What do you mean by music festival? What are some of the more famous music festivals in the country? What does a music festival consist of?

Music festivals are celebrations of one or more of the arts that last for days and weeks. Most of them are held at regular intervals and usually in the same place. Some festivals are organized primarily to honor a particular musician, such as the "Bach Festival", "Beethoven Festival", "Menuhin Festival", "Nieuws Festival", "Nieuws Festival", "Nieuws Festival", "Nieuws Festival", "Nieuws Festival", and so on. "Some festivals are dedicated to contemporary musical works, such as the Donaueschingen Festival; others include a variety of artistic programs, such as the Salzburg Festival Some festivals include a variety of artistic programs, such as the "Salzburger Musikfest" (opera, musicals, ballet, theater). Nowadays, many international music festivals are no longer organized from a purely musical point of view, but combined with tourism and economic benefits and other aspects of comprehensive consideration, and strive for spiritual and material double harvest. World famous music festivals: Salzburg Music Festival, Bayreuth Music Festival, Edinburgh Music Festival, Beijing International Music Festival and so on.

WOODSTOCK Music Festival, full name "Woodstock Rock Festival", is currently the world's most famous series of rock music festival. First held in 1969, the theme is "peace, anti-war, fraternity, equality". The scale and lineup of the festival was unprecedented, and it was one of the few festivals in history that had a strong odor of "music and art". Most of the countless festivals that have followed have tried to live up to the spirit of Woodstock, actively organizing benefit concerts and expressing the youth's passion for music.

History of Woodstock

The emergence of Woodstock had a lot to do with the context of the time. In the mid-to-late '60s, the post-war trend of thinking was intense, young people had enough insights but weren't valued, and a sense of frustration and avoidance arose; they longed for an uncontested, peaceful, egalitarian world, eliminating the gap between the rich and the poor, and being anti-establishment, and Woodstock Woodstock was born, and its success in the early years of its existence gave young people the confidence to add a positive element to the spirit of Woodstock.

1969, more than 30 years ago now, and it has left 2 lasting memories for mankind (or Americans). The victory over the former Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War and the landing of an Armstrong man on the moon for the first time in the history of mankind, and a huge music festival held under the slogan `3 Days of Peace & Music` at a place called Woodstock, which cannot be seen from the moon. It was a very interesting year, as while humans were cheering for more and more technological advances, there were many people cheering for music on the other hand. There have been many rock festivals held in the United States before the Woodstock Festival, but as much as the mention of soccer reminds people of the World Cup, when it comes to rock festivals then everyone is sure to talk about the Woodstock Festival. In 1969, there were many social conflicts in and outside the United States, such as human rights issues, anti-war demonstrations against participation in the Vietnam War, etc., so the American society was very chaotic at that time, and the rebellious spirit of the young generation in the early 60's was relatively weak, so the baby boomers who were born after the Second World War took part in the so-called `Flower Movement`, and after that they were called the The hippie tribe. They shouted all the time about anti-war, love, and peace, but their real meaning was not to take an active part in society, but to be a negative class of people who avoided the world and pursued the world of dreams. Despite this background, four young men paid for and planned the August 15, 1969 Woodstock Music Festival themselves.

The name of the festival came from the name of the place where it was to be held, Woodstock, but in fact it was in danger of being canceled because of opposition from the local government and residents, but a man named Max Jasger, who lived in a neighboring area, offered his farm, and after many twists and turns the show finally went on. Over the 3 days of the Woodstock Festival (4 days until the morning of the 18th), hundreds of thousands of people (probably more than 450,000) gathered in Woodstock to enjoy the show, which for a couple of days belonged to their own **** and country, the liberated zone. The government of the day was very unhappy with the event and public opinion was not very favorable, but the hippie-dominated audience made it through the bad weather and conditions without incident, and instead they had the pleasure of their own little world. In contrast to the recently held messy Woodstock gig, one can vaguely guess the world view of the audience at the time. Many of the most famous artists of the time attended the shows of the day.

Jimi Hendrix was cheered by the crowd for singing music that resembled a mockery of America, and Janis Joplin impressed the audience with her enthusiastic singing. One could hear the beautiful harmonies of Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young and the boozy vocals of folk queen Joan Baez, and there was also the mellow vocals of black fokl coming out of the live sound. The set featured the soft psychedelic early Grateful Dead songs that Americans love so much, as well as Jefferson Airplane's early debut songs, Melanie, who can't be left out, and Ten Years After and The Who, who came all the way from the U.K. to join in on the fun, and who have become even more famous since the show. The live album that followed on 3 LPs (2 on CD) felt like Joe Cocker singing the Beatles `With a little help from my friend` in full self form, breathing with the crowd and directly mirroring the atmosphere of the Woodstock festival and bringing together the likes of Mountain, CCR, Canned Heat, Santana, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR, CCR and CCR. , Canned Heat, Santana, Iron Butterfly, Sly & The Family Stone and all other styles of rock music into the mix. But after three short days of music and peace, it was time for everyone to go back to their old lives, and that's probably what the Woodstock Festival left behind. Although many people thought the show was boring at the time, it left a fabulous memory for that generation and the next, probably because the organizers' simple purpose was echoed by everyone. There was no commercial purpose and it unfolded in a worldview that was in a rush, so for 3 days everyone got a taste of the free world of rock in its purest form.

The granddaddy of all Woodstock festivals

Thirty years ago, the last of the dirt-covered youths evacuated Max? MAX YASGUR's muddy ranch, it signaled the end of one of the most unusual music festivals in history. At the same time, the debate about its historical significance began. Sincere "believers" call it the culmination of an era and its contribution to the liberation of the human mind, while "nitpickers" see it as a comic end to an age of innocence.

The WOODSTOCK MUSIC AND ART FAIR, held in 1969, attracted four hundred and fifty thousand people. For four days, they created a hippie independent kingdom at their ranch in Sullivan County (SULLIVAN COUNTY). Here, the world of human perception was completely opened up, drug use was legal, and sex was free. The festival officially began at 5:07 p.m. on August 15 of that year and lasted until the morning of August 18th. It triggered one of the worst traffic jams ever seen in New York State, and the highways leading into the state were forced to close. A significant number of U.S. states and counties have since enacted legislation to prohibit similar events from ever being held again.

Like few other historical events, Woodstock has become synonymous with a certain type of cultural phenomenon. Just as "Watergate" suggested a crisis of public trust and "Waterloo" represented a crushing defeat, "Woodstock" points to the indulgence and hedonism that pervaded the 1960s. Historian BERT FELDMAN says, "What people are experiencing here is an absolutely once-in-a-lifetime event that is too complex to be replicated, and which, as Dickens said, was the best of times and the worst of times."

Surfacing on that extraordinary weekend in 1969 were liars, passionate lovers, prophets and speculators of all shapes and sizes. They were there to talk about love, to drill for profit and **** together to create a moment in history that will go down in history. ARNOLD SKOLNICK, the designer of the festival's icon (see accompanying photo), describes it this way, "A sharp, restless pounding sounds somewhere in this country, and people come from all directions to hear it."

The hippie bash ended up costing two and a quarter million dollars. It was organized by four very different young men, JOHN ROBERTS, JOEL ROSEMAN, ARTIE KORNFELD and MICHAEL LANG.

The oldest, Roberts, who was 26 that year, was an investor in the campaign. He had millions of dollars in assets from inheriting a drugstore and a toothpaste manufacturing plant. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and served as an Army lieutenant. Before that, he had only been to one rock concert featuring the Beach Boys. His friend Rothman was the son of a prominent Long Island dentist and a graduate of Yale Law. In 1967, at the age of 24, Rothman was a bearded guitarist in a rambunctious rock band. in the winter of 1967, the two young men shared an apartment and, contemplating how to spend the rest of their long lives, decided to write a long-running soap opera for a television station about the business ventures of two simple-minded but wealthy young men who would face all sorts of dilemmas and ultimately come out of it just in the nick of time. turn the odds in their favor at crucial moments.

To flesh out the plot, the two decided to play the main characters in real life. So in the classified ads of a number of magazines appeared the words: "Two ambitious young men seeking investment opportunities and business projects of interest". They received thousands of varied replies, and one novelty caught their eye - bicycle skiing, a sport that was quite popular in Europe at the time and which the two men analyzed in great detail. Slowly, the two would-be soap opera playwrights unwittingly become adventure investors, no less.

The 25-year-old Caulfield, who always wears a large lapel uniform, works for the prestigious Government House Records (CAPITOL RECORDS) and has a bad reputation for often smoking marijuana in the office. His job was to liaise with big-name rock stars, and he did his own songwriting. McClung, who was seen by his friends as a quirky character with shaggy black curly hair, owned the first major store in Florida at the age of 23. In 1968, he orchestrated what was then the largest Miami pop festival, attracting a crowd of 40,000 people. He later worked as a manager for a rock band, seeking a deal with a record company, and in late 1968, he found Caulfield.

The two men hit it off. Soon afterward, McClung moved into Caulfield's New York apartment, and they had many long talks through the night, concocting a number of ideas. One was to put on a mega-rock concert; the other was to set up a recording studio in a small town called Woodstock, 100 kilometers from Manhattan. This place was chosen because this small town, far away from the hustle and bustle and with beautiful scenery, had become a mecca for many artists for almost a century. In the late sixties, many rock artists moved to the area, including the likes of BOB DYLAN, THE BAND, TIM HARDIN, VAN MORRISON, JIMI HENDRIX, and JANIS JOPLIN, and the two men began to look for an investor to finance their project. Rothman for a meeting. McClung recalled later, "The two looked at me with confusion, the hippie culture was new to them, but nevertheless they were interested in our program and asked for a written proposal with budgets and other specifics for all activities." At their second meeting agreement was reached: to set the size of the concert at an audience of 100,000 people and a budget of half a million dollars. As the four collaborators planned intensely over cocktails and sliced toast in a tent in the wilderness, they began to send people around to visit rock artists, dreaming of inviting a legend like Joan Baez to attend, and in March they incorporated a company called Woodstock Adventures. In March, they incorporated a company called Woodstock Adventure Programs, with each taking a quarter of the shares. The next order of business was to find a suitable venue. They traveled throughout the central Hudson countryside to do so. Eventually, they rented a large open field for $10,000 in WALLKILL, ROCKLAND COUNTY. On a Sunday in late March, the four men drove up to visit Howard, the owner of the land, and they noticed the signs of industrialization on the property. Robert recalled his feelings at the time afterward, "It wasn't exactly ideal, but we finally found a place anyway."

Organization of Woodstock

The Mills' three hundred acres of vacant land is extremely accessible. It is located at the end of the town's main thoroughfare, 211th Avenue, just a mile from 17th Avenue, which connects to the New York State Thruway, and is paved with the necessary water lines and electric utilities. Originally zoned for industrial use, it was also permitted for cultural exhibitions and performances. Though the festival's organizers weren't thrilled with the site (it was a departure from their "back-to-the-land" mission), they submitted an application to the local development planning commission and began working on a more suitable site.

Rothman told local officials in Walker in late May that the event would feature a number of jazz bands and folk singers and was expected to reach 50,000 people. Local chief JACK SCHLOSSER was skeptical. He recalled afterwards: "I felt that the organizers were intentionally hiding things, such as the size of the audience. As I got in touch with them, I realized they didn't know what they were doing. Fifty thousand people is the equivalent of a division in the army, and the corresponding logistics are extremely large. Therefore, attending a concert with even 50,000 priests would worry me just as much."

Beginning in late April, organizers had begun planning a series of mass-media images related to the event to get the public's attention. In May, advertisements for the event began appearing in magazines such as Time Out New York. In Kornfield's mind, setting up the stage, signing a contract with a rock band, and even selling tickets were not priorities; the concert was about embodying an idea and making it an event that would be a complete record of a generation. In the event's promotional materials, the organizers astutely borrowed the usual symbols and phrases of groups representing counterculture. In the particular political and cultural climate of the time, and in keeping with his generation's tendency to demand independence and freedom, McClung initially suggested that the entire event be called the "AQUARIAN EXPOSITION," and he also designed an ornate poster with a water bottle as the central motif. The event's slogan, "THREE DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC", replaced the highly conceptualized "Aquarian Exposition". The organizers wanted to use "peace" to reflect the anti-war sentiment in the minds of young people, and also to avoid any violence that might occur during the event.

The dove in the logo was originally designed to land on a flute. Skolnick, the designer, was living on Sheard Island at the time and drawing pigeons every day, and when another ad writer for the campaign called him and told him the campaign's slogan, he then used a razor blade to cut a full image of a dove out of a sketchbook, "I was into jazz at the time so the original design was for the dove to land on a flute, but after just one day I decided to have it land on a guitar."

The Woodstock Adventurers ran into trouble trying to sign some of the most famous rock bands of the day, with stars reluctant to sign with an unheard-of organization for fear of not getting paid after the show. To solve this problem, the organizers offered astronomical prices that were hard to refuse at the time. First, they signed JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, the most famous psychedelic rock band of the time, for $12,000, a band whose previous appearances had typically cost $5,000 to $6,000; then they brought in CREEDENCE CLEARWATER RIVIVAL for $11,500 and THE WHO for $12,500! , and things got easier behind the scenes. "I told them money wasn't an issue, if they offered 5,000, I'd give them 10,000." In the end, they spent $180,000 on the item of hiring a rock band and singer.

Rothman and Roberts hoped to hire a movie studio to film the entire event. But it's been almost unprofitable to make rock documentaries before. A year earlier, a documentary about the Montreal Pop Festival had flopped at the box office, so the average filmmaker was reluctant to get involved. They were lucky to meet MICHAEL WADLEIGH, a 27-year-old cinematographer and independent filmmaker who was well known at the time. Two years earlier, he had left his medical studies at Columbia University to spend all his time on the streets of the city, filming the frequent political and cultural clashes between the people and the government. He has used rock music as a soundtrack for his films to express the themes and has used multimedia to enhance his films. When he was approached by the organizers of the festival, he was instantly impressed and immediately decided to get involved without pay.

One day in early May 1969, McClung and his companion, STAN GOLDSTEIN, walked into a local sound-equipment store and approached its owner, ALLAN MARKOFF, "who had asked me to design the sound for a concert with an audience of 50,000 people, and had mentioned that the audience might be as large as 100,000 or even 150,000." Markoff initially wondered if these two men were mentally sane, "A 100,000-audience concert was unbelievable at the time, it was the equivalent of 30 million viewers today." Markov, 24 at the time, was the only person in the area whose name was on the "Audio Engineers Society Roster," the magazine in which McClung found his name and approached him. Markov became the sound designer for the concert. He remembers designing the sound in such a way that even the lowest volume of the speakers was enough to impair the hearing of any member of the audience within ten paces of the speakers.

Local Walker residents slowly began to be exposed to words like "hippie"; "drugs"; and "rock concert," and as advertisements for the concerts began appearing in major magazines and on the radio, residents learned that there would be a rock concert lasting three days and likely the largest ever held in the area. "The odd attire of most of the Woodstock Adventurers, whose long hair and raggedy clothes typified the political left and drug addicts in the minds of the locals, caused many to fear imminent chaos, and they poured this tension out on the Mills family. People began stopping Mills at local churches, accusing him of causing trouble for the locals. To prevent this from getting worse, the organizers of the event hire WES POMEROY, a former senior assistant in the judiciary, to handle security, and add the revered Reverend DONALD GANOUNG to the list of personnel whose job it is to deal with the organization's relations with the locals. But all these efforts failed to salvage the situation, and Mills, the owner of the land, continued to receive anonymous phone calls and even threats to demolish his house. He called the police, but they were unable to detain any suspects due to lack of evidence. The locals fell into a strange state out of fear of the unknown. Mills, to this day, won't talk about what the townspeople did to him in 1969, saying, "I know it's been a long time since everything happened, but I still don't want to get in trouble."

Woodstock's impact

Organizers of Woodstock advertised the concert to the outside world as "a fun weekend in the country, a temporary self-governing village." Advertisements quickly appeared in popular magazines, underground publications, and radio broadcasts in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Texas, and Washington, DC. In order to find the necessary staff for the so-called "autonomous village," in late June, Goldstein called on members of the HOG FARM. "We included the members of HOG FARM in the staff so that they could set an example for the concert participants. We know that camping outdoors under a starry sky is appealing to many young people, and we also know that many of the people who come here have never had the experience before, so we want to make it as easy as possible for them to adapt to the environment," explains Goldstein. Goldstein explained.

The Walker Local Planning Committee formally rejected the concert organizers' application for the event on July 15, 1969, citing "inadequate plans" for the event. Outdoor temporary toilets and other essential concert facilities were not allowed in Walker. The move was applauded by local residents. The committee even passed a proposal to require prior approval for any future gathering of more than 5,000 people on the site. Local officials deny the proposal has anything to do with Woodstock, although the connection is obvious.

Woodstock's experience has had an unintended consequence: it has attracted a lot of attention and public interest. Considering the confrontational atmosphere that has developed, if the stage were to be built here, the show would either be suppressed or turn into a riot. McClung said, "We don't want to see the arrival of riot police with gas masks, which will be inevitable if things go on." Some locals even threatened to shoot the first hippie who walked into the village. Wadley, who was in Wyoming at the time filming a mountaineering movie, was very disappointed to learn the news, "I had been worried about the abortion of the concert, and that worry haunted me until the concert officially began."

ELLIOT TIBER runs a resort at the dismal WHITE LAKE. Eighty rooms are almost always empty throughout the year. The long periods of time when he couldn't make ends meet depleted almost all of his savings. At one point, he hoped to attract more customers to the resort by hosting a concert nearby, so he applied for a license to perform in the concert. "I paid eight, maybe twelve dollars for it, and this license had no definite limits on the size of the concert or anything like that." At the time, Elliott had only one chamber music quartet group under his belt, so the plan never materialized. He learned of the Woodstock situation in the newspaper and made a phone call to the organizers. McClung arrived the next day, and when he saw the fifteen acres of marshland behind the resort that had been designated for the concert, he said it was too small. Elliott then suddenly remembered his old friend MAX YASGUR, who for several years had supplied the resort with milk and cheese, and who owned extensive pastures in BETHEL. Elliott called Yasgur and asked if he could rent his ranch for $50 a day for a concert. Jasper replied, "Concerts? Another one of your whimsical schemes?"

McClung found Yasgur in a field of purple alfalfa. He was pleased to see that the slopes on all sides formed a vast bowl, and at the bottom of the bowl there was a flat area for a stage, with a lake nearby, and he made up his mind about it. The two men walked slowly up the slope and began to discuss the price. Yasgur calculated the damage the show would do to his ranch and the cost of restoring it afterward. "Old Yasgore was a shrewd fellow, and he worked it all out on paper with a pencil, licking the tip with his tongue from time to time." McClung recalled, "Shaking hands with him, I noticed that he had only three fingers on his right hand, but his hand was as strong as cast iron.

Yasgore was known in Sullivan County as a tough talker. In the 1940s, he took courses in real estate law at New York University, and after graduation he returned to his hometown to run a dairy farm. A few years later, he sold his dairy farm in Maplewood and moved his family to Bethel in search of greater career advancement. By the sixties, Jasper's dairy farm had become very large. The old man with the pipe sitting in front of the Woodstock boys was the largest milk producer in all of Sullivan County. His dairy has a strong shipping force, large refrigeration facilities, and complete sanitizing facilities. The six hundred acres borrowed for the concert is only a small part of his property.

A few days later, eight sedans arrived carrying some of the concert's staff. The trip was made with as little fanfare as possible to prevent a repeat of what had happened in Walker, so as not to alarm the residents. In the course of their conversation with Yasgur, the staff was, as usual, somewhat secretive, and Yasgur was very discreet and outbid. In the meantime, Elliott and McClung went to a nearby restaurant called the Lighthouse, where the news was leaked. "As we were checking out, we heard the radio in the restaurant broadcasting the news that 'Woodstock' had moved to the White Lake area, and we were stunned when the restaurant was empty," Elliott recalled: "On July 20, 1969, the whole world was talking about the first man on the moon. But in Bethel, people were talking about 'Woodstock,' the hippie hangout. I have long been used to facing all sorts of unexpected adversity, but this time, I was really going to be crushed."