Going to talke amongst ourselves for you guys to listen and think of questions, because we will have time for questions at the end. Im going to go through a little back story with michael, because like many people who were not at the festival, my impressions of woodstock were based on the film that came out in march of 1970. I come to find out when we started working together on the real story there was a whole lot more to it than what we got to see in that wonderful film. So we are going to talk about that. [indiscernible] [laughter] some people dont realize, but woodstock was not michaels first festival. He was living in brooklyn in new york city and ended spending time in the west village and getting involved in the music scene, then found his way to coconut grove, florida in 1966. Q tell us about what the scene was like there, and what took you there. Growing up, i never had a clear understanding of where i wanted to go with my life. That is probably still true. I was at nyu and i had been there for a couple years, i was in Washington Square park, looking at the school and thinking i am done. So the next logical step i thought was to go and open up a head shop. Which is what i did. A greathe start of adventure for me. Town andsleepy artist it is full of artists and musicians. In those days, it was a very lazy town. A dog could sleep in the middleoftheroad. It was that kind of place. In the process, i started working with small groups, local talent. At one point, i came up with , becauseliant thought they were loosening the drug laws in a way, using marijuana specifically. I met some of the local Indian Tribes and discovered to my chagrin that you could smoke marijuana on the reservation without getting arrested. And perhaps that was a place for us to hold our next event. We spent some time talking to the indians and they kind of like the idea, but for some reason they declined. I became friends with a guy rickic co barry obarry, creator of flipper the dolphin, a popular kids show. He trained the dolphins. Interesting side story, at one. 1 of the dolphins committed suicide and he realized he should not have been responsible for starting this industry and he quit and became an activist for freeing them around the world, he has been doing that for 40 years. He made an amazing movie, i encourage everyone to see it. It is a wonderful film. Anyway, we decided, because we were both fans of the monterey festival that we would put Something Like that together with a couple of other people. Marshall had a Big Rock Club in mi and had some partners [laughter] that is where the financing was coming from. We had to do a show in three weeks. There began my career as a producer. Agent and the headliner, but it went from chuck berry to local jazz musicians. A pretty eclectic show. To do it. Improvisation is how i get through life. Aboutt know a lot anything in particular, but i can figure it out as i go along. First this show, in the day was amazing. , itad had a long drought was actually getting kind of dangerous. We decided to forgo the rain insurance, because there was no chance it was going to rain. We had gone 60 days without a drop. The day came along and it was perfect. Blue skies, dry as a bone. Read that they had seen clouds over the everglades to end the drought. The skies opened up and that was my First Experience with heavy rain. Forry to recoup our losses about a month. We planned two additional concerts and of course the rain never stopped and we lost the rest of our money. I decided miami was over for me and headed north back toward new york. My parents had taken my sister and i to lots of trips to canada when we were kids and she liked to stop and look at the Art Galleries on the way back. I knew the town somewhat and it was famous for its musician residence. Van morrison i think was living there then. Decided to move and take it to the next step. Woodstock did have this history going back to the early 1900s of being in Arts Community that attracted not only independent freethinkers, but musicians and artists. Seemingly the Perfect Place for michael to be, having these interests. Up hangingourse and out, make meeting people, but also participating in events. About whatu tell us added to your idea of an outdoor festival after miami. Sure. There was a local realtor and every weekend, she ran concerts on her farm. We had a stage that was six inches off the ground. It was casual and informal. Of 300 orget a crowd 400 people. To get in. E dollars people would come and go in town. Most of the music was local, but local was van morrison and it was an amazing array of talent. So comfortable and it felt so natural being in that environment. It occurred to me then that this was the best way i have ever experienced music. Started to think about a series of concerts based on that, but with larger crowds. Somewhere along the line that summer, i started to manage a band who knew what management was, but my friend was in the band and said can you manage us and i said sure and became a manager. But i knew the manager was the guy that did business, so i figured i had that responsibility. We needed someone to support the band and maybe get recorded. Was aware of or friendly with or had some connection to the Vice President of a an hour at capitol records. Writer of acessful bunch of hits. Neighborhood. M my when i called his office to get an appointment, i said, tell him i am from the neighborhood. Up and he and i went was charming and funny and we became friends like we had known each other all our lives. Part of theearly fall, we were talking late into the night every night about producing concerts. Artie was a studio guy so i would drag him out to these shows and get him into the right frame of mind. It also occurred to me that woodstock was becoming in mecca for musicians, but there was nowhere to record. The city to into record and it seemed like the perfect answer was to record build a Recording Studio in woodstock where you can spend time in the country, so we proceeded to try to put that together. We were following these two realtord hired a local to help look for sites for this idea of a festival, which es to ao rarti at aboututed one night 2 00 a. M. We proceeded along those lines to try to finance these projects. I think our target was 200,000 people, although the biggest show i had been aware of was in miami and i think we had 40,000 people the first day. We figured we were in the northeast corridor, there were lots of People Living around, if we get 1 of 1 , that would get 20,000. That was our target and that was how we began that road. You guys found some partners, the men who became more or less the financial backers and handle the business end of it, with there is someone going to woodstock right now on their motorcycle. He started working on some of the business aspects while you are concentrating on booking and looking for the actual site, because originally, you did want to have it in woodstock. But itfound one area, was not available for leasing, so you looked until you found a place called wallkill. Can you imagine the wallkill generation . Anyway, what you tell us about how wallkill came about and how you segued from wallkill. Wasriginally, woodstock supposed to be in woodstock. When we couldnt be in woodstock anymore, i wanted to take the name with me, because i thought it gave everybody the idea of what we were doing. But i wanted to be close to woodstock, so we looked in expanding circles from the town and found the Perfect Place to do the festival, 10 miles out of town. Belonged to the owner of an old german meatpacking company. I spoke to the caretaker, he said it sounds interesting and he checked and they said we would like to talk about it, because they didnt know what we were talking about. They never use the place except for hunting, so i said, great. We had the site and thought, we would be off and running. In the meantime, through an got john and joe to finance the idea. They were building a studio in new york which for years was one of the premier studios in the city. We went to meet them and they ieish and nothing like me and a little like artie i guess. E kept my mouth shut and arti did all the talking. They seemed nice, but not convinced. At the end of the conversation, i mentioned another object we were working on and they seemed to perk up at that and asked if we could talk more about that and come back with a budget. E said sure and went away we had been talking about a festival and he had called and said he was interested in proceeding, so he called them , we would like to continue talking about the studio. They had been bitten, so they were crushed by this news. About it andalked said if they will do both projects, they seem nice and bright and it would be more fun than working with a big company, so we ended up working with them and two weeks later, we sent a , and i would say within three or four days of signing the contract, i was back up to try to pursue the site and by then, the District Attorney or one of the officials had gotten wind of what we were doing and put something in the local newspaper saying never again will be entertain an event in woodstock, because they were having problems with the sound. I guess he read that and that was the end of that site. We started looking further afield for something that would fit. We need at least 300 or 400 acres, power, water, a place where you can build a small city to support this crowd of potentially 200,000 people for three days. We were not finding it, and one weekend, john and joe were riding around in the catskills and saw a sign that said Industrial Site for rent. They found it and they were willing to rent it i think for 10,000, and they agreed on the spot and then called and said, we agreed, but we can back out. They went through this whole thing, so i knew i was in trouble, but i went out to look at it and it was horrible. It was an Industrial Site and immense amountn of work. It did have the advantage of being rentable. It had water and power and all those other things. So, we said ok. Really nervousng at that point. I think it was early march. We proceeded to work, they looked so straight with this idea. There were no permit requirements in those days. There were only building requirements if you wanted to put up permanent structures. They described what the festival is going to be, folk and jazz in the afternoon, maybe 30,000 people. They came back to new york and said, we have got it. And i said great. I had hired an amazing staff of people from all walks of life. Engineers and construction people. Guys who had most of the. Xperience big events were nothing like what we were planning, but they had some of that, and a bunch of genius characters, like an engineer who could build anything. We put this Team Together and they started to convert this Industrial Site into something beautiful and interesting and as the weeks progressed, the town began to realize, how come all the people working here have long hair . [laughter] buffsere is all the jazz and acoustic guitars . None of that was happening, so they found out what we were up to and got really uptight and afraid of these hordes of hippies that were going to come rape run their town and their women and pillage their town and steal their pigs. They tried to find a way to get us out of town. We were spending a lot of money, so the merchants were kind of on our side. Meetingsr many town when i approached the microphone and we were able to get camegh, but resistance quite strong to the point that they formed a concerned citizens committee. At one point, they started firing these occasional shots at our headquarters. And theytting intense thought we thought, how are we going to bring people to this kind of atmosphere and we laid out the site and started putting pieces in place. We just pile them up waiting to see what would happen and inevitably, they passed a law saying you need certain permits to proceed with an event and of course, we are not giving you those permits. On the 14th of july, they sent the decision down that we are not issuing these permits. You are violating our laws and you have to shut down immediately. Is miracle of woodstock after spending all that time having to find a site and settling for wallkill, on the 15th, we found the most perfect field of my dreams. It had to be more than luck. It was too good to be true. A guy called me who is the subject of a movie that ang lee just directed called taking woodstock. I think on the 14th of august. Changes, as we descend in a helicopter. And, they called my office while we were panicking trying to figure out what moves we could won the we could have lawsuit, we probably wouldve wound up around christmas and this would never have happened. I said, lets get out. I had everybody pack and start loading trucks and every buddy who wasnt busy, i put on the telephone to call press and anybody they could think of to get the word out that we needed the site. They could be completely demoralized and that would be the end of it. Upkept every buddy pumped and i said, dont worry, its going to work. Hee enough, the next day, called my office and said, i have a site. I left and grab you i think is sitting in the back of the room, my assistant. Up we went. I called two of the guys on my elliott who itt turns out grew up around the corner from my sister and i. He said, come on, i will show you the site we picked up by this hotel, which was hard to describe. It was like nothing i had ever seen. It was still open. We went to this field and started prancing down the hill and i noticed my ankles are getting wet and it was up to my and, how far do we have to go . It was a swamp. Down and onrybody the way up, we had been passing so thisautiful farms, guy named mark abraham, who was affiliated with the guys in florida took us around the and returned on a dirt road, came over the hill and there it was. And thatped the car was when the miracle happened. We got out of the car, looked at each other, and tried not to flow out of the ground too far. We said who owns this and it was a local dairy farmer, who was a leading businessperson in the community. A selfmade man. Quite an amazing guy. , but didntwing think anybody else had to share his views. We said the farm is about 2000 acres, so we went right to his house and knocked on his door, had been allnd we over the press by then. Everybody knew what was going on with woodstock. Ride back tok a this field and we went off and i asked to keep this guy busy in the car and we went into the field. There are so many stories like this in the book, because in addition to dealing with these kinds of confrontations in wallkill, mike was also having to put out all these fires with the new york city office. You would think all the underground counter p counterculture people would all be together, but there was all kinds of strife and factions and people demanding money. The concert promoter in new york wanting not thinking he liked the idea of this whippersnapper starting this festival and booking all these bands that usually played his venues. Things travele, along until there are three weeks to go for them to put together this massive site, like michael said, it was basically a city. I dont know how many people live in the area, but if you think about how jun was, i think it rained 27 out of 30 days, that was the weather conditions in those three weeks they had to put together the stage, the lighting, the campgrounds, and all the infrastructure that they needed. But somehow, they did it. 24 7 forit was everybody, and by that time, we had grown to probably 400 people at the site. We completed what should have taken four months in 30 days and 23 of those were rain. But it was not just us. We had the help of all of the local Power Company and telephone company, they really pitched in and helped us tremendously. They worked through the night every day to bring power and telephone from eight miles away. Constructingally this city with water all over the site and that was probably the initial patch was 100 acres. And toilets and ways to service those toilets and food and ways to service those food stands. We had figured woodstock from the beginning was an event that would be welcome for anyone who wanted to come. I spent that youre going to every other show in america just about, from small festivals to concerts, and gate crashing was a big problem. There were always confrontations with police and peer guessing and i wanted to eliminate any of those confrontations, so it was designed to welcome anybody who came who had a ticket or didnt have a ticket. If you didnt want a ticket, it was free campgrounds and free stages. If you couldnt afford food, we had kitchens. This was a gathering of all of our friends from anywhere, new and old friends. Proceeded based on that principle of everything being welcoming and allencompassing. The way we designed the bringingcture, we were people for three days to the country. Campgrounds were kind of a critical portion of our plan. We wanted to get people coming from cities who had never been to the country are certainly had never camped in the country for three days. We brought in a group called the around thed that was time now, wavy gravy. They were used for setting up big outdoor facilities, outdoor kitchens, organic gardening, food was organic, it was probably the first time anybody had really seen granola was when they passed out 400,000 bowls of granola one day. Provided inat they terms of talent, they set up kind of a vibe, if you will, of welcoming everybody, getting them situated, then getting them to understand that it is now their job to welcome the next group and get them situated. That started this whole idea of sharing responsibility and that we were all this together and that is what started to bring this community together. We help each other with whatever ifhave and you share it there is something they dont have. , plus the fact that there is nothing to confront, no outside charge ande were in that is how we wanted it and i think that is probably what had more to do with the success when 200,000 turned into 400000 and everything had to stretch. Philosophyd of applied with musicians when they started arriving and michael always says the biggest star of woodstock was the audience, and i think when the musicians started coming and seeing this gathering of people and also how people were following that vibe introduced by you and the hog farm of everyone helping each other that they were willing to maybe make compromises from their usual things they needed. For the most part, that is true. The first act up was not by choice. I hunted him for hours. Finally convinced him to go on when nobody else was in place. The bands where they are for the same reason everybody else star