Woodstock at 40: Celebrate fest's B-day with books, concerts & new film

"We were paid $300 for our Woodstock performance and a token fee of $1 to be in the movie, which worked out to 8 cents a guy," Sha Na Na's Jocko Marcellino told me. "And while the movie [largely edited by a just-out-of-NYU Martin Scorsese] makes it appear we were on early in the festival, they kept putting us off. We finally got on second to last Monday morning, just before [Jimi] Hendrix. The place was decimated, looked like a refugee camp. But getting into the movie was the best career move ever."

Concerts, film tributes

 

Still haven't had enough? Two touring concert packages aim to recapture the Woodstock spirit.

On Aug. 4, Glenside's Keswick Theatre hosts "Hippiefest: A Concert for Peace & Love" with other stars of the era (like the Turtles and Felix Cavaliere) who, um, weren't actually at Woodstock.

On Aug. 18, appropriately, the Mann Center hosts "The Heroes of Woodstock" with remnants of Canned Heat, Ten Years After, Jefferson Starship, Country Joe McDonald and ex-Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constantine, among others.

Also in the tribute vein, Bucks County's Bristol Riverside Theatre is putting together a revue called "Woodstock at 40," running July 16-26 and built on festival faves like Joplin's "Piece of My Heart" and Cocker's take on "With a Little Help from My Friends," which summed up the weekend for many.

On Aug. 28, Ang Lee's film "Taking Woodstock" offers a little-known but true tale of a guy named Elliot Tiber (played by Demetri Martin) who saved the festival by coming up with a permit and new location after the event had been kicked out of two other towns.

That last-minute move explains why small items like ticket booths and a stage roof never got built, and the whole show had to be illuminated by just a dozen or so spotlights.

Future fest?

 

Both Joel Rosenman and Michael Lang hint that an officially sanctioned commemorative concert will "eventually" be held to mark the big 4-0. Maybe their Woodstock Ventures' "summer of love" product tie-ins with Target could lead to more?

But the steadfastly cause-centric and image-protecting Wadleigh made a big stink about a soft drink company's sponsorship of the last, 30th-anniversary-celebrating Woodstock festival, also sadly recalled for its ugly setting (a decommissioned military base in Rome, N.Y.), preponderance of thuddish metal bands and fire-fueled riots.

"There isn't a single corporate logo visible anywhere in my movie," Wadleigh snorted.

"Woodstock was the antithesis of what the music industry turned into. And if anyone tries to tie another Woodstock festival to an obnoxious sponsor, I'll be out protesting again." *