By Joe Mendoza

Considered one of the most influential and iconic concerts in history, Woodstock took place on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, New York, basically in the middle of a field. It was a hippie concert, filled with artists like Santana, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Janis Joplin, and had a lot of great music. Around a half a million people showed up, making it huge already, and many of the audience members slept in tents, or more commonly sleeping bags, since the original attendance was exceeded by a lot. 

Whether you like the music or you don’t, you need to recognize the amount of influence this concert had. To begin with, the “hippie” movement, who at the time embraced the anti-war message against Vietnam, was legitimized, and their actions were strengthened. The culture that fought against the “system” became more powerful, and single-handedly changed the general population’s ideas at the time, or at least in a substantial way. In 1969, when the concert took place, America was right in the middle of the Vietnam War, and opposition against the public officials who supported the war was dismissed for the most part, even though the movement already had steam behind it. It was extremely polarized in America at the time, and you either had people devoted to their country, or people opposed the war. With Woodstock, young individuals were encouraged to express themselves, whether that’s through the use of psychedelics, like LSD, or through their speaking out against the government.

Whether it’s in using illicit drugs to open your mind, opposing the Vietnam war, or fighting for civil rights and freedom, Woodstock ‘69 provided a stage for the counterculture of America at the time. This allowed young people’s voices to be heard, and the anti-war movement gathered a lot more support and legitimacy after the concert. This led an entire generation of people to get in a mindset of standing up for what they believe in, and not letting the government send innocent people to die for seemingly no reason in Vietnam. To this day, protesting is a right that is used to speak your mind, and if it wasn’t for Woodstock, who knows what protesting would look like now. More importantly, what came with Woodstock and the anti-war movement is that people started criticizing the government, and they realized that if the people didn’t support the war, then they need to advocate for it and get out on the streets to make a difference. Music was like a religion for these people, and by being able to unite people at a time as critical as this for American expression, Woodstock proved to validate the voices that opposed the government and single-handedly gave a platform to people who wanted to advocate for peace and love for generations to come.