiving plenty of rejections for reasons as simple as too much mud or simply not believing the event would even work.
Organised by first-timers, the festival struggled to earn the trust of many major artists, who saw it as too much of a risk. Instead, many chose to play more established events, only to later regret turning Woodstock down in public.
But even that regret comes down to a glossier retrospective view of the event. If their worry in the first place was weather conditions or logistics on site, what went down at the festival would have been their nightmares set into overdrive.
To start with, Woodstock was only a free festival because they forgot to build ticket booths. Then, as thousands upon thousands more people than expected flooded to the site, the audience of now around 460,000 people overran the supplies, blocked the surrounding area and generally caused organisational carnage so bad that the event had to look to the highest form of help.
Despite priding themselves on being a countercultural event that stood for peace and love, the situation occurring as the crowds swelled way beyond what they could manage, quickly growing more agitated, meant they had to go to the ultimate authority, requesting that the US Army helicopter bring some food.
As supplies on site quickly started running low, booths started price gouging for what they had left. In response, the crowds burned down 12 food stands, ultimate making the situation even worse. With actual food and drink running dangerously low, and all the roads around the festival grounds blocked by cars belonging to people either still trying to fight the traffic in or abandoned by fans who ditched their vehicles to simply walk to the stage, food could no longer be easily delivered by ground.
Bringing around 10,000 sandwiches, water, fruit, as well as canned foods that wouldn’t spoil in case the fresh stuff still wasn’t enough, the US Army also brought blankets and medical supplies, as across the board, Woodstock simply wasn’t fit to deal with its own popularity.
