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NEW YORK (CBS) ― Woodstock was billed as three days of peace and music. Instead the four-day concert became the cornerstone for the counterculture of a "hippie" movement, helped develop musical events through present day, and changed the history of Rock 'n Roll.

 Woodstock Handbills

Max Yasgur's 600-acre farm in the rural town of Bethel, N.Y. was the unlikely site for arguably the world's most well-known music festival. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969 drew nearly 500,000 people to a pasture in Sullivan County that was only prepped for 50,000.

The Crowd Descends On White Lake

The festival site on White Lake was chosen because it was starting to have a counterculture following, and it was the home of Bob Dylan. Ironically, despite numerous requests, Dylan refused to perform at the event.

Preps and People at Woodstock

Richie Havens opened the show on Friday, Aug. 15 at 5:07 pm and the music went on as 32 of the country's most popular musicians rocked through the morning of Monday, Aug 18. Jimi Hendrix closed the show with a 16-song set, including a psychedelic version of The Star Spangled Banner.

 Woodstock 1969: Performers' Setlists

The festival has become a symbol for the 1960s counterculture or "hippie era" and exemplified the term "sex, drugs and Rock 'n Roll." The masses that descended upon Bethel packed the New York State Thruway and created one of the nation's worst traffic jams. Cars full of people were snarled bumper-to-bumper for more than 14 hours. Some abandoned their rides on the side of the road and headed to the site on foot.

Elliot Tiber of The Times Herald-Record quotes Arnold Skolnick, the artist who designed Woodstock's dove-and-guitar symbol, as describing the festival this way: "Something was tapped, a nerve, in this country. And everybody just came."

Despite some common beliefs, Woodstock was not meant to be a free concert. Tickets were originally sold for $18 in advance, and $24 at the gate, but it soon became apparent organizers would not be able to control the crowds. By Friday morning, when ticket takers started to get into place, at least 200,000 people were already camped out. So security just unrolled the chain-linked fence surrounding the gate, and announced the show would go on free of charge.

Concert goers continued to arrive as the rain, which would taper on and off through the weekend, began creating one of the most legendary aspects of Woodstock -- the mud. It was already clear there would not be enough food, water or medical supplies to accommodate the crowd. Reports claimed the wait for a portable toilet was two hours.

The amount of drugs consumed over those four days was also legendary. Marijuana, heroin and psychedelics like mushrooms and LSD were consumed intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. No one stopped them. Many opened their minds to sex as well as drugs, with some romping around completely in the nude. Barry Farrell wrote in Life that "many minds seized upon the metaphor of religion that day: the people were the seekers, the rock stars their prophets and drugs pretty nearly their staff of life."

Helicopters were flown in to bring the entertainment, but also to replenish supplies and remove those who were severely injured. But, despite the deplorable conditions, the festival remained relatively peaceful. Three deaths were reported, two from drug overdoses, and one man died when a tractor accidentally rolled over him while he slept under his sleeping bag.

Although there were claims of several births during the festival, none were on record at the medical tent. There were, however, according to a Health Department report, eight miscarriages.

Crowded Conditions Cause Chaos

Woodstock was the brainchild of four young men: Trust-funder John Roberts, law school graduate Joel Rosenman, Capitol Record exec Artie Kornfeld and part-time record producer Michael Lang. The oldest of the four was only 26.
Bitter in-fighting caused the four-man partnership to immediately after the festival was over.

The experience didn't end on Aug. 18, 1969. The event was filmed and became a commercially successful movie in 1970, receiving the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Joni Mitchell, who did not perform at the concert, wrote the song "Woodstock" to commemorate the movement, which became a huge hit for "Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young."

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