Woodstock Myth?

Concerning “The Irony of Woodstock,” by Robert Hilburn, June 18:

Every five years, huckstering promoters at Warners try to squeeze a few extra million dollars out of the rock concert mythology known and canonized as Woodstock, pushing our collective nostalgia buttons.

The movie “Woodstock” is dragged out of the vaults and once again becomes our highly filtered collective recollection of what took place at Max Yasgur’s farm and what it all meant.

But the movie is not the reality, nor can all the hype surrounding it make it so. Woodstock was not a rock ‘n’ rollin’ hippie community or nation or anything other than an incredibly populated rock concert.

Most of the rock and pop groups and singers that performed there performed at countless other concerts before and after, the only difference at Woodstock being the sheer number of people who showed up. It was hardly the cosmic or musical epiphany it has been made out to be.

I offer this observation from my book “Sex in the Movies”: “All (Woodstock) really proved was that a large number of young Americans could gather to (copulate), smoke pot and listen to rock music for three days without murdering each other.”

SAM FRANK

Los Angeles