I wasn't even born when Woodstock happened, but it's part of Western culture.
Usually when it's referenced, we hear about Jimi Hendrix or Joe Cocker or any other of the big names who performed. Yes, in this doco we see grabs from many of the performers, but mostly it takes us far away and into the audience and next to the festival organisers and staff, relying on footage taken on the ground - at the festival's little markets, its food stands, the grass where people sat and the streets and fields that led into the festival. We hear from ordinary young women and men who came from all over America and even from France and Germany. It's an unashamedly reverent and non-cynical take on Woodstock. Its argument is that everyone had good intentions and it all went pretty well. That's a daring point of view in this suspicious era. You get a sense of what a massive risk the organisers took, and it almost turned into the biggest music festival disaster of all time because they didn't allow enough time to build it, and because the locals opposed the festival being held at the original site. But generous locals and sheer determination helped keep it running for three days, through rain, heat, copious drug use and 400,000 restless young people an very close proximity. The best thing about this doco is that I felt I actually learned all about Woodstock, rather than just hearing it referenced in passing, as we do these days. I learned so many new things. Watching the doco was like reading a comprehensive but entertaining book on the event. Anyone who wants to learn about Woodstock should watch this doco.
