Page (6)      

   Producer Lang woke up Friday morning to find that something
was missing....the ticket booths. Others had known for days, but
Lang said that Friday morning was his first inkling that
Woodstock would never collect a single dollar at the gate. "
Tickets were being handled over in (Roberts') office," Lang said.
"I just assumed that they were handling the booths, but they were
never put in place." Van Loan, the cigar-smoking owner of Ken's
Garage, had been hired two days before the festival to tow about
two dozen ticket booths into position. "All we ever got to move
was two or three," Van Loan recalled. "Each one we moved took
longer and longer. There were too many people and cars and
abandoned (vacant) tents blocking the way."

Abbie Hoffman was the head of the Yippies - the Youth
International Party, the irreverent left-wing organization founded
by Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Paul Krassner and Woodstock's Ed
Sanders. Hoffman convinced the festival's producers to donate
$10,000 to the Yippies - mainly by threatening to disrupt the
proceedings. The political pranksters wanted the money to fund
various community projects, including New York City storefronts
they rented to shelter runaways and defense funds they established
for the "politically oppressed."

Along with the Hog Farmers and other left-leaning groups, the
Yippies set up "Movement City," their festival- within-a-festival,
about a quarter-mile from the stage. Days before the festival,
Hoffman and his lieutenant, Krassner, mimeographed thousands
of flyers urging festival-goers not to pay. Of course, that issue
became moot as soon as the fence went down. Krassner would
later say that all attempts to politicize the three days of peace and
love had evaporated. Krassner also recalled bringing a brand new
white-fringed leather jacket to Woodstock. It was stolen from the
Movement City tent.

Three school buses rolled up to Yasgur's farm late Friday morning
and parked near Ventures headquarters, by the playground and
the Freak-Out Tent on West Shore Road. Inside were more than
100 New York City police officers hand-picked by concert
management for their street smarts and relaxed attitudes. In the
days before the concert, the city police department had told its
members that it would not sanction Woodstock work. The cops
had been promised $50 a day. But when the officers arrived in
Bethel, a more stringent warning awaited them. "The message was
something to the effect of, 'If you participate in this, you may be
subject to departmental censure,'" Feldman said. "So they
stretched their legs, got back in the bus and went back to New
York City."

Many stayed to work under assumed names. But they demanded
that Woodstock Ventures increase their pay to $90 a day. Ventures
paid it. "We had eight to nine guys on the payroll as Mickey
Mouse and names like this," said Arthur Schubert, a waiter at the
Concord Hotel and one of the directors of the security force.

Melanie Safka was supposed to sing, so she and her mother got in
her mom's 1968 burgundy Pontiac Bonneville and headed upstate.
When they turned onto Route 17, they noticed lots of traffic.
When Melanie called the festival's producers, they said, yes, the
traffic was headed for Bethel, which was getting crowded, so she'd
better get to a hotel where they would take her by helicopter to the
festival site. At that hotel, the name and location of which Melanie
doesn't remember, she saw a slew of TV cameras focusing on Janis
Joplin and her bottle of Southern Comfort. "And me?" says
Melanie. "I was just a fleckling."

State police investigator Fred W. Cannock, 34, was supposed to
direct traffic at the intersection of Route 55 and Route 17B in
White Lake. But parked cars didn't need much direction. "I just
stood there and watched the fiasco," Cannock said. " Route 17B
was jammed for roughly 9 miles, all the way back to Monticello
and beyond."

Woodstock organizers blamed state police for the monstrous
traffic jam. The troopers had refused to enact the festival's traffic
plan. "I know the way cops think, and I think they figured that if
they had done that, they would acquire responsibility for whatever
might happen," Goldstein said. "Of course, they were not
necessarily in favor of these kinds of events, and they wanted it to
turn to (chaos). They wanted it to be a disaster."

Woodstock organizers had meant for cars to pull off the highway
and be directed by the NYPD cops to parking in fields off Route
17B. On Tuesday, Goldstein had pleaded for the state police to
help, at least by starting the procedure. The state police brass
added additional troopers to direct traffic. Local civil defense
officials refused to plan for a disaster; their office was closed
Friday afternoon as the traffic rolled in. So the traffic backed up
for miles while the police looked on. "Suddenly, we were in a
logistic nightmare," Goldstein said. That didn't mean that
individual officers didn't have sympathy for the floundering
festival-goers.

"I thought they were hippie scum - but you couldn't help but
really feel sorry for the kids," Cannock said. "They got sucked
into this carte blanche. Nobody said anything about reservations,
tickets. They just came. You couldn't believe it. Advance sales
paid, nobody else paid a nickel. They paid with pain, hunger and
exposure, or whatever."

Wadleigh bought out rooms in a local motel, the Silver Spur, for
the film crew and equipment. The crew naturally nicknamed the
place "the Silver Sperm." Then the crowds came. They left cars in
the middle of the road. The crew and their cameras were stuck.
They ended up sleeping in the field, under the stage, wherever.

Woodstock's security force was briefed late that morning by none
other than Babbs, the Prankster leader. Babbs was one of the
more experienced acid trippers. "I guess they had me do it because
I was in the Marines," Babbs said. "I told them that if someone
was hassling someone else, then they should help the person who
was in trouble. Keep an eye out for people who need help. Other
than that, it was nobody else's business what they did. "They
asked about drugs, and I told them not to worry about it. I said,
'There are going to be so many drugs around, you're not going to
be able to keep track of any of it.'"

At about noon, Babbs and Wavy Gravy watched as a dozen guys
in orange jackets started walking up the rise. They carried change
boxes and were nearing the fence border. "They said, 'We're the
ticket-takers, and now we want everyone to walk out and come
back in,'" Babbs said. "I said, 'Man, you gotta be kidding me.
There are 200,000 people in there. So the head security guy says to
me, 'There's no way we're going to be able to get these tickets.
What do you want to do?' They had, like, a double-wide section of
fence that was open for the gate. So Wavy and I said the only
thing to do is take down the fence. So, we - Wavy and I - unrolled
the fence about 100 feet, and the people all came pouring in."

Schubert said his security forces had no choice. "How can you to
tell 200,000 to 400,000 people, 'Go home, it's over?" he said. "It
would have been the riot of the century." But the crowd closer to
the stage couldn't see the impromptu ceremony of taking down the
gate. From there, it looked like the mob was taking over. "My
most vivid memory was that there was this chain-link, Cyclone
fence that went all the way around," said Bert Feldman, who was
working security on the hill near the Hog Farm base. " I had the
uncanny feeling that there were 500 million people there.
Suddenly, the fence was no more. Trampled into the mud. It
disappeared like magic." Lang said he never exactly decided
Woodstock would become a free show. But he did decide to make
the announcement. " It was kind of like stating the obvious," he
said.

Complaints were coming in to Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in Albany.
Rosenman and Roberts hinted that a declaration of a disaster area
in Bethel might be welcomed, to ease the crowd's suffering and
because it would limit the company's liability in lawsuits. But the
other partners feared a disaster declaration could bring in the
National Guard and the possibility of an armed confrontation.
Extra cops, including 20 Rockland County deputies mounted on
horseback, had already been brought in. But the governor did not
consider Woodstock an act of God. He made no declaration.
"We'll play it by ear," the governor's spokesman told United Press
International.

Sullivan County residents heard that the kids up there in Bethel
didn't have enough food. By Friday afternoon, members of the
Monticello Jewish Community Center were making sandwiches
with 200 loaves of bread, 40 pounds of cold cuts and two gallons
of pickles. Woodstock Ventures estimated that it needed donations
of 750,000 sandwiches. Food was being airlifted in from as far
away as Newburgh's Stewart Air Force Base.

Day One of Woodstock was supposed to be the day for the folkies.
Joan Baez was the headliner, preceded by a bill that included Tim
Hardin, Arlo Gutherie, Sweetwater, the Incredible String Band,
Ravi Shankar, Bert Sommer and Melanie. One rock act, Sly and
the Family Stone was added for a little taste of the rock'n'roll of
the weekend. The scheduled starting time was 4pm. The
performers were spread around in Holiday Inns or Howard
Johnsons miles from the site. Because of the traffic jam, the
promoters were frantically contracting for helicopters to shuttle in
the performers and supplies. But the helicopters were late. A
four-seater finally arrived after 4pm; it could handle only single
acts. Lang had two choices:  Hardin, who was drifting around
backstage stoned, or Richie Havens, who looked ready. "It was,
'Who could get setup the quickest?'" Lang said. "And I went with
Richie Havens." Three days of music started at 5:07pm Eastern
Daylight Time on August 15, 1969.

Every time Richie Havens tried to quit playing, he had to keep on.
The other acts hadn't arrived. Finally, after Havens had played for
nearly three hours - improvising his last song "Freedom" - a large
U.S. Army helicopter landed with musical reinforcements. An
Army helicopter? "Yes," said Havens. "It was the only helicopter
available. If it wasn't for the U.S. Army, Woodstock might not
have happened." The U.S. Army saved the day for a crowd that
was, for the most part, anti-war? "We were never anti-soldier,"
said Havens. "We were just against the war."

Cash in hand, Art Vassmer floated in his boat across White Lake
to the Sullivan County National Bank. He was the only bank
customer that day. Vassmer feared robbers would take all the
money the store was raking in from the sale of beer, soda, and
peanut butter and jelly. But Vassmer's worries were groundless.
"The Hog Farmers kept the peace," he said. "They were dirty, but
they were nice. A few were happy on drugs, but hell, that was
nothing." Vassmer raised only one price in his whole store. Beer
was $2 a six-pack instead of $1.95. "Got tired of making change,"
said Vassmer, who even cashed a couple dozen checks for some
kids who ran out of money. Not one bounced.

While the helicopters whirled to Yasgur's farm, Melanie sat in the
motel lobby talking to her mom. When it was her turn to fly, her
mother wasn't allowed with her - even though Melanie argued,
"But she's my mom." Mrs. Safka drove back to New Jersey.
Melanie flew to Bethel.

Bert Feldman, the town historian, was suddenly Woodstock's
censor. His job was to keep frontal nudity from appearing on
national television. He stood between the swimming hole and the
television cameras, reminding folks to cover up. Afternoon
temperatures were in the mid-80s. "They had to have one or two
garments on, depending on sex," Feldman said. "Lemme tell you,
after five minutes, it was work. You never saw a fight in there. You
could argue, of course, that it was because everyone was stoned."

Other acts still weren't ready. Stage organizers knew they had to
kill time. The Woodstock Nation might get restless if the music
stopped. Emcee Chip Monck grabbed Country Joe McDonald,
strapped an acoustic guitar on him and thrust him on stage.
McDonald's short set included the unprintable and improvised
"Fish Cheer" and "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag". After
Country Joe, Monck spotted John Sebastian, the former lead
singer and guitarist for the Lovin' Spoonful. Sebastian, clad in
wild tie-dye, was tripping on some unidentified substance. He
hadn't even been invited to perform at the festival. He recalls he
was "too whacked to say no." Sebastian's stage rap was nearly a
parody of hippie conversation, mostly because of his psychedelic
state. But the crowd roared with approval. "Just love everybody
around ya' and clean up a little garbage on your way
out," Sebastian told the crowd.

Melanie Safka was such a nobody that she didn't even have a
performer's pass. So when it was time for her to go on, she had to
prove who she was by showing her driver's license and singing
"Beautiful People." She was led backstage to her "dressing
room," which was actually a tepee-sized tent. When she realized
that she would be playing for a crowd about the size of Boston,
she got so scared that she developed a nervous cough that
"sounded like a chain saw." It was so loud that someone in the
next tent sent her a cup of soothing tea. That neighbor was Joan
Baez.

The film crew didn't have even close to enough film to shoot all
the rock performances at Woodstock. So Wadleigh tried to make
up for it by getting performers' song lists and the order in which
they were going to sing them. Wadleigh wanted to film the
anti-war songs, the songs that talked about the rifts in society and
overlook the love songs. But musicians were getting stoned
backstage. By the time they got on stage, they broke with song
orders and played whatever came to them. Here's why the cameras
never recorded the first two letters of the "Fish Cheer." Wadleigh
was manning the onstage front and center camera. When Country
Joe McDonald came out yelling " Gimme an F," revving the
crowd with anti-Vietnam cheers, Wadleight was loading his camera
and fixing a minor jam. "I was just scrambling like crazy to get
my camera in some kind of working order," Wadleigh said.
"That's why you don't see him for the first two minutes or so in
the film. You just hear him. I got him on camera eventually.
Someone should give him an award for that song. That is one of
the greatest war songs there is."

Havens flew back to Liberty on the chopper. Then he hopped into
his car and drove back to Newark International Airport, where he
caught a plane for another show in Michigan the next night.
Havens says the car ride to New Jersey was almost as incredible as
the helicopter trip to the festival. "I was the only person on the
New York Thruway going south," Havens said.

Of all the acts on Friday night, Woodstock's producers were
worried only about Sly and the Family Stone. The rocking soul
band had a tendency to fire up small crowds, inviting people to
rush the stage. With a couple hundred thousand people, Sly and
his band could ignite a riot. So Kornfeld cleared the pit in front of
the stage to give security a fighting chance. Then he and his wife,
Linda, climbed down, all alone into the vast chasm between the
musicians on stage and Woodstock's horde. "He was singing,
'I want to take you high-er!' and everyone lit up. All those lights in
the crowd, thousands of them," Kornfeld said. "We were right
between Sly and the crowd.

The sprinkles began around midnight as sitarist Ravi Shankar was
playing. Bert Sommer's angelic voice won him a standing ovation.
By the time Joan Baez finished "We Shall Overcome," a warm
thunderstorm was pounding Yasgur's farm. In the space of about
three hours, five inches of rain fell.

The ration ticket read "Food for Love." But 25 year old Georgeie
Sievers of Toronto, who had been visiting family in Port Jervis,
paid a price anyway. "We waited for an hour, and we got a cold
hot dog on a hamburger bun," she recalled. Food for Love was the
original food concession for those inside the festival.
Campgrounds coordinator Goldstein had set up two food
operations: Food for Love, for those who had tickets, and the Free
Kitchen for those outside the festival fence. Food for Love was
plagued by a lack of organization from the outset. The voucher
system was cumbersome, and the young food workers started
giving away hot dogs and hamburgers in the spirit of the event. In
addition, the massive traffic jam had blocked deliveries.

A Food for Love truck was stuck in the traffic in front of Abe
Wagner's house, about five miles northeast of the festival site.
Then the truck was raided. "One of the kids got in, and then they
started throwing the food out all over the road, the bread, the hot
dogs," Wagner said. Later, when hungry customers overran the
booths, Food for Love disintegrated. "It started to rain, and it got
ugly," said Helen Graham, who at 41 was one of the senior
employees of Food for Love. "It was 2am, and I yelled, 'Joan Baez
is on. Joan Baez is on.' I wanted to get the teen-agers away from
the stand. They just wanted to stare at me. Mrs. Graham found
herself trapped on Yasgur's farm because her car was blocked in.
She wanted out of the Woodstock Nation. "It wasn't my type of
culture. It wasn't my type of upbringing. It wasn't my type of
experience." she said. "I kind of blotted it out from my head. It
was a frightening experience. I didn't see the love and the peace. I
saw an overwhelming crowd, and I didn't understand what was
going on."

The stream behind Gery Krewson's tent was rising. The music
stopped, and the group bailed out at 3am to dig a trench. "The
water was just running down in torrents," he said. With the turf
torn away, the Woodstock site is red clay and rocks brought down
by glaciers millions of years ago. Within seconds of the rain, the
festival became a slippery quagmire punctuated by puddles. The
rain slammed into Yasgur's farm, drenching the fans, including 19
people who jammed into Krewson's tent seeking shelter from the
storm. "When I got there, things at least had some semblance of
order," Krewson said. From the instant the storm blew in, he
recalled, there was no order, no security, no sense of what was
happening or who was in charge.

Melanie Safka faced complete terror: half a million people in a
driving rainstorm. "It was the only out-of-body experience of my
life," she said. "I just watched myself on stage singing the songs,
but I wasn't there." And then, as the rain tumbled down, tens of
thousands of fans lit candles in the darkness. Sixteen-year-old
Gery Krewson, his brother and three friends camped 50 yards
from the stage. They'd arrived Wednesday night from
Tunkhannock, Pa., in a psychedelic van. But their campsite
seemed to be receding in the distance. A sea of people was rolling
into the gap. "The word kind of got out that something was going
on in the Catskills, " Krewson said.

Mary Sanderson stepped aboard the helicopter at dawn Saturday.
The chopper blades slapped the air, and the pavement of the
Orange County Airport fell away. The copter soared toward Bethel
in a battering hailstorm. Just before it arrived, sunshine shot
through a hole in the clouds. To the 40 year old nurse from
Middletown, it looked like a scene from a biblical epic. "When
you are in a helicopter, the sun's rays come down on 500,000
people. It looks like the multitudes," Mrs. Sanderson said. "You
just can't picture that. You don't realize how all the people looked
in that sun." Mrs. Sanderson had been scheduled to drive to the
festival to work Saturday's night shift. But the Woodstock
organizers had called her late Friday. They said the festival had
been swamped with emergency cases. Ventures would send a
helicopter for her and any other nurse she could recruit.

When she arrived, Dr. William Abruzzi of Wappingers Falls, the
festival's medical director, immediately put her in charge of the
newly erected medical tent. Outside, one man was selling his own
brand of medicine. "He was yelling, 'Mescaline! One dollar!
Mescaline! One dollar!' All day long, " Nurse Sanderson said.