West-Fest - 2009
Forty years after the most sensationalized, romanticized and scrutinized musical extravaganza in the annals of contemporary music, Artie Kornfeld and Boots Hughston are preparing for another festival of given magnitude to celebrate the Rainbow Warrior gathering in Bethel, New York, 1969. It was but a granule of sand in the hourglass of time but as fleeting as those August 15,16,17 days were so long ago, the effect of what transpired has had a lasting impact on the genre and society in general. The rock n' roll spectrum of the day would be inclusive of the seminal bands of psychedelia, inclusive of Country Joe & The Fish, Joan Baez, Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Santana, CCR, etc and those of The Paisley Underground from Los Angeles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Sweetwater and the NYC based bands such as Johnny Winter, Mountain, John Sebastian, Arlo Guthrie, Bert Sommer and others. The mélange of English icons would be remnants of sixties British influence, Ten Years After, The Who, Joe Cocker and others of interest during these halcyon days of free love, recreational drugs and the debauchery of useless death in Southeast Asia. This phalanx of contemporary artists were by definition, already famed and iconic across the planet but others were in the embryonic stages of legacies that were ignited by the 500,000 pundits of the music that defined The Woodstock Generation.
he abrasive, greed characteristics of today's "mainstream” were non-exist during those glory days of psychedelic and hippie-dom and a more palpable approach was utilized to unite the masses.
The brief gathering in Sullivan County in 1969 became the signal that it was feasible for burgeoning crowds to unite with music as the elixir for universal peace but lately, those who know little or perhaps nothing about Woodstock, Haight Ashbury and what actually occurred during those hedonistic "daze” of poster art, The Fillmore Auditorium, Winterland, The Matrix and other legendary venues have been more acrimonious in their efforts to reflect on an event that has endured for all these years. From the Valhalla of The Haight Ashbury and Woodstock to the Apocalyptic demise at Altamont, the lexicon of all music will always have a reference to those golden years of Woodstock augmented by our attempts at social reform, search for personal identity and those fortunate souls who have survived and their continued impact on society. With Artie Kornfeld and Boots Hughston at the helm, The Ghosts of Avalon are stirring and those who were quieted during these passing years are now resonating once again. Anticipation of the October anniversary in Golden Gate Park has rekindled the ashes from the past and this event will become excessively magnified, more pertinent than that of a fifty year celebration. Tunes of the bay area, The Laurel Canyon mastery of four part harmony and those we most admired and emulated seem to ignite flashes of Flower Power, camaraderie and the world of tie-dye and incense, all from the recesses of our minds. It becomes a celebration of perpetuation, a milestone for those of us still here, the euphoria that mirrors the expectations of who will arrive and the lament of those no longer with us.
To Artie & Boots, plaudits will never express what this means to the Woodstock Generation and the memories that will perpetuate from what appears to be the last great gathering of the true Rainbow Warriors.
There is a somber moment thinking of those lost along this long and winding road but adulation and euphoria for those of us that remain. Cheers to Artie, to Boots, to all of us and to the memories and events that changed the world so long ago.
We are The Woodstock Generation…….
Rock In Peace
Don Aters - Editor - Haight Street Music News - 2009
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