Back to the Garden…in Golden Gate Park

I wasn’t at Woodstock in 1969, so I was looking forward to West Fest, an all-day celebration, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, of the 40^th anniversary of that now-mythical music festival in upstate New York.

Ben Fong-Torres' view of West Fest

And, now, I can say I wasn’t at West Fest either. I’d been asked to say a few words on stage and introduce an act: Terry Haggerty of the Sons of Champlin. And, I was told, I’d be sharing the mike with none other than Danny Glover.

But it didn’t work out. I showed up an hour early, and the Speedway Meadows didn’t seem all that jammed. But I was told that the parking lot set aside for performers was full. The security guard kept me waiting half an hour while he tried to give our location to a supervisor. (By the way, “security guard” may not be right. He was a guy in a t-shirt, and, at one point, told his boss, “Dude, it’s so retarded to try and tell you where I am!”) Finally, he suggested I just double park. Meantime, the shuttle carts we were supposed to use to get backstage were nowhere in sight, so he sent me up a road to look for one. It was the wrong road.

I figured that out soon enough and went the other way, towards the sounds of Jefferson Starship, who Danny and I were following, and who’d already been on for 20 minutes. Up the road I walked, until another security guard pointed me to a spot where I’d find a path leading down to the vast backstage area. At that spot, there were no guards, no signs, and certainly no shuttle. I could see that, whatever unmarked path I took, it’d take awhile just to get backstage, which appeared to be a football field away from the stage itself. By now, the Starship had done “White Rabbit” and were doing their last song. They were ahead of schedule—odd for such an event (with 32 acts on two or three stages). It occurred to me that I was probably not the only one who got turned away, or around, and never made it.

And I did not. Walking towards the stage, I heard a frazzled MC filling time, wondering aloud where I was. “I’m right HERE!” I shouted, to a few trees. Danny Glover also appeared to be MIA. (I was told later that he was there; just not on stage at the appointed time. Shades of Woodstock!)

I returned to my car. Standing nearby were a pair of llamas, one of them toting musical instruments. So, at least, I got an amusing photograph.

Still, I felt bad. I had a joke about Lethal Weapon (Hey, maybe Danny had one about Almost Famous!), and had worked on a short set of remarks. Just so Boots Hughston, the organizer, knows I did not flake out on him, here’s what I would’ve said:

Hello, Detroit!

First, I should say that I was not at Woodstock. Maybe I was, but probably not.

But over the years, I’ve written about Woodstock, based on interviews with musicians like Richie Havens, who was the unscheduled first act on the first day. The original opening act was a band called Sweetwater, and they stuck in traffic, so Richie was asked to go on around 5 pm on Friday. He did go on, and on, and on. The producers wouldn’t let him off. There was no other band ready. And that’s when he came up with “Freedom.” He’d done every song he thought he knew. And then, he said, “In my mind, I connected two things. When I flew over the people coming in, I said, ‘Well, we won.’ … If this makes it into the papers, we won. So I said, Hey, this is the freedom we all wanted. And I started singing the word ‘freedom.’

And I don’t know what was gonna happen, but ‘Motherless Child’ showed up, and I hadn’t sung that in 14 years.” He also pulled in a hymn he last heard when he was a teenager. But, on stage and in need, all those segments from the past came together, in a passionate song that would forever be connected with Havens, and with the notion of freedom.

Last thing: I just wrote an essay for a book called The Woodstock Experience. I wrote about the few message songs that were performed at Woodstock, but I said that Woodstock, the Music and Art Fair, wasn’t all about music. The main statement was made by the fact of the gathering itself. And for all the talk about a half a million people having forged a community for three days, it was a flawed and fragile gathering. It was, in the end, a nice, one-weekend stand.

But the music of that time has continued to resonate. Forty, fifty, a hundred years after Woodstock, it’s likely that troubadours — in whatever form they might take — will continue to call for peace and freedom, for love and equality. They will continue to believe that we shall overcome. Someday.

"Dude, it's so retarded to try and tell you where I am!"

…And there you have it. My two cents, in two minutes, on Woodstock. Maybe I’ll send a link to this blog to the MC.